We are in the midst of advent, friends, and I have to admit how much I love this season. Like most clergy I feel that it is my job, 24/7/365 to orient the world to the best of my ability toward peace, love, hope and joy....

At the beginning of this sermon, pictures of the five black people killed by police officers were projected for the congregation to see as each was named. At the end of the sermon, photo portraits of each were placed on chairs as candles were lit for them. This is Tamir Rice. Tamir Rice is twelve...

We are five days away from what is has come to be traditionally celebrated as the birth of Jesus of Nazareth....

Radical hospitality. Radical means “out of the ordinary,” “revolutionary,” even. So what would it mean to receive someone—a stranger—with a presence that was not just polite, but to receive them with revolutionary generosity? Activist Rosemarie Harding remembers her growing-up days, in...

When I was in third grade at Evergreen School in Plainfield, NJ, my best friend was John Carvana. At 8 years old, I was awkward physically and socially, and I was drawn to John’s intelligence and easy grace. The friendships of young boys are less about whispered secrets than about hanging out and...

Call to Gather “The struggle of today is not altogether for today; it is for a vast future also.” -- Abraham Lincoln’s annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861[1] Reading: “The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this...

The early settlers who risked life and limb to come to this land—a land strange and unknown, but full of promise—these early settlers had a dream. That dream included freedom to worship as they wished; it included the opportunity to prosper, if they were willing to work hard; it included the...

A child I know, when asked this week whether she would answer the call of her elementary school principal to wear red, white and blue clothes on Thursday, was in a quandary. She put down the crayon with which she was painstakingly trying to squeeze the words Peace is Possible onto the white bars...

Tomatoes are arguably the most consumed fruit or vegetable in our country....28% of Americans eat a meal every day that contains at least one tomato. It is estimated that every American eats about 29 pounds of fresh tomatoes a year and an additional 73 pounds processed in tomato sauces, ketchup,...

God, or however you wish to name the Divine, does not make mistakes. What does this mean? What does this mean when a mother gives birth to a child with mental retardation or cerebral palsy? What does this mean when a child is in an accident and becomes seriously physically impaired?...

"Few of their children in the country learn English Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our Language, and even our Government will become precarious." Does this sound familiar? This...

One day I was sitting in a coffee shop downtown when I noticed a couple of street corner evangelists setting up shop across the street—an older and a younger man (possibly his son?), wearing dark suits and ties and wielding King James Version bibles. They commenced taking turns preaching the...

Jefferson Unitarian Church Golden, CO Mothers Day, May 13, 2007 Three weeks ago my wife, Phyllis, and I participated in our all church social action weekend. What a magical day that was! We chose to help out building the new community garden at 32nd Avenue just this side of I-70....

In a Barnes & Noble just before Easter, I watched a woman glance at a table of books and make a face like she'd just tasted something awful. Then she hurried on by as if she were afraid the books would bite. Curious, I looked to see what she had grimaced at: All the books on the table were about...

In 1935, a US government truck pulled up to my grandfather’s house, a two-room sharecropper’s shack in which sixteen people lived. They were starving to death. Not malnutrition. Starvation. The truck brought surplus food, which on that particular visit consisted of a gallon of mustard. My father...

It has been a not-so-quiet week in Lake Wobegon! On Monday, I found that, apparently over a long period of time, a large sum of money was taken from me. What I thought I had safely saved toward some of my future dreams was gone! Have any of you ever been robbed? Do you remember how it felt to be...

Readings 1: The Gospel of Mark, Chapter 14, verses 3-91 While he was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the Leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head....