SPRING 2009 SUNDAY SERVICE DRAFT

I have been thinking about spring semester. As I've done the last several years I am passing around a draft for comments.

This is obviously not finalized. RSC does not have any dates on this, so that is obviously going to change.

I will be writing some others for input in a few weeks, so that will likely cause it to change. But I want to begin with you all and get your input.


In the next little bit, I will ask for worship associates. For example, I know sometime in Feb or March Heather Maxwell and I will be doing a service on overcoming relationship break ups and disappointments. But some of this will change based on the give and take with worship associates.

Oh, one note: I will definitely take the lead on the Alan Egly commemoration. I love him to death. But I will not be involved in the 50th anniversary of the sanctuary. That is for the board to do, though I will help as needed.

We know these will happen and need some input:
Darwin
Easter/50th Anniversary of Sanctuary
RSC Sundays

DRAFT SERVICES SPRING 09 DRAFT COMMENTS PLEASE, COMMENTS PLEASE

Feb 1: The Four Chaplains
On diversity and its uses.
The future of interfaith relations (here in the QCA and nationally and theologically).
Gustav Niehbur (Syracuse) has a wonderful new book out on the promise of interfaith relations, and Harvey Cox (Harvard) has written in this area for a long time.
The subtitle: On diversity and its uses comes from a James Luther Adams essay which I will no doubt reference.
I will ask Ron Quay to work with me on this.

February 8: Happy B’Day Charles Darwin with Joe Lehman (and likely others too).


February 15: Nirvana with John Dunsheath (and Steve Spring invited)
What is the deal with the Buddhist conception of Nirvana. What is the idea behind it? I'll probably try to get Steve Spring (mindfulness community of the qc) and or John Dunsheath to come and be with me that day.

February 22: Transfiguration
The story of the transfiguration is a fascinating tale. Like all such bible stories, it is not meant to be taken literally. Rather it is a midrash on a story about Moses from the Hebrew scriptures. More importantly, it raises serious questions about how a liberal Christian is to read the bible after the Shoah. This is a favorite passage of mine, and the sermon will be an overview of a paper I wrote in New Testament entitled Reading the Transfiguration After the Shoah. It is an important topic, I think: supercessionism, the textual insistence on asking about the relationship between the emerging Christian community and its Jewish lineage.

March 1: The Duties of Hard Times with Lars Rehnberg Worship Associate
http://www.boyinthebands.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/the-duties-of-hard-times_line_300dpi.pdf

A very old Unitarian sermon, delivered in 1830 at First Church in Boston, asks the question: What is our duty in hard times? I’ll reflect on the sermon, and think about what it says to us in our own difficult times. Probably the biggest question in terms of mission that the church has to face next year is what shall we do given our context, which right now involves lots of economic uncertainty. It is fascinting to see the sermon reflect on economic uncertainty in 1830.

March 8: The End of the Culture Wars? With Stephen Klien
As I prepare to be a part of a panel at Augustana College on the question of culture wars, I ask the question: Will the culture wars ever end? Should they? How did they start? What do they mean? Where are they headed? What can we do to make public discourse more light and less heat?

March 15: Ethical Wills, and the spiritual discipline of writing your own obituary!

March 22: RSC SUNDAY or if it is mine: Unitarian Universalist Theology: Interdependence, Relationality, and What Saves Us...

March 29: Beloved: The Clearing
This is a service that takes off from Toni Morrison’s Beloved. We’ll compare what Emerson wrote in The Divinity School Address with what Morrison writes about with Baby Suggs.

April 5: Passover Seder. We’ll take some time to explore the seder in our church service, and we’ll do a ‘chosen family’ seder.

April 12: Easter—50th anniversary of the sanctuary celebration

April 19: Yom HaShoah Sunday: Plantations and Death Camps: Human Dignity, Religion, and Ideology
Based on a book by one of my teachers, Beverly Mitchell.

April 26: Fifty Years Ordained: A celebration of Rev. Alan Egly with Alan Egly
April 31st Thursday, dinner and lecture with Kendyl Gibbons

May 3 RSC

May 10: Celebrate the Mothers (Perhaps this could be a Music Sunday?)

May 17: The tangled bank: toward a eco-theology of responsible participation
Based on a book by Michael Hogue, teacher at Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary

May 24: Memorial Day. The power of re-membering

May 31: Surrender. This idea within Islamic Thought is powerful. What could it say to us as religious liberals/Unitarian universalists?

June 7: What looks interesting at General Assembly

June 14: Flower Communion

June 21: If I had Just One Sermon To Preach (It's about the dignity and possibility and beauty and power of humanity and the impossible idea that we are surrounded all the time by grace, grace, grace and beauty)
Likely, this is the big Ta Da!

June: 22: Off to General Assembly


Some other possibilities:
My uncle has published a book called Love as a Way of Life. I’ll take a look at it on this Sunday and share some stories about what he means to me, and what the book is about.

Heather Maxwell on overcoming disappointment and dogged strength in the face of failed relationships.

Hans Jonas, a life What Hans Jonas can teach us: about responsibility, about ethics, about the environment, about living a life well.

Today, 12.28.08 I asked during service what people might be interested in next semester: Some of the answers: living out my faith through service; simplicity; The rabbinic law and Unitarian Universalism (the suggestion was to have it be with Rabbi Samuel); and endowment.