How do we continue to love now?

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Rachel Mackintosh © 5 April 2026

In the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian, set in the time of Jesus, Brian’s mother confesses to Brian that his father was not Jewish, but was, in fact, a Roman. She reminisces: “Promised me the known world, ’e did.”

This is funny.

Although it is generally fatal to a joke to explain it, I now risk killing the joke by pointing out that it is funny because it plays on the catch-cry of disappointed lovers, “… promised me the world”. But is also calls us to contemplate our own known world.

The Life of Brian is about Brian, not about Jesus, although Brian does almost get the gold, frankincense and myrrh in a brief moment of mistaken identity, because he and Jesus are born at the same time in the same neighbourhood in the Jewish homeland, and so even wise men can get confused. So the known world of Brian is also the known world of Jesus.

In this context, the Easter story occurs — in a world of Imperial Roman occupation.

Speaker:- Keola Whittaker
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Join us this Easter Sunday as Keola Whittaker, currently in his second year of the Starr King School for the Ministry, Oakland, CA, USA, explores the profound metaphor of resurrection through the lens of our Southern Hemisphere autumn. He examines the boundary between life and death, and what might exist beyond. Drawing from Unitarian Universalist theology and personal stories, this sermon contemplates how, like autumn leaves that transform in brilliant colors before falling, love doesn’t end with death but merely changes form. This exploration offers a uniquely UU perspective on Easter, asking not for belief in a literal resurrection but for engagement with a powerful metaphor: What if love truly is stronger than death? What if the greatest certainty about our afterlife is that the love we share continues to ripple outward long after we’re gone?

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Keola Whittaker © 20 April 2025

The autumn air has settled around us now, though I’ve noticed it’s been unseasonably warm. Just yesterday, I walked through Cornwall Park, watching the leaves turning color before drifting down to carpet the paths. I watched as a father and daughter played with the leaves together throwing the leaves in the air, crunching them under their feet, and enjoying the season. It struck me how different our experience is here – while people in the northern hemisphere celebrate Easter as spring bursts forth, we in Aotearoa mark this season amid autumn’s gradual transformation.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Rachel Mackintosh © 31 March 2024

I preached in this church last year on Easter Sunday. My theme was resurrection — I spoke about the power of love over hate. In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Knowing that when life is gone, love is left for shining.”

Since then, as most of you know, I have become a widow. My husband and your minister Clay Nelson died last November. In preparing for this year’s Easter Sunday service, I have read all eight of the Easter sermons he preached here in this church. I have seen that he talked about the necessity of experiencing Good Friday if we are to experience Easter.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

Audio to come

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Rachel Mackintosh © 9th April 2023

At the risk of being grandiose, I begin this sermon a bit like the person who wrote the gospel of Mark. It’s more than 40 years since I read Madeleine L’Engle’s children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time. I have thought about it and talked about it since, but I haven’t relived it. (I didn’t watch the film because I didn’t want to risk my memory being ruined.)

Here is my telling of the bits that have stuck with me, with some interpositions along the way.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 17 April 2022

Sherlock Holmes, the master of deductive reasoning, tells us in The Sign of the Four: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” 

His approach minutely analyses a clue, making huge claims about the information it must contain. From a stocking found in the river he arrives at the height, weight, social class and personal history of the victim.

Dr Watson is an undeclared Unitarian. Being a scientist, he methodically collects the clues that Holmes finds and does the boring tests and legwork to make the case hang together. He is unwilling to accept the conclusion until the weight of evidence supports it. Dr Watson favours inductive reasoning.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Clay Nelson © 10 April 2022

The Christian world is beginning Holy Week this week. I know that because it always begins the Sunday before Easter with Palm Sunday, the celebration of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I know today is that day because all this week I’ve been inexplicably humming a song I used to teach the children of my parish on Palm Sunday years ago when my theology was more uncritical. I can’t remember all the verses, being old and all, but here are some snippets.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Clay Nelson © 4 April 2021

There is no getting around it. Our rationalist faith doesn’t “get” Easter. We get Christmas. Jesus was born. We get Good Friday. Jesus died. We don’t get Easter. If we think about it at all, we struggle with the idea of resurrection. Our first reaction is to dismiss what we don’t understand or can’t relate to. Even if we know the stories about Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, what Christians celebrate as Holy Week, they can feel old, dusty and irrelevant to our lives. Too much suspension of disbelief is required to take them any more seriously than fairy tales. As a result, many Unitarians find Easter as empty of meaning as the tomb. Why bother going to the effort to roll back the stone? There is nothing to see … or is there?

With Rev. Clay Nelson

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the Opening & Closing Words, Spirit of Life, Postlude, Links shared during the chat.

Clay Nelson © 12 April 2020

One of the blessings of now being a UU minister, having moved on from Anglicanism, is I don’t have to begin an Easter talk by explaining that the events of Passover and Easter are not history. They are stories, albeit powerful ones. They are not literally true. The blood of the lamb did not protect the Hebrew people from the plague killing Egypt’s first born. The bodily resurrection of Jesus did not take place. That means I can skip right to why the stories have been told for millennia. I can jump in with both feet as to why Unitarians should still tell them, even those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool humanists who have exchanged divinity for reason. Are we open to the possibility that these stories can draw us in and transform us anyway? Are these stories just old, dusty accounts from the past or might they still have some contemporary relevance if we can just shed, even if only for today, our disbelief?

with Rev. Clay Nelson

Due to a brief illness no new talk was prepared for this week, you can find the text of this talk at Roots and Wings of a Unitarian Lent.