I preach three Sundays a month at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City. We worship every Sunday at 10am. Look here for my preaching dates and sermon information through June, 2025.
All hymns and readings are from Singing the Living Tradition, the 1993 hymnal published by the Unitarian Universalist Association except hymns noted “STJ” are from Singing the Journey (pub. 2005) and readings noted “LOV” are from Lifting our Voices (pub. 2015).
This year’s worship theme: Final Thoughts. A year of contemplating the foundational issues of spirituality and, as I approach the end of my career in ministry, some personal conclusions.
November 24, 2024, “Enough is as Good as a Feast”
Thanksgiving
The earth’s abundance is the glory of Autumn. Materialism advertises its delights, tempting us with more, more, more, but never satisfying our desire. Spiritual health recognizes not only the limits of the planet to give, but our own limits to receive with equanimity.
Call to Worship: 725, “The Simplest of Sacraments” Jacob Trapp
Opening Hymn: 71, “In the Spring with Plow and Harrow”
Prayer, 514, Lala Winkley
Closing Hymn: 355, “We Lift Our Hearts in Thanks”
Benediction: 484, William Henry Channing
December 1, 2024, “Compassion”
World AIDS Day, Bodhi Day. Breathing Meditation (Air element)
Buddhism’s First Noble Truth declares the truth of suffering. Buddha’s enlightenment revealed an eight-fold path that we can follow to end our suffering, our own suffering, that is, but not the suffering of others. Everyone must do the work for themselves. And so, as suffering persists, for others and ourselves as well, we are called to compassion.
Call to Worship: 505, Thich Nhat Hanh
Opening Hymn: 127, “Can I See Another’s Woe?”
Meditation: 1009 (STJ), “Meditation on Breathing”
Closing Hymn: 18, “What Wondrous Love”
Benediction: 554, Thich Nhat Hanh
December 8, 2024, “Joy to the World”
Winter Solstice
Merry. Happy. Glad tidings. Comfort and joy. The words of the season, speak to the aspect of the spiritual life that should be filled with fun and pleasure. As the darkness turns to light with the solstice, may our spirits also turn to that which should be the goal of life in every season: joy.
Call to Worship: 653, “Reflections on the Resurgence of Joy” Dori Jeanine Somers
Opening Hymn: 201, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah”
Closing Hymn: 245, “Joy to the World!”
Benediction: 423, Psalm 92
December 15, 2024 OFF
December 22, 2024, “The Christmas Story”
Christmas
Of course it’s just a story: no star, no manger, no trip to Bethlehem, no angel. But the magic and meaning isn’t lost by calling it what it is: a story. Rather, the story communicates something the truth never could. Christmas isn’t less because it’s a story; if it weren’t a good story, it wouldn’t be Christmas.
Call to Worship: 621, “Why Not a Star?” by Margaret Gooding
Opening Hymn: 228, “Once in Royal David’s City”
Closing Hymn: 246, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
Benediction: 460, Sarah Alden Ripley
December 24, 2024 , 5pm, “A Great Light”
Christmas Eve
In times of spiritual darkness we feel abandoned, alone, confused in the moment and fearful for the future. The Christmas holiday aligns itself with the season to lift us from the long night of the solstice into a bright dawn. Each new life, whether a babe or a determined and inspired adult, lights a candle. Together, confidant and hopeful, we make a great light.
December 29, 2024, “Faithfully Flexible”
Hanukkah
The history of Hanukkah tells of people so committed to their faith that they went to battle rather than bend. Their choice is inspiring. But often we do choose to let go of cherished commitments. And sometimes letting go is the better, and even the more religiously principled, choice.
Call to Worship: 629, “Hanukkah Lights” by Congregation Beth El, Sudbury MA
Opening Hymn: 221, “Light One Candle”
Closing Hymn: 223, “Rock of Ages”
Benediction: 578, “This Great Lesson” Olympia Brown
January 5, 2024, “Who Am I, Really?”
Epiphany
It’s easier toward the end of life to see that what we call the self is widely changeable. I’m not the person I was as a child, or teen, or young adult. My self becomes more stable as I age, but perhaps I’ve just given up exploring and experimenting out of laziness, or I’ve learned to accept a version of myself grown comfortable by habit. Is there a person I was born to be, and how do I know if I’m that person?
Call to Worship: 113 (LOV), Forrest Church, adapted
Opening Hymn: 1007 (STJ), “There’s a River Flowin’ in My Soul”
Meditation: 1011 (STJ), “Return Again”
Closing Hymn: 323, “Break Not the Circle”
Benediction: 114 (LOV), June Jordan
January 12, 2025 OFF
January 19, 2025, “The Ability to Achieve Purpose”
MLK’s Birthday
The power to direct our lives and achieve our goals is essential to spiritual health. Where do we find our power? The life and work of Martin Luther King provide three answers. Natural gifts give power when matched to appropriate work. Faith gives power when we align our lives with divine aims. Righteous causes give power when inspiring dreams call us to action.
Call to Worship: 431, Barbara Wells
Opening Hymn: 368, “Now Let Us Sing”
Closing Hymn: 298, “Wake, Now, My Senses”
Benediction: 686, Mark L. Belletini
January 26, 2025, “Courage, Friends”
Courage, or fortitude, is one of the four cardinal virtues. Allied with wisdom, temperance, and justice, the ability to endure hardship without faltering and to move toward the good and best without fear, encompasses all the other qualities that define the highest path of living.
Call to Worship: 698, Wayne B. Arnason
Opening Hymn: 85, “Although This Life Is But a Wraith”
Closing Hymn: 107, “Now Sing We of the Brave of Old”
Benediction: 700, Robert Mabry Doss
February 2, 2025, “An Optimistic Faith”
Candlemas (Fire element)
Because we are free, the future is open. Because the future is open, there are no certainties, either of glory or of doom. Uncertainty makes space for doubt but also optimism. Unitarian Universalism is characterized by a sense that our future will be better, because we can make it so.
Call to Worship: 470, “Affirmation” Leonard Mason
Opening Hymn: 295, “Sing Out Praises for the Journey”
Closing Hymn: 118, This Little Light of Mine”
Benediction: 419, attributed to Kalidasa
February 9, 2025, OFF
February 16, 2025, “Flawed Leaders for Flawed People”
President’s Day.
Because leaders are human, they make mistakes. If the leader is a king or a tyrant, the people must simply suffer the leader’s mistakes. But in a democracy, like the United States or a Unitarian Universalist Church, leaders are our leaders, and it is our privilege and responsibility to hold them accountable.
Call to Worship: 33 (LOV), Patrick Murfin, Adapted
Opening Hymn: 124, “Be That Guide”
Closing Hymn: 348, “Guide My Feet”
Benediction: 35 (LOV), Sobonfu Some
February 23, 2025, <Auction Sermon>
Stewardship Sunday.
<I hold this space available for the person that places the highest bid for my sermon during the Fall Fundraiser.>
Call to Worship:
Opening Hymn:
Closing Hymn:
Benediction:
March 2, 2025 OFF
March 9, 2025, “Starting with Me”
Ash Wednesday, Lent.
The spiritual life is often described as a journey. It’s not the destination, we say, but the journey. But journeys have beginnings, too. We start from somewhere. And every pause we take along the path defines a new starting place: maybe still on the right track or maybe having wandered far afield. The season of Lent in the Christian tradition is about making a clear confession of where we are before we take a further step. We will welcome and dedicate Donovan Ohslund during the service.
Call to Worship: 435 Kathleen McTigue
Opening Hymn: 90, “From All the Fret and Fever of the Day”
Closing Hymn: 86, “Blessed Spirit of My Life”
Benediction: 498 Howard Thurman
March 16, 2025, “Keeping it Real”
Although religion explores realms not available to empirical study, speaks in myths and parables, and, for some, includes the supernatural, to be valuable, religion must engage with reality. I’ve always appreciated that Unitarian Universalism is what I call a “reality-based religion.” But it isn’t just our foundation in reality that counts, it’s also our commitment to end in reality, with real lives made really better for real people.
Call to Worship: 549, “Hymn to Matter” Teilhard de Chardin
Opening Hymn: 64, “Oh, Give Us Pleasure in the Flowers Today”
Closing Hymn: 9, “No Longer Forward Nor Behind”
Benediction: 725, “The Simplest of Sacraments” Jacob Trapp
March 23, 2025 OFF
March 30, 2025, “For the Beauty”
Spring equinox.
As one of the three transcendentals: the good, the true, and the beautiful, beauty is a essential quality of being. All existing things are beautiful. Our spirits grow as we develop the ability to appreciate even the parts of existence from which we might otherwise be tempted to turn away.
Call to Worship: 417, Barbara J. Pescan
Opening Hymn: 77, Seek Not Afar for Beauty”
Prayer: 515, “We Lift Up Our Heart in Thanks” Richard M. Fewkes
Closing Hymn: 203, “All Creatures of the Earth and Sky”
Benediction: 682 From the Navajo peoples of North America
April 6, 2025, OFF
April 13, 2025 OFF
April 20, 2025, “Something Always, Always Sings”
Easter
For Unitarians, who hold a conception of a strictly human Jesus, a physical resurrection is not possible. No human can die and later live again as that same person. But what if we think of Easter not as something that happens to individuals but as a lesson about life itself? Easter could celebrate an eternally existing spirit of life passed through communities, taking shape in collections of individual for a time, and then taking new shapes in later times.
Call to Worship: 529, “The Stream of Life” by Rabindranath Tagore
Opening Hymn: 344, “A Promise through the Ages Rings”
Reading: 504 e.e. cummings
Closing Hymn: 266, “Now the Green Blade Riseth”
Benediction: 510, “O Spirit of Life and Renewal” Jane Rzepka
April 27, 2025, “Let Me Flower, Help Me Flower”
Passover
The story of Passover endures because it speaks to one of the fundamental aims of religion: liberation. We seek to be released from all that holds back individuals and groups from the full expression of our potential. The spiritual journey is the journey from oppression by others and by our own doubts and fears to the freedom of lives we make for ourselves.
Call to Worship: 632, “Passover Remembered” by Alla Renee Bozarth
Opening Hymn: 352, “Find a Stillness”
Closing Hymn: 220, “Bring Out the Festal Bread”
Benediction: 453, Passover Haggadah
May 4, 2025 OFF
May 11, 2025, “Continuous Creation”
Mother’s Day
The old story tells us that God finished the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh. So what happened on the eighth day? Clearly creation wasn’t finished because the universe has been continuously unfolding for fourteen billion years and will be new yet again tomorrow. On Mother’s Day we celebrate the spiritual truth that all creatures are also partners in further creation.
Call to Worship: 420 Annie Dillard
Opening Hymn: 207, “Earth Was Given as a Garden”
Reading: 438, “Morning” Clinton Lee Scott
Closing Hymn: 79, “No Number Tallies Nature Up”
Benediction: 84 (LOV), Gary Kowalski
May 18, 2025, “Loyalty: a Delicate Virtue”
To perceive that something is valuable, to connect ourselves to that thing, and then to stick with it when times get tough, is the virtue of loyalty. The value in being a friend, a member of a union or spiritual community, a citizen of a nation, derives in part from our agreement of loyalty. But when the object of our faithfulness betrays our values how do we balance the virtue of loyalty with the principle of right of conscience?
Call to Worship: 466, “Religion” Vincent B. Silliman
Opening Hymn: 20, “Be Thou My Vision”
Closing Hymn: 300, “With Heart and Mind”
Benediction: 160 (LOV), Debra Faulk
May 25, 2025, “The Eternal Rememberer”
Memorial Day
“We remember them” we say, in one of the litanies from our hymnal. But if honoring the dead depends on memory, then what happens when memory fails? And does the value of a life die with the death of the last person who remembers? I can’t respect such a contingent valuation. Something greater than human memory is necessary to give lasting honor to those precious but forgotten lives that came before.
Call to Worship: 528, “I’ve Known Rivers” by Langston Hughes
Opening Hymn: 358, “Rank by Rank Again We Stand”
Closing Hymn: 281, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
Benediction: 128 (LOV), William Schulz
June 1, 2025,
RE Sunday
Our annual culmination and celebration of the church’s religious education and exploration program
June 8, 2025,
Music and Tech Sunday
Our annual culmination and celebration of the church’s music and tech programs.
June 15, 2025 OFF
June 22, 2025, “We Give Thanks”
Volunteer Recognition, Flower Communion
We close the church’s program year with a day to recognize and thank the many volunteers who contributed throughout the year. And we ritually celebrate our community with the Unitarian Universalist ritual of flower communion. Please bring a flower to church today that represents your unique spirit and help us create a beautiful, communal bouquet.
Call to Worship: 434, Anonymous
Opening Hymn: 1010, “We Give Thanks”
Closing Hymn: 128, “For All That Is Our Life”
Benediction: 181 (LOV), Judith Meyer
June 29, 2025, “The Last Word”
Today I conclude my ministry career. Although my ordination is for life and I’ll likely find small ways to serve as a minister in the future, today is the last Sunday I expect to preach from a pulpit of my own. I’ll offer an extended benediction, some “good words”, both for you at the close of this interim ministry, and for me, as our paths diverge.
Call to Worship: 70 (LOV), Susan Manker-Seale
Opening Hymn: 10, “Immortal Love”
Closing Hymn: 204, “Come, O Sabbath Day”
Benediction: 414, As We Leave This Friendly Place”