Sermon Archive

If the words Horror Story appear in a sermon title, a “trigger warning” hardly seems necessary, but here it is:  This morning you will hear brief references to institutional violence and abuse bordering on torture.  But you will also hear about how people enduring such treatment can use humorous resistance to help each other, and how loving acceptance can make all the difference in the world.

Welcome back! This will be offered as a virtual and in-person service! 

Sunday at 10:30am online and at the Community for Positive Aging (1820 NE 40th Ave)

RSVP's are required to attend the in-person service.

Examining Economic Inequality is our Social Justice Focus for this church year and Alejandro Queral, Executive Director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) will join us as our third outside speaker on this topic and will share with us about the work of the OCPP.

The Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP) is a nonprofit, independent think tank based in Portland, Oregon. For over 20 years, OCPP has been a leader in fighting to ensure all Oregonians have an opportunity to thrive. This requires significant investments in public structures such as education, health, and housing, paid for with an adequate, fair, and progressive tax system, which asks for more from those who have the most. We achieve these policy outcomes by developing research and analysis, building coalitions, and encouraging policymakers to make decisions that are in the best interest of their constituents. 

Alejandro leads the Center, providing strategic direction and ensuring the Center’s sustainability and adherence to its mission. He brings more than 20 years of policy advocacy and nonprofit leadership experience in public health, human rights and environmental policy, as well as a seven-year stint in the philanthropic sector. Alejandro holds advanced degrees in ecology and law.

Our monthly special collection will happen on this Sunday for the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

Join our Virtual Service Sunday at 10:30

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You won’t win a trip to that beautiful Caribbean island today but you will get to enjoy a honeymoon adventure on nearby Trinidad. I hope you’ll also find some inspiration for this year’s season of stewardship!

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The Rev. Dr. Finley Campbell will share his vision of multiracial Unitarian Universalism as way to make sure that the divisive issue of race doesn’t blind us to the other important yet related issues facing us in the 2022 election: the dangers of violent civil insurgency, the threatening, non-violent movement shifting the US American political economy from the bourgeois democratic republic to the bourgeois oligarchic republic; the emergence of Cold War II with its menace of World War III. We can draw important lessons from our UU legacy where we have dealt with racism, old and new.  The main lesson for committed Unitarian Universalists in the 21st century is to look at the multiracial nature of black history as an historical theist inspiration which will empower us to deal courageously with the coming rage of storm.

The Rev. Dr. Finley Campbell is an ordained Baptist minister and a long-time Unitarian Universalist. He is the program coordinator of the Chicago Nucleus of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship; co-chairs the Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (Chicago), and is a founder and now Vice-chair, the Unitarian Universalist Multiracial Unity Action Council.

His educational background focused on socio-political literature as the Fifth Gospel and includes a BA from Morehouse College (1956), and MA from Atlanta University (1958) and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1969). He has worked as an Assistant Professor of Humanities at many institutions from 1960-2009 including but not limited to Morehouse College, Wabash College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and DeVry University-Chicago.

In addition, he has led an active political life serving as acting minister of education for the Indiana Chapter of the Black Panther Party and founder of its Rainbow Coalition partner, the Indiana Peace and Freedom Party (1969-1972); the InterNational Committee Against Racism (1973-1993); and the Chicago Democratic Party, 2001 to the present.

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Really? No, of course not!  I’ll be dressed as usual in my sport coat and T-shirt with a button on the lapel.  But there are huge industries devoted to exposing our personal details to public view, right there in the grocery store checkout line.  Let’s hear Bette Midler, Leonard Pitts, and the Prophet Muhammad weigh in on this common—but toxic— phenomenon.

**Please make sure you are signed up to receive our weekly Service Announcement Emails (see our News Page). Depending on the state of things, we may offer our first opportunity for an In-Person Worship Experience for this service and updates about this will appear in those emails. **

Join our Virtual Service Sunday at 10:30

Click Here to link to the Zoom Service

Meeting ID: 275 194 110

Phone In: (669) 900-6833

Wy'east Member and writer Lynette Yetter will share excerpts from her 2010 novel Lucy Plays Panpipes for Peace, a fictionalized version of how her spiritual quest to find the ideal society of which the panpipes sing led her to play panpipes in Peru and Bolivia with indigenous people in ceremonies and rituals, chew the sacred coca leaf, and encounter U.S.-supported human rights abuses that led to a life or death decision.

Link to Multnomah County Library: https://multcolib.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S152C1059378

Lynette Yetter is a permanent resident of Bolivia, and a lesbian panpipe-playing practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism. She found her soulmate in Portland while doing a book tour for Lucy Plays Panpipes for Peace. In Portland, Lynette became a certified Spiritual Director (Urban Spirituality Center). She also recently completed a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) degree at Reed College. Her life-after-Reed contains a new journey taking comedy classes; she currently zooms with Second City. Creative projects Lynette intends to complete in 2022 include: a DIY movie based on her book Lucy Plays Panpipes for Peace, and a bilingual book of her translations of (mostly) previously-untranslated selected poetry and prose by Bolivia's most celebrated writer, educator and social critic, Adela Zamudio (1854-1928), (forthcoming from Fuente Fountain Books). Lynette savors spiritual community and is thrilled to be a member of Wy'east UU. You can learn more about Lynette's music, movies, books and art to touch your soul and make you think at www.LynetteYetter.com.

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Back in 629 A.D., the Prophet Muhammad had a chance to avenge the brutal killing of one of his uncles—a killing that had been arranged by another of his relatives, a woman named Hind.  How did he choose to respond?  Come this morning to hear a strange and compelling story of forgiveness.

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Imbolc is celebrated each year on February 1-2 to honor the lengthening of days and the promise of the coming spring. It is interwoven with the Goddess Brigid. Wy'east member, Mariah Springstead will explore how and why this ancient festival has endured and what it has to teach us now in the present day.

Mariah Springstead has been a UU since 2017 and joined Wy'east in 2021. She has been studying paganism and specifically The Goddess Brigid since 2012.

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yg760Y_1TV3gxMBZJX8G0i4bD4utOOOd/view?usp=sharingThis service is the third in our Social Justice Speaker series for the 2021-22 church year focused on Examining Economic Inequality 

Joe Rastatter from Portland Jobs with Justice will join us to share a bit of his life story, including his hopes and frustrations. He believes people need to be connected, in relationships with each other and through organizations. His 25-year involvement in Jobs with Justice and its Faith Labor Committee has been and continues to be vital to his spirit.

Joe describes himself this way:

“I am a fan and follower of the Rebel Jesus, trying to live my Catholic tradition like Dorothy Day or Cesar Chavez. I have worked as a lay, faith-based community organizer and peace activist for the entirety of my adult life. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, I enjoyed being a Jesuit Volunteer, and working in staff positions with the United Farmworkers, at the Campus Ministry at the University of Washington, and with the Archdiocese of Seattle.

“In Portland in the 90’s, I was the director of the St. Francis Dining Hall and a founding member of the Jobs with Justice Faith Labor Committee.  I’ve also served as an organizer and shop steward for unions representing stadium workers in Seattle and Portland. Working as a ballpark vendor has been a successful side hustle for me since high school.”

This service will include a special collection for Jobs with Justice - https://jwjpdx.org/

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Poet, teacher, and farmer Wendell Berry writes that, “If change is to come...it will have to come from the margins.” Let’s explore the power and possibility that can emerge from marginal persons, places, and situations—and ponder how the edge might fold itself right into the center.

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