Sermons from First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington Massachusetts

Through readings and reflections on this Memorial Day weekend, we share the origins of the holiday and consider how we remember war, peace, service, and sacrifice.

During this Sunday morning worship service, prior to our Annual Meeting, Rev. Erica Richmond will be preaching on expectations and their impact on our relationship to the present. Do we miss opportunities for joy? We will also have shared celebrations and concerns- you will be invited to write yours on a card read aloud by a worship leader. And there will be congregational singing, masked, of course. Hope to see you there.

This Sunday, May 15, Rev. Marta Flanagan, our Lead Minister, eagerly returns to the pulpit after a four and half month sabbatical. We will welcome her back and she will reflect on the comforts and the challenges of our times and on her own time away. The choir sings, Jo Guthrie serves as Worship Associate and Rev. Erica Richmond, our Parish Minister offers the prayer. Celebrating Marta’s return, we will have light refreshments following our worship service.

Most of us have learned communication styles that result in our speaking and acting in less than ideal ways. It’s difficult to live up to our ideals 100 percent of the time. Despite our best intentions, we sometimes mess up. Join us this Sunday as we explore why our words are so important, the basics of “compassionate communication”, and hopefully how to mess up less! During our service we will also be blessing the five newly planted trees on our meetinghouse grounds. The Bell Choir will be joining us! And there will be one congregational opening hymn, sung with masks on, of course. Hope to see you!

This Sunday will focus on how we need to be attuned to nature so that we can get back to being a part of it rather than being apart from it. By paying attention to nature, we can feed our souls. Discover how to rekindle the naturalist in all of us, and in the process, become agents of change–local nature champions. Claire will illustrate her talk with stunning slides on Zoom and a photo booklet in the order of service. Tristan Jantz will be the guest musician for the service. 

Join us for a special worship service about new life and possibilities: the choir and chamber orchestra will regale us with beautiful music, the children will teach us about the invisible web that connects us all, we will join our voices together in two congregational hymns, and Rev. Erica will preach about how our interdependence saved the early followers of Jesus and can save us today.

Join us this Sunday as we honor our beloved lay leaders and celebrate the gradual return to incarnate worship! Rev. Marc will offer observations on the vital role volunteer leadership plays in the success of FPUUA’s ministries. We will also hold Spoken Memorials and rekindle our ritual of “passing stones” during Joys and Concerns. We remain masked in the sanctuary. Coffee House and Lay Leadership celebration in the Vestry after worship.

Prayer by Rev. Erica Richmond

This Sunday is the annual spring service hosted by the Social Justice Committee. Come hear from three wonderful and inspiring folks from within our congregation: Joanne Pohl, Eric Segal, and Sanjay Newton. During worship, we will also have a new member ceremony, the first one in over two and a half years! Help us celebrate the 35 new folks who have joined our community! The choir will be singing and Anne Goodwin will lead the congregation in song.

The Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley ministers to the North Universalist Chapel Society in Woodstock, VT.  He is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, raised in the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Monmouth County in Lincroft, New Jersey. He received his undergraduate degree from Tufts University and his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied the traditional drumming of Ghana and the Republic of Zaire, the Kora tradition of Senegal, the Gamelan traditions of Java and Bali in Indonesia, and the African American Blues and Jazz traditions throughout the Americas.  Recently, he has taken an interest in Bluegrass and Country Blues.

Rev. Leon asks, If the joy of life is the best within us becoming possible, how does one foster and defend the joy of life?  How do we commit ourselves to our highest hopes and aspirations?  How do we challenge the barriers, the impediments within our hearts?

He is currently writing a book entitled The Flower of Impossible Soul.  It explores the meaning of spiritual growth and radical forgiveness in the presence of violence and racial strife. 

Prayer by David Whitford