Sermons-First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco

"Summer Musings" (July 25, 2021) Worship Service

If we are lucky summer affords us some of the spaciousness it did as children. Time to wander in body and spirit and let things bubble up, fall away, clarify. Let's make space for such musing this Sunday.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister; Daniel Jackoway, Worship Associate; The Harmony People: Anjalisa Aitken, Gary Garrett; Asher Davison, song leader; Bill Ganz, pianist

Eric Shackelford, camera; Lyle Barrere, sound; Amy Kelly, flowers, Joe Chapot, OOS Design & live chat moderator; Alex Darr, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

Order of Service:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x5Qg48-bVgg5SEt9K0FgHiC46pSz3FV2/view?usp=sharing

LIVESTREAM:

https://youtu.be/hDUscggUaaU

Sunday, July 18, 10:50 AM, Worship Service

"Crisscrossing Humanity"

Meg McGuire and Carmen Barsody, preaching

From Cathedral Hill to the Tenderloin, from one side of the city to the other, the many moments where our paths cross are invitations to discover and re-discover our common humanity. Bringing in lessons from the vision and work of the Faithful Fools Meg McGuire and Carmen Barsody reflect on the practice of encountering one another, and the healing, celebration and community that comes from it.

Meg McGuire, Ministerial Intern; Carmen Barsody, Worship Associate; Reiko Oda Lane, organist & handbell choir director; Rita Fabrizio, flute; John Thomas, tubaist; Asher Davison, song leader

Eric Shackelford, camera; Steven Kroeger, sound; Carrie Steere-Salazar, flowers; Alex Darr, Les James, Tom Brookshire, Zoom Coffee Hour

"Relinquishment" (July 11, 2021) Worship Service

As many of you know, John was Senior Minister at UUSF from 2014 until his retirement in 2017. He had earlier been President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, 1993-2001, among other posts in religious leadership. He first began pondering relinquishment as he gave up thousands of books before moving the West Coast. He was helped by his witty wife Gwen observing, “I’ve never yet seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul!” Yet some of our most difficult relinquishments are not about things – but about less material attachments. This continues to the very end. Still, we are spiritually wiser if we start the practice earlier.

Rev. John Buehrens, Guest Minister

Order of Service:

"Time to Slow Down" (July 4, 2021) Worship Service

These are urgent times. They long have been. And yet, there are powerful voices, many at the center of justice work, urging us to slow down. We’ll engage this paradox and the spiritual and practical lessons it might offer to us.

Meg McGuire, Ministerial Intern

"Raising Hope" (June 20, 2021) Worship Service

For Father’s Day, we’ll take a deeper dive into what it means to be hopeful. Tom Wyman, author of Infinitely Full of Hope: Fatherhood and the Future in an Age of Crisis and Disaster, and soon to be a first time father, believes that – despite the despair – now is not the time to give up on hope. Rather, we need to cultivate it and keep it alive.

Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister

"Saying Yes" (June 13, 2021) Worship Service

“Teach us all you can by saying yes,” Nancy Shaffer writes in a poem titled “Calling.” Rather than coming from some booming voice on high, the sort of calling that Shaffer describes is marked by the subtle work of learning to listen- and being willing to respond. Preaching for the last time as our ministerial intern (but not her last time in our pulpit) Meg McGuire reframes this notion of calling and reflects on what it might look like for this community going forward.

Meg McGuire, Ministerial Intern

"Dismantling Perfectionism: Bring it on!" (June 6, 2021) Worship Service

There is a whole set of things that Tema Okun argues are part of White Supremacy Culture in her classic article, "White Supremacy Culture". One of them is perfectionism. Ever since I read that article I've thought most of where and how perfectionism shows up. It was one of the ones that didn't make obvious and immediate sense. And it is the one I am more and more excited to dismantle, take apart, keep some bits of and toss the rest. In our lives of spirit and connection, love and liberated life, I think it is the one that will leverage the most transformation!

This Sunday we'll formally welcome new members with a special New Member Recognition Ceremony. And there will be a special video presentation of this year's Rheiner Award. The Rheiner Award was established by the UUSF Board of Trustees in 1989 to recognize and celebrate a member of this Society for social justice activism and community service.

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister

"We Shall Not Sleep, Though Poppies Grow" (May 30, 2021) Worship Service

From an 1865 gathering at the Charleston race track through two World Wars to modern day, collectively remembering our dead remains an important ritual for the living. On the 50th national observance of Memorial Day, what have we learned about communal grief in times of war and peace?

Rev. Mr. Barb Greve, Guest Minister

"Marge and Barb Have Class" (May 23, 2021) Worship Service

The title of the sermon is a set of words my cousin and I saw spray painted on the side of a falling down old shed on a country road one day in Upstate New York. A good place to leap into a conversation on our obsession, perhaps, with the whole wild notion of "class".

Rev. Vanessa Rush Southern, Senior Minister