Guest speaker Catherine Delahunty has had a lifetime of working for justice. She is an ally and champion of the people of West Papua, who live under occupation.
What if fear is not a flaw to be fixed, but an invitation to be answered? This sermon explores stories of courage – what it means to take trembling steps into the unknown and what holds us when we do. If you have ever stood at a threshold you did not choose, wondering whether you had what it takes to cross it, this one is for you.
Jesus is passing through Jericho, and the whole city has come out to see him. It is loud and pressing and alive with anticipation. And somewhere at the edge of that crowd is a man named Zacchaeus — a tax collector, a collaborator, a man who has made himself comfortable by extracting money from his own people. Everyone knows who he is. Everyone knows what he’s done.
And this man wants to see Jesus. But he cannot get through. He is short, and the crowd — the very people he has harmed — are standing between him and what he is reaching for. So he does something that must have looked absurd: he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore tree.
I want you to hold that image. One of the most compromised men in town, up in a tree, alone above the crowd that has every reason to keep him out. Straining toward something he is not sure he deserves to see. Not knowing whether the door is open. Not knowing whether, if he came down, anyone would make room for him.
As a community, we have momentum that we want to build on and ultimately be able to hire a new minister. This talk focuses on the power of our community striving together, building on success, and creating virtuous circles.
This service marks the start of our annual pledge drive.
Now, for my main talk – my random musings, as Clay used to say — Building Virtuous Circles.
When I agreed — yet again — to lead a service at the start of the annual pledge drive, one immediate challenge for me – given my business school background — was branding.
How exactly do you make ‘please help us meet the budget’ sound spiritually uplifting?
You can’t really call the sermon ‘Cash Flow for the Kingdom’ — especially not in a Unitarian church.
And ‘Friends, let us now contemplate deferred maintenance and operating expenses’ does not have quite the same inspirational quality as, say, resurrection.
So this year I was grateful to land on the title Building Virtuous Circles, because it sounds much nobler than ‘Ted Talks About Church Finances Again.’
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.
Today’s service is part one of what we are aiming to be an ongoing series on spirituality, and addressing the question of what the spiritual needs of our congregation might be. I wanted to launch this series, because I think that a lot of us have a complicated relationship with spirituality, with religion, and with the concepts and language that surrounds them – I include myself in that group. Some people here are longtime members of either this congregation, or of other progressive religious traditions. Others, like myself and several of the other service leaders, come from backgrounds where religion was a painful and oppressive part of life.
We celebrate the autumn equinox with a general focus on connecting with Nature at this special time of the year. Expect a short pagan ritual, a special altar, a bit more participation than usual, and a 2-part talk. Part 1 concerns contemplation of this special midpoint between days of light and night and earth’s energies relative to our own energy. Through a story or two, Part 2 focuses on our spiritual connection with Mother Earth as our precious planet faces another tipping point.
Autumn equinox’26, part 1: contemplation of this special midpoint between days of light and night and earth’s energies relative to our own energy
How many of you say autumn is your favourite season? How about second favourite one? Yes, many people like or even love autumn very much. There’s so much to love about early autumn: the warm afternoons leftover from late summer but the cool nights to make sleeping easier; the long, languorous, golden sunsets; the early vegetables and fruits along with produce of late summer; leaves of changing colours that we know will start falling soon; even the moody skies and mystical mist – this seasonal change sometimes feels magical. I love the anticipation of cooler, fresher air; the change in weather that requires long sleeves and heavier fabrics, jackets and raincoats. Where I’m originally from, we say no such thing as bad weather – you just need the right clothes.
A brief caveat: these stories include mention of suicide and incest.
I want to share some stories today – stories that derive from my early teaching experiences. Stories that shaped me into a different type of teacher than the nuns and others who taught me.
I learnt something even from just remembering the stories I’m going to share with you today. These are stories about how I, as a teacher, most poignantly and most intensely was able to develop and strengthen my pedagogy; and this learning derived in significant part, from the students themselves. I could tell so many refugee stories, but the following are from my secondary school teaching experience, and one is from my adult teaching role.
One small second-hand car dealer in Invercargill sold 40 cars in a month. In Invercargill.
The women who bought those cars each had one less worry. The stress of wondering if the car would get them to their next job without breaking down evaporated. The tension leading up to the six-monthly warrant of fitness check eased. They could all breathe more easily. They could replace a tyre if it went bald. It was a transformation.
The second-hand car dealer also experienced transformation, as his income increased dramatically in that month. Because he and we are all part of an interdependent web. And he went out to dinner more often, and the local restaurants’ takings increased, and so on, and so on …
The tide was in because the government had agreed to fund the transformation after the Supreme Court ruled that care and support work had been historically undervalued because it was predominantly performed by women. The ruling was the final decision from a claim for pay equity under the Equal Pay Act 1972.
For those women who bought new cars, and for other care and support workers, there were other transformations.
Last October I led a service on the United Nations’ Mental Health Awareness Week. Many who were present at that service commented favourably on new understandings of mental ‘illness’ and mental health and asked for more. Today’s service is that follow-up.
So much can be achieved if we share honestly and listen deeply to each other. But what if we do so and find that our beliefs, needs or values are fundamentally at odds?
Listening into the Difficult PlacesListen, or download the MP3
I’ve spent my entire adult life believing in the power of communication.
I have a PhD in the subject. I’ve spent my career studying it, teaching it, writing about it, and trying — not always successfully — to practise it effectively.
Next week, when classes begin at the uni, my main teaching responsibility will be a course entitled Managing Conflict.
So I am personally and professionally invested in the idea that clear and honest sharing and deep listening matter.