If you do not select by category you will be presented with all sermons in descending date order. If you wish, you can select to view just previous sermons by our minister Rev. Barbara Threet, or previous sermons by guest ministers, or previous sermons by lay leaders. Selection is made by using the “Categories” drop down located in the right hand column of this page.
You can select sermons by the month and year by clicking the month and year at the “Sermon Archives” section in the left hand column of this page.
Abundant Life – I’ve long been interested in a passage attributed to Jesus: ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” What would an abundant life look like, and how do we get there?
People have come to our peculiar tradition by many paths. For the service Kathy Harm won at the 2023 Service Auction, she has asked members of the Sunday Service Committee to speak on their journeys in becoming UUs.
In a world where visual images can be so easily manipulated and manufactured, and where large portions of our country have rejected facts, how do we determine what’s real? (It’s undoubtedly true that some of the things you and I absolutely believe aren’t really ‘facts’ either, or won’t seem like ‘facts’ in the light of history). How do we live when we know our sources of facts might not be, well, factual?
At the 2022 Auction, Kathy Harm bought the right to choose a topic for a sermon this year, and this is that sermon. We’ll reflect on what it means to genuinely apologize as opposed to going through the motions, and how we decide to respond to apologies.
The mystical (and possibly Mythical) Taoist philosopher Lao Tse is credited with one of the most foundational documents of eastern philosophical and religious thought: The book of the Tao or Tao de Ching. In this presentation, we’ll get down to cases on the kind of life, and the kind of person, the kind of challenges this text implies. Does the Tao still apply in the age of denial and manipulation?
Nancy Kimball, who is an active member of the UU Congregation of Glens Falls, has been licensed to rehabilitate injured birds and other small animals for many years. Most of them are released once they’re healed, but Nancy has several owls and other raptors that have become permanent residents due to injuries which are so severe that they can no longer survive in the wild. She’ll tell us about her work and she’ll bring a few birds with her (probably an adorable saw-whet owl and a kestrel). You’ll learn about a fascinating part of the ‘interdependent web of which we are a part’!
Nancy Kimball, who is an active member of the UU Congregation of Glens Falls, has been licensed to rehabilitate injured birds and other small animals for many years. Most of them are released once they’re healed, but Nancy has several owls and other raptors that have become permanent residents due to injuries which are so severe that they can no longer survive in the wild. She’ll tell us about her work and she’ll bring a few birds with her (probably an adorable saw-whet owl and a kestrel). You’ll learn about a fascinating part of the ‘interdependent web of which we are a part’!
Your obituary is often where a summary description of your life is found. That description of your legacy may rest in the hands of your survivors or you may have written it before passing on. How would you like to be remembered or how might others remember you?
American UUs and English Unitarians trace their ancestry back to the Reformation: we’re close cousins. Another branch of our family, our somewhat less-well-known and slightly-different cousins eventually landed in Transylvania, in what is now Romania. We’ll explore how they got there, who they are today, and what some of the similarities and differences are between western UUs and Eastern European Unitarians. The topic for this sermon was purchased by Herb Ogden at our 2022 Auction.
Sermons & Newsletter - UU Church of Rutland 