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.

November 30 Take Home Reflections

Take Home Reflections: November 23-Christmas Eve, 2008
Unitarian Church, Davenport, Rev. Roger Butts

Sunday, November 30, 2008
First Sunday of Advent

Perhaps you are a bit like me at this time of year.

You cannot hear much of anything above the cacophony of sound—rushing shoppers, maddening crowds, loud and persistent advertisements.

Maybe you long to hear that small, still voice that occupies every living thing, that place where wisdom and gratitude reside.

Maybe in the midst of the rush, you can sense a place deep in your being that says: Be still.

You can hear the Buddha-inside you say, “Find a tree, sit a while.” You can hear the Jesus in you say: Sit a while, find a dear friend, share a meal.

You can hear the psalmist say: there is no where you can go to escape love’s embrace, you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

You can feel the goddess in you: the wind in the trees, the falling snow, notice it. Love it. Embrace it. You are part of it.

You can sense Emerson whispering in your ear: why keep looking, striving, seeking. You are at home.

Great love, grant that I might find a stillness, hold a stillness, love a stillness, so that the great call of my heart can be heard and the great love at the heart of all things might be enjoyed.


FAMILIES:
The first theme in advent is hope. Tell you children a story this week about a time when you experienced hope, how it felt to you, what it meant, how it changed your life. Ask your child about what they hope for.


Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Last Sunday (November 30), we introduced a number of new members into our church community. Roger used the image of wild geese as a metaphor for what it is like to be a part of a church—shared leadership, lots of encouragement, a sense of working together. When is a time that you experienced some of that in this church? What was that like for you? As you look back on the last year, what stands out as a particularly collaborative effort that you took part in, and what did it mean for you?


FAMILIES:
Let your children suggest a dinner menu in the next few days. Talk to them about who all was involved in the preparation of the food. Talk to them about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea that we are all in everything—that the farmer who raised the broccoli is in the broccoli, that the sun is in the broccoli, that the rain is there. And give them an opportunity to name all of the things that might be in their food. Also, give them a chance to say thank you to all of those things and people.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Pay very close attention right now to where you are, how you are sitting, what you hear, how you feel, why you are there. Pay attention prayerfully.

What am I feeling right now?

Sometimes I seek solace for my soul outside my soul, but if I listen very carefully, I can feel myself restored right now.
(From Awakening the Soul by John Morgan).

Families:
Ask your children what they might wish to learn about in the next few days. Listen carefully to their response and try to build a time to share with them what you know about what they wish to learn about.

Friday, December 5, 2008
Tonight at sunset, in the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath begins. The Sabbath is a time to express gratitude, to be with family members, to share a common meal and to go about the business of praise. All of these speak deeply to the tasks involved in the life of the spirit.

What can you do to include some or all of those components into your Friday?

Try to take a Sabbath moment in the midst of your rushing around.

Families:
Sit down with your family for a shared meal. Invite your children to pay attention to the food right in front of them. Ask them to name the food. Ask them to notice the food. Invite them to be grateful for the food.
Share a time with your children when you had an especially fun Christmas/holiday memory. Who was there? What happened?



For Sunday, December 7th: Read “Of the Coming of John” by W.E.B. DuBois. It is available at the library in The Soul of Black Folks (1903) or search for it online (the whole story is online).

Matthew Shepard October 12 Service

On October 12 at 11 a.m., the Unitarian Church will host a joint service with Metropolitan Community Church Quad Cities to commorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. Here is an op/ed that Pastor Rich Hendricks and I wrote about the service. This letter has run in the Quad City Times and the North Scott Press and soon in the Argus/Dispatch.

From Tragedy to Hope

In 1955 African American Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi in a racist hate crime. As a result of that attack, the civil rights movement was energized and less than ten years later Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1998 gay American Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in Wyoming in a homophobic hate crime. As a result of that attack, the movement towards full civil rights for God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (“LGBT”) children was energized. See, for example, www.matthew shepard.org. Yet, 10 years later there is still NO national legislation protecting the civil rights of LGBT persons. And the hate continues.

As recently as this month, three gay men in Des Moines were attacked with thrown bricks amid a torrent of homophobic hate speech. This past July a man shouting insults against “liberals and gays” interrupted a church service at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, killing two adults and wounding seven others.

The Human Rights Campaign website states it best: “All violent crimes are reprehensible. But the damage done by hate crimes cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. Hate crimes rend the fabric of our society and fragment communities because they target a whole group and not just the individual victim. Hate crimes are committed to cause fear to a whole community. A violent hate crime is intended to ‘send a message’ that an individual and ‘their kind’ will not be tolerated, many times leaving the victim and others in their group feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected.”

It is time to end homophobic bigotry, hate and violence. It pains us to know, even more so as clergy persons, that homophobic violence often finds its roots in religious-sponsored bigotry and hate. While many Christian preachers publicly espouse anti-gay rhetoric from their pulpits, very few of those same preachers also remind their congregants that Jesus denounced violence of any kind or that Jesus called on his followers to love even their enemies. When churches and individuals fail to speak up for tolerance and against hatred, they leave the world at risk to heinous crimes that should not happen. Churches and individuals have enormous power to make a difference for all that is good and right instead of promoting bigotry and hate.

People have a right to believe what they want about whether LGBT people are included in God’s love. Regardless, all people of good conscience everywhere must speak out against violence and hatred. On Sunday, October 12, 2008, the Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities and the Unitarian Church of the Quad Cities are holding a joint worship service at 11:00 a.m. at the Unitarian Church, 3707 Eastern Avenue in Davenport. The service is in remembrance of the 10th Anniversary of the slaying of Matthew Shepard. The service is entitled “From Tragedy to Hope.”

We invite all who abhor violence and hate to attend the service and for all persons everywhere to spread the word that hate and violence are no longer acceptable behaviors in our land.
Rev. Roger Butts, Unitarian Church, Davenport
Rev. Rich Hendricks, Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities