Sermons
This page has short descriptions of a selection of sermons given by Rev Linda Hart and others at Richmond & Putney Unitarian Church. Click on the sermon title to go to the full sermon.
Imagination
BY REV LINDA HART
Considering the film 'Drop Dead Fred' and the place of imagination in our lives and what it can offer us.
Enough
BY REV LINDA HART
How do we cultivate the kind of awareness that tells us what is enough?
Reflection on a Blessing
BY REV LINDA HART
Re-blessing the church after a break in.
Occupy the World
BY REV LINDA HART
A small movement began to Occupy Wall Street just over a month ago in New York. The Occupy movement has spread across the United States and around the world. Locally, Occupy London Stock Exchange started about 2 weeks ago and has set up camp outside St Paul's in central London. What is this about? And what can -- should -- we do about it?
More Pooh, Less Rabbit: In Which We Consider the Spirituality of the Hundred Acre Wood
BY REV LINDA HART
Some of my fond childhood memories are sitting and listening to my parents read the Pooh stories to me and my brother at bedtime. We revisit some old imaginary friends and see if there’s something there that they can still teach us.
Harvest Homily
BY REV LINDA HART
What is the bounty of your life that you can lift up in gratitude?
Turn, Turn, Turn
BY REV LINDA HART
Pete Seeger sang ‘turn, turn, turn’ when quoting Ecclesiastes ‘to every thing there is a season...’. We come into autumn this week, and enter the Days of Awe, the time of the Jewish New Year. How do we all turn with the seasons and new starts?
Living Compassion
BY REV LINDA HART
September 2011 sees the start of a year long group at RPUC, using Karen Armstrong’s book, Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life, to guide us in living more compassionately. What would it mean for you to live more compassionately?
Playing With Fire
BY REV LINDA HART
A favourite comment by Annie Dillard is that we should be issued crash helmets at the door of the church and be strapped into our pews. Talking about religion can be a bit like playing with fire at times. How can we best do that?
Abundance
BY REV LINDA HART
In this season of harvest and abundance of the earth, we consider why we're often still left feeling that we haven’t enough of what is needed.
Direction of the Heart
BY REV LINDA HART
There is a Hebrew word ‘kavannah’ that means ‘intention’ or ‘direction of the heart’, and it refers to how we do what we do in the world. In Buddhist traditions it might be called ‘mindfulness’. How does awareness and intention shape our days? How can we use this to live more faithfully?
We Are Family
BY REV LINDA HART
Sister Sledge’s song about how we belong to one another is a perennial favourite at Gay Pride celebrations around the world. On the day after the Gay Pride March, we affirm solidarity shared between gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people and their straight allies.
Discovering Ruth
BY REV LINDA HART
This story from the Hebrew Bible seems to have little to do with what we think to be the usual biblical themes, yet there it is. What does it mean to have it included in the Bible? What does it tell us about God, ourselves and our lives?
The Fifth Smooth Stone: Ultimate Optimism
BY REV LINDA HART
This is the final sermon in the series around James Luther Adams’ Five Principles for a Free Faith. Looking at the world around, considering world events and our limited ability to have an impact upon them, how can we talk about ultimate optimism?
The Fourth Smooth Stone: What We Do
BY REV LINDA HART
Articulating what is important to us and describing our values helps us to gain clarity about what we are called to do in the world. But all the well stated ideas are best used to inspire us to some sort of action. What does it mean to incarnate our beliefs?
This is the fourth sermon in a series of five that explore principles central to liberal religion as outlined by James Luther Adams.
Mosaic: Making Beauty from Broken Pieces
BY REV LINDA HART
Mosaics are often made of chips of tile and stone, and the broken bits we can find in our lives. This can be a metaphor for how we find religious meaning in our lives, too. Is there beauty to be found in what is broken?
Mosaic of Voices: Listening to One Another
BY REV LINDA HART
We talk about diversity in our congregation but what does it really mean? In part, it means that there are different ideas that inspire us, different affirmations that draw our hearts to the most important work of the world, differing commitments that we make and live. Starting this month and for the next few months, we’ll try to tease this out a bit and see what we might learn from each other.
Happy Error (Felix Culpa): An Easter Sermon
BY REV LINDA HART
The theology of Easter can be challenging to modern and post-modern people. How does this ancient, mystical, magical story tell us something about ourselves, our world, and how we might be saved?
Church Anniversary
BY REV LINDA HART
Does religion have a future? What might that future be and how might we shape the future of this particular religious community?
Invisible Work: A Mothering Sunday Sermon
BY REV LINDA HART
What is it that we lose when we don’t notice and appreciate the invisible work done in the world? We often miss that work, done by others, done by ourselves.
Stillness
BY ANN HELLYER
Ann Hellyer shares her reflections on the stillness at the heart of her spiritual life.
The Third Smooth Stone: Building The Community of Justice and Love
BY REV LINDA HART
What are our responsibilities to our fellow human beings? How do we find salvation? James Luther Adams says that faith not bound to justice ‘thwarts creation’. What does that mean for us in this place and in this time?
This is the third sermon in a series of five that explore principles central to liberal religion as outlined by James Luther Adams.
Making a Beautiful Life
BY REV LINDA HART
‘An important part of a beautiful life is giving,’ said the founder of the Pride Foundation, a charity I did volunteer work with in the US. What is it that makes for a beautiful life?
Good Doesn't Mean Easy
BY REV LINDA HART
‘Good Doesn’t Mean Easy’: A friend said this to me whilst we were talking about events in our lives. We may know that being good, doing good, is what is asked of us but that doesn’t make it either simple or painless. A reflection on life.
The Second Smooth Stone: Persuasion, Not Coercion
BY REV LINDA HART
What is the foundation of our relationship with each other? This is the second sermon in a series of five that explore principles central to liberal religion as outlined by James Luther Adams.
Being Positive
BY REV LINDA HART
A whole range of human potential movements urge us to be more positive about our lives. If we simply focus on what is good, will all be well? Or is there another, more fundamental, religious task we are called to grapple with?
The First Smooth Stone: Revelation is not Sealed
BY REV LINDA HART
The first in a series of sermons about some of the foundational beliefs of liberal religion. James Luther Adams suggested that there are five ideas that define liberal religion. A later editor called them the Five Smooth Stones, and this series will consider each in turn. This first one considers the nature of revelation.
Socrates and the Search for the Good Life
BY NICK MORRICE
What can Socrates teach us about love and how to live a good life?
Our Hungers
In the dark of the year, it’s easy to be aware of our hungers for comfort food or light or warmth. In our longings and yearnings there are both shadow and promise. What can we learn from our hungers and how can they call us into a deeper life?
The Christmas Gorilla
How a dingy, tattered, pilling soft toy reminds me of the possibility of birth that comes all the time for us, even in the face of death.
Hanukkah: A Ritual of Restoration
Hanukkah begins on 2 December, and we’ll have our own celebration of the spirit of the festival. The temple of the Maccabees was destroyed and restored and light came as a miracle. So, too, will we symbolically restore ourselves and invite the light.
Humble Superstitions
Found on the internet, reported to be true: ‘At an interdenominational religious conference in Hawaii, a Japanese delegate approached a fundamentalist Baptist minister and said, "My humble superstition is Buddhism. What is yours?"’ What are yours?
Remembrance Sunday: Battle Fatigue
Somewhere in the world at any given moment, there’s a war being waged. It’s not an awareness that most of us have day on day unless we have a loved one in harm’s way. The bad news of deaths and attacks flows over us from news reports. How can this fit in our lives? What does it all mean?
To Be Determined
Advent is a season of waiting. How might we reflect on the coming season with an attitude of openness? What might arrive?
Learning from Disaster
With the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico capped and the clean up underway, there are scientists and engineers hard at work dissecting what happened and seeking to discern what lessons can be learned from the tragedy. It’s what we all do, isn’t it?
Being All Eye
A fourth century monk said that to live a life of faith the monk must be ‘all eye’. What does living a life of faith mean for us today?
The Prayer that Jesus Taught
At the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists Ministers' Conference in July, we said this prayer in whatever our native language was and it was a splendid babble. Most of us can say it without thinking about any meaning it might have. In this sermon, we’ll consider its meaning.
A Voice for Justice: Elizabeth Gaskell
On 29 September 2010, it will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth Gaskell, a lifelong Unitarian, wife of a minister and renowned novelist. This sermon celebrates her life and work and examines its relevance for today.
Practical Religion
Unitarians can be described as very practical people when it comes to religion. This sermon explores all that it might mean to have a practical religion.
Job's Wife
She doesn’t even get named but has to live with the dire circumstances of what happens to her husband. Hear her story as it might have been told if she’d had a voice or even a narrator who cared about her.
The Moral Life
What are the foundations upon which we may rely to make decisions? What else might we consider? This service continues a theme of exploration of morality based on the work of Jonathan Haidt.
The Pursuit of Happiness
I’ve believed that happiness is over rated as a life value, preferring to strive for satisfaction or fulfilment. But there is something to be said for the pursuit of happiness, and we’ll examine how it might be done.
Snapshots of the Past
Compiled for the Anniversary Service of Richmond & Putney Unitarian Church held on 24 April 2010.
Harriet’s Voice: A Sermon Celebrating Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau was a Unitarian of some importance in her day. She was a prolific author, an early sociologist, an abolitionist and an astute religious thinker. This sermon considers her life and work and what it can inspire in us today.
Which Story? (Easter 2010)
A distinction is often made between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. Easter is mostly related to the religion about Jesus, and the affirmations of the faith symbolised by his resurrection. What if we think instead of the religion he lived? What does Easter tell us then?
Fail Better Next Time
Palm Sunday reminds us that what we are most certain about can all fall down to ashes and mud. Even without Easter, there’s a message to be heard about carrying on no matter the consequences.
History of God
How have ideas and images of God changed over the centuries? How can we, today, understand language about God and what kind of life can it lead us into?
Hospitality
We consider the idea of hospitality as a spiritual practice, a way of becoming in the world that can both nourish and challenge.
Lost and Found
About losing, finding, tasking risks and trusting.
Submission
The Muslim festival of Eid al Adha, the festival of sacrifice, is a celebration of what could be arguably the most difficult story in the Hebrew Bible; the story of Abraham taking his son to a mountain top to sacrifice him to God. What lessons can we learn from it?
Since What We Choose Is What We Are
Our lives are full of choices and decisions, or appear to be. But how important are the choices we make? What role do our choices play and do they really make any difference?
Healing Old Wounds
We all bear scars some visible, some hidden from sight. What we do with them is the question.
Advent - What Are We Waiting For?
As Advent begins, we reflect upon the season of waiting and anticipation.
Advice at the Start of a Life
For all the wisdom that babies bring into the world, it seems that there are things to learn about life early that could help make for a good life.
Atheism Considered
We consider the fairly recent upswelling among atheists and consider their message. Does it have anything to say to us?
Attitude of Certainty
Fundamentalisms are rampant in the modern world. From religion to science and every subject in between has its strong adherents who claim to have the only true understanding. Of what are we certain? How open are we to new truth?
Broken Gifts
A sermon about fathers, telling the truth, and how we love each other.
Evil
It is said that liberals are light on evil. Are we?
Lessons of History
Janus is the two faced god for whom January is named. One face looks back, one looks forward. The first of this two sermon series will reflect upon elements of the history of Unitarianism and how it best informs our present.
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is the first moment of triumph in the Passion of Jesus. Yet, it all goes horribly wrong as the last week of his life continues. What can this story tell us of our successes and failures?
Plotting the Course
Where do we want to go as a congregation? What course shall we set together?
Prophecy
The story of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible tells us about what it means to tell the truth and the consequences of it. What meaning can this have for our lives?
Taking Time for the Holy
We all know that according to one of the Genesis stories of the creation of the world that on the seventh day, God rested. What might it mean for us to take a sabbath?
To End Cruelty
The work of Amnesty International and how it is that we are part of the system that supports and maintains cruelty.