This Sunday the Creative Spirituality Group will be rendering The Mountain That Loved a Bird, by Alice McLerran. This is our ingathering Sunday, when we kick in the full service church year, as all, or most, are back from summer vacations. As part of our ingathering, we invite all members and friends to bring a small portion of water, signifying some of your summer journey. The water can come from the far reaches of the globe or one's own kitchen sink. Come, intermingle waters, and welcome one another in the embrace of our Fellowship.
To launch the beginning of our Religious Education Program for children and youth, we traditionally "commission" our volunteer teaching staff, and bless them with our love and confidence. As free agents in society, we have the opportunity to teach and learn from one another. Indeed, for a thriving democracy, it is our responsibility as citizens to keep ourselves and each other informed. Today is a day to consider our lives as vessels of wisdom.
The history of Unitarian Universalism is a history of the development and promotion of principles—unlike most Judeo-Christian traditions, which can be tracked by a history of creeds. Sebastian Castellio, 16th century liberal Christian forebear, remarked, in danger of persecution in Geneva, that the principles of freedom, reason and tolerance are "necessary conditions of the fullest development of religious thought." Today we will look at the basis and development of the UUA principles and purposes as they read today.
This sermon will invite listeners to see the Jesus event as a near-Eastern Wisdom event, and Jesus himself as a master Wisdom teacher. We'll briefly examine and re-vision Jesus' life, and teachings, and the gifts this new perspective brings for our lives today. A subtitle for the sermon might well be taken from the title of a book by the Episcopal priest, and contemplative, Cynthia Bourgeault: The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart. My discovery of this lost material has brought fresh air to my spiritual life. I hope others may also find it refreshing.