Learning How to Live

Sermon #63 (4th September 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

It’s that time of year again. Even if you’re not personally going ‘back to school’ this week – even if nobody in your house is gearing up to return (and there’s not been a last-minute dash to buy a new school uniform) – there’s a certain back-to-school feeling that descends on most of us in September. Perhaps, like Vanessa Rush Southern in the reading Lucy gave for us earlier, you’ve been minding your own business in Tesco or WHSmith when, under the influence of a ‘Back-to-School’ display, you’ve suddenly become overcome by a pressing urge to get yourself a new pencil case or a lunch box. These rituals which mark a new school year, a new start, suggest ‘all is new and all things are possible again’.

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Sermon #62 (3rd July 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

As I mentioned at the start of today’s service, this weekend marks 50 years of Pride in London, and I’m pleased to report that a small group of Unitarians had a place in Saturday’s big parade, waving our own flags to proclaim our progressive religious witness, and shout about our commitment to equality. We Unitarians are rightly proud of our track record, having been a bit ahead of the curve in the past, particularly in campaigning for same-sex marriage. This year our Unitarian General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to affirm trans rights and endorse self-declaration of gender identity – great news! – but it’s important not to think that’s ‘job done’ and rest on our laurels.

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Sermon #61 (12th June 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

Victoria Safford, a Unitarian Universalist minister, once told the story of a child in the Sunday school of her church in New York state. This young boy was overheard by his mum, talking about the UU church they went to, and the little boy said ‘I don’t know the name of it, but the church where we go, we’re really interested in trees. All of us believe in trees.’ His mum, presumably amused by this, but perhaps also a bit concerned about what the boy had been picking up in Sunday school, got in touch with the minister to ask whether it might be time to supplement his understanding with a more comprehensive Unitarian theology. Victoria Safford reflected on this, saying: ‘I don’t know if there is a more comprehensive Unitarian theology. All of us believe in trees. Like my young comrade, I’ve always been “very interested in trees”, meaning I have always (as far back as I can remember) had a spiritual orientation that unfolds itself, reveals itself outside, and inside, one that cannot be contained within any single creed or book or building or tradition.’

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Sermon #60 (29th May 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

I promised you a short service today, on this day when we celebrate membership, commitment, and belonging, and hold our AGM. So I’m going to do my best to distil this morning’s message:

The church is us. Yes, us. (point around room, to camera, to self). We are it. We are all there is.

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Sermon #59 (15th May 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

I wonder, what do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘hand-made’? Maybe scarves, hats, socks, jumpers or blankets, knitted by family members or friends and given as gifts? Clothing or jewellery. Pottery or sculpture. Woodwork or furnishings. Cards. Cakes, even.

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Sermon #58 (17th April 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

Last Monday – no, Tuesday – it was sometime past midnight, I was sat with my dad – my 85-year-old dad – in a pretty crowded A&E waiting room at the Royal London Hospital over in Whitechapel. We’d been there since teatime, nine hours, advised by 111 to go and get him urgently checked out for a symptom that was potentially ominous (he’s fine now, by the way, turns out it was nothing too serious in the end, but that’s not the point of me telling you about this). I just want you to imagine the scene. In the A&E waiting room, in the early hours, surrounded by human suffering and grim-faced endurance, people in all manner of states of pain, misery, and disrepair, each with their own personal ‘cross to bear’. Nobody wants to be in A&E at 3am on a Tuesday morning – neither patients nor staff – unless you are driven there by urgent need or dire suffering and you’ve got nowhere else to turn.

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Sermon #57 (3rd April 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

So, as I mentioned earlier, between January and March of this year we had held a six-part course on ‘How to be a Unitarian’. We had far more people sign-up than I’d ever anticipated, loads from this congregation, but because it was online we had people joining us from up and down the land, including ministers from other congregations, and the chief officer of the General Assembly, our national Unitarian organisation, Liz Slade. So it turned into a big deal!

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Sermon #56 (20th March 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

The Good Samaritan, as I mentioned at the start of the service today, is one of those parables that has transcended its origins. If you speak of a ‘Good Samaritan’ most people will probably have at least an approximate sense of what you might mean by that phrase – perhaps someone who unselfishly acts to help another person who is in distress – who shows an unusual degree of compassion and generosity – maybe in a situation where it is a bit surprising for them to do so.

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Sermon #55 (6th March 2022 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

‘People want peace,’ as Dorothy Day said. So far, so uncontroversial. Surely most of us do indeed long for peace, though in ‘ordinary times’ perhaps most of us don’t spend that much of our time actively thinking about it. But it seems we are living through pretty extraordinary times right now. The unfolding events in Ukraine, and their global ramifications, are front-and-centre in the news and in the minds and hearts of many of us. I was at the church, in Kensington, on Friday and saw that people protesting the invasion had tied hundreds of sunflowers to the barriers outside the Russian embassy (so I was moved to bring sunflowers to our service today as a sign of solidarity).

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Sermon #54 (21st November 2021 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)

Once upon a time – it seems to me – there was a ‘one size fits all’ approach to hospitality. You could, at least in principle, consult an etiquette guide which would spell out in fine detail the proper way to conduct yourself as a host or as a guest (in a particular cultural context). And most of us will likely have been brought up with at least an approximate sense of what counts as ‘good manners’ relative to the expectations of the class and culture we grew up in.

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