Our former minister, for the past seven Years, Rebecca Benner has selected a number of her sermons to post on our church website for your personal use. You are reminded that these sermons are copywrited and can only by used with permission. You can obtain the complete text by clicking on the sermon title and it will be downloaded to your computer as an "Adobe Acrobat" PDF file. If you do not have an "Acrobat" file reader program, you can obtain a copy by downloading it from the "Adobe" website.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
This Sunday, Mother's Day, Rebecca focuses on motherhood. In her own case of shortly impending motherhood and the joys and sorrows of motherhood and the sorrow of those that wish for the motherhood which is not possible. The holyness of the ordinary of taking care of a child is investigated. She composes a letter to her yet to be born offspring expressing her hopes, dreams, and apologies for her likely lapses, frustrations and failures.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
This, Rebecca's fairwell sermon, discusses her joys and sorrows of this congregation during her seven years with us and our strengths upon which we can build. She visions our future and where she sees where we can go from here but cautions on what she perceives as impediments which we might put on our own way.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
After several weeks of events within our congregation of great sorrow and external horrific events of great concern to members or our congregation, Rebecca addresses how Unitarian Universalists may cope with such calamities. Rebecca contrasts ways in which verious belief structures confront tragedy and how many of these still don't get an answer which will satisfy or do much to ameliorate the deep sorrow that is felt. How can one carry on in these circumstances?
Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007
Rebecca poses the question as to why the celebration of Easter is important to Unitarian Universalists who are not exclusive Christian in their outlook and beliefs. Easter is a much older tradition than Christianity in that is celebration of the revival of life, the return of vitality and new beginnings from the old death and grief of winter. She notes that although the scripture story shows this rebirth as happening quickly we know the it does not come instantly without pain but reveals itself gradually. This contrasts with our culture today where we are promised instant gratification only to learn that this is an illusion. The day dawns slowly and spring eventually arrives to completion. Sorrow will yeald to joy in time.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
How is it that we seem to have this drive to accumulate stuff and use people to get the stuff to impress people? There are ways we bring up our children to value their stuff more that their friends. Can we turn this around? We want to believe that we are not materialistic and then we get caught in the trap unexpectedly.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
In this, the third and final sermon in the series of three on "A Liberal Theology in the real World," Rebecca wonders about the place love holds in our religious faith. What does love mean for Unitarian Universalists? What role does it play in our religious framework? How good are we at giving and receiving love in a religious context? It is these questions She explores with you this morning.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
This is the second sermon in the series of three on "A Liberal Theology in the real World." Evil exists in the world, but it is not particularly depraved people who commit these evil acts but regular people who one might not expect to do evil things. We as regular normal people are truly capable of committing evil acts. The point is that if we are not on guard, if we don't believe that we are capable of evil, we could very well find ourselves commiting an evil act un-aware of how we got to that point until is has happened.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
This is the first sermon in a series of three on A Liberal Theology in the Real World. Suffering, both mental and physical have been with humankind throughout recorded history. Rebecca looks at how many religious traditions approach this condition and how their followers deal with suffering. Then she looks at how our tradition approaches this condition. Are we missing some important in our intellectual analysis? Suffering is not relieved with mere analysis and good words. We need to find connections that bridge the independance between us and reveal the interdependance.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
An investigation of difficult choices. People often say they are "Pro-Choice" but what does that mean? Prenatal testing and the decisions to be made has become more complicated as science has been able to determine likely results before birth. This is further complicated by the growth in stem cell research which promises that some genetic conditions can be corrected. Should we be free to choose whether to continue? Many new and difficult decisions are presented for parents and women in particular now and more to come in the future. How will you respond?
Sunday, February 4, 2007
We all grow older in time. Limitations begin to occur as we age. The problems that begin to bother those who are aging and those around them. How does our society treat aging and how can our community accomodate and honor aging? Our parents are aging, have we taken time to get to know them and what their lives are now like?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Rebecca tackles the difference between peace and non-violence. One is passive and the other is active. How can this play out in our lives and the future of our selves, country and the planet?
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Magic and the art of Prestigitation are investigated by Rebecca and how this relates to our understanding a perception of our lives and the culture in which we live. We often labor under the impression that because we have learned so much about how our world and universe works that all is knowable. She says: "At the same time, it is among my deepest hopes that in our emphasis on reason and rationality we do not lose sight of wonder. That we do not forget how to be amazed."
Sunday, October 22, 2006
How we see and hear the world around us is a reflection of our own selves. A Person who sees other people as hateful is likely to be a hateful person. How we find meaning in things often is a reflection of ourselves. Others can give us hints or point us in a direction but in the end it is our own values and character that will provide meaning that will be out own.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Rebecca celebrates the first anniversary of her marriage to Derrick and in so doing reveals the complexities of civil recognition of marriage and how the Virginia proposed constitutional ammendment not only discriminates against loving family units of same sex couples but also heterosexual family units which choose not to or cannot "marry" but are responsible for each other and dependant children. She points out that this ammendment inserts "Discrimination" into the Commonwealth's Bill of Rights.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Like it or not we are all connected and must live together on this space ship earth. Rebecca examines through examples and stories how we treat each other in small crisis and group isolations. How we as Unitarian Universalists succeed and fail to live up to our best selves in these situations. "In a world with so much violence and hatred, so much ignorance and strife, this vision of the deep and abiding connection between us can seem naïve or valuable in theory while being impossible in practice...I understand and share all these doubts and fears, the skepticism that the unity of which we speak at the end of every worship service here will ever be more than a hope."
Sunday, August 20, 2006
I have often wondered where I would be religiously if I had not grown up in a primarily Unitarian Universalist family. By temperament, I am generally accepting of authority and I tend to do and believe what I am told. I have sometimes thought this might mean that I would have stayed with whatever religious faith I had been raised in, whatever it was.
Sunday, July 2, 2006
Rebecca's impressions of St. Louis and the 2006 Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations's General Assembly. This includes her concerns as well as her enthusiasms.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Rebecca points out that Stories are the stuff of history. This includes our personal stories as well as our national stories. These stories help us remember who and what we are. The stories may or may not be true but in any case that is what we remember. How do they affect us?
Sunday, May 7, 2006
Rebecca discusses some of the main issues facing women at this time in history, sharing some of her own experience and looking as well at the world are children are growing into. How have things changed since the women’s liberation movement? What work is left to do?
Sunday April 16, 2006
Rebecca explores of the power of life, even in the darkest of times.
Sunday,April 2, 2006
Rebecca continues her exploration of what impact Unitarian Universalism has on the issues of our daily lives this Sunday, taking on the issue of work. How do our work lives and our spiritual lives intersect? What does UUism have to offer us in the realm of vocation?
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Last October Rebecca preached about how we prepare for our own death. In response, many people wanted to know how we can possibly prepare for the death of someone we love. Rebecca takes up that question this morning and, following the second service, there will be a workshop on grief, including how to talk with someone who is grieving.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Intelligent design, creationism, and the theory of evolution have been much in the news recently. In this sermon, purchased at the AUUC auction by Ray Burmester, Rebecca will examine the subject from a UU perspective, looking both at the issue itself and what lies beneath it.
Sunday,March 5, 2006
If you have been thinking about inviting a friend, neighbor, relative, or co-worker to check out AUUC, this would be a great Sunday to do so. Rebecca explores the liberal religious tensions in the question of how much free will we have. How in control of our lives are we really?
Sunday,February 12, 2006
Rebecca preaches the next sermon exploring the intersection of Unitarian Universalism and important parts of our everyday lives, this time focusing on marriage. She invites all who want to bring wedding pictures – your own or family members – to share with one another after the services.
Sunday, February 5, 2006
I have gotten a lot of comments on the fact that I am preaching about sin on the morning we welcome and dedicate new children in our religious community. I have actually been a little surprised at how many people have gone out of their way to say something. I will tell you what I have told all of them—this is not an accident of timing, or a strange coincidence. Once I knew we were going to have the child dedication today, I decided it would be the perfect Sunday to talk about sin.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
"A person will worship something—have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts—but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunday, January 15, 2006
The words of Mahandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. challenge me deeply. The call to nonviolence, in both the personal and the political spheres, is a call I desperately want to answer. I want as well to live with nonviolence as a central value in my own life, to have such command of my emotions and so much love that it overcomes all my fear. I want the strength, heart, and patience of Gandhi, who lived nonviolence with every breath he took.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
The story is well-known. A pregnant woman and her fiancé are traveling when the time comes for her to have her child. After being turned away at the inn and perhaps other places as well, they are offered a place in the innkeeper’s stable. Surrounded by the animals of the stable, the woman gives birth and lays her child in a manger.
Sunday, December 4, 2005
The biggest danger is this—the more that we and others define ourselves as consumers, the more we will bring the consumer mentality into every area of our life. We are no longer consumers only when we are in the mall or the grocery store. We have become consumers in our neighborhoods, in our religious communities, in our expectations from government, and, perhaps worst of all, in our relationships with other people.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
I think we have been cautious of entering this realm for a couple of very good reasons. First, given our emphasis on the individual’s ability and right to work through things themselves, we don’t want to meddle. We are rightfully wary of appearing to say that there is one right way to parent, one right way to be married, one right way to deal with money and we know what it is. In our caution, however, I believe we have not said enough. After all, Unitarian Universalism is based on a set of values and principles which has a great deal to say about how we interact with others, perhaps especially those closest to us. We are missing an opportunity if we do not talk together about how these values and principles work in our lives.
Sunday, November 6, 2005
Without a common story giving meaning to our lives, without the certainly that the stories we tell now will be meaningful to the generations that follow, it is much harder to build great monuments or grand places of worship. It is harder to leave such tasks only partly completed, trusting the next generation to carry on where we left off. It is harder to agree on and invest ourselves in anything beyond the utilitarian—what works best for us is this time and this place. We tend to approach our buildings and our bodies in a much more utilitarian way—are they working right? what’s the least we need to do in order to keep them safe and functional?
Sunday, October 30, 2005
With both fear and faith a natural part of who we are, we might argue that we do not have conscious choices to make in all of this. That things will simply be as they will be. I believe differently. I believe we can choose to nurture our faith, to grow it within ourselves and within others so that, gradually, there is less and less room for the fear.
This is part of what we are called to do together, here, in this Unitarian Universalist religious community. We are not here to deny the fears, to dismiss the realities that make the world a difficult and dangerous place.
Instead, we are here to support and love one another in spite of these dangers. We are here to encourage each other to find courage and hope to move not as our fears would make us move but instead to move with beauty. We are here to be for each other a source of strength and faith and to be a beacon of hope to the world.
Sunday, October 2, 2005
In this past year, this congregation went on an incredible journey with one of its members. A year ago August, Greg Cox, a member of AUUC since the late 1980’s, was diagnosed with cancer that had already spread to his liver and elsewhere. Though at first he responded well to chemotherapy, at some point this spring it became clear to him, and then to the rest of us, that he would not survive this illness.
At our services auction in June, Greg put in a winning bid to have the opportunity to choose a sermon topic for me to preach on this year. He asked me to explore the question of how do we live when we know we only have a few months left.
Sunday, September, 25 2005
Prophecies seem to be a part of all of human history. Predictions of what will happen, to both communities and individuals, sometimes good, sometimes bad are everywhere in religious scripture and the writings and speaking of a great range of people. Some of the time the outcome predicted is dependent on actions taken or not taken. In other words there are situations in which we might have some control over whether the prophecy comes true.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
You see, the choice of becoming a part of this religious community is only a beginning. Your journey is not over. None of our journeys is over. Choosing Unitarian Universalism is a first step, but there is much more to do in order to truly and fully claim our religious identity. I know this has been and continues to be true for me. I believe that it is also true for us a religious faith tradition. Not only do we each have work to do and discoveries to make about what it means to be individual Unitarian Universalists, but, as a denomination, we have work to do to understand who we are collectively, what holds us together as religious community.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
There is, as demonstrated by the Universalists of the late eighteenth century, a danger in this. The more the values that make us who we are become a part of mainstream culture, the more it becomes possible to celebrate and practice religious pluralism everywhere, the less we have a distinctive message and identity. I hope that, fundamentally, the power of our values in the world is more important to us than the survival of our particular denomination, and yet I do not want to see us simply swallowed up by society. Especially since I do believe there are much we still have to offer.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Last week I wrote about the importance of carrying our beliefs about the world and our place in it, and the ethical system that arises from those beliefs, into the everyday actions of our everyday lives. This week I want to talk about living in touch not only with our beliefs and ideas, but with the felt experience of the Spirit, the sacred, something larger and deeper than ourselves.
Written by Rev. Rebecca F. Cohen delivered by Anna Cochrane
Sunday, January 23, 2005
One of the central aspects of Unitarian Universalism is that we are challenged to build a faith life and practice that is authentic and true. We are not handed a set of religious beliefs or doctrines and told to build our lives upon them; rather we are encouraged to learn about a variety of traditions and understandings and to claim for ourselves what rings true in our hearts. How does what we believe help us to live more fully the commitment we have made to our partner and family?
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Only time will tell how the world will judge our nation's behavior at this time. We don't know what other nations and peoples will decide to do next. It is all to easy to fall into dichotomized thinking. In reality the problems and decisions are very complex. The complexities cannot be made clear on a 2 by 3 protest sign or into a one or two sentence sound bite. These only tend to polarize individuals.
Sunday, March 2, 2003
Third of three sermons in a series called Lives in Tension. The present conditions challenge us to consider the trade-off between what we consider freedom against our fears requiring security. We have all experienced in varying degrees the threat to our own security and safety as the result of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. How much are we willing to give up our freedom to ensure some degree of safety?
Sunday, February 9, 2003
Second of three sermons in a series called Lives in Tension. How can strength be manifest at the same time vulnerability is realized? These contrasting values are investigated in terms of our relationships with each other and the value of our religious context and principles.
Sunday, February 2, 2003
First of three sermons in a series called Lives in Tension. Neither humility or righteousness are words or concepts with which we Unitarian Universalists tend to be comfortable. Neither humility to the point of self-denial nor righteousness to the point of blindness is what I am after. It is important to maintain a balance how we think about humility and how we act in righteousness
Sunday, March 17, 2002
When did you feel most powerful? When did you feel most powerless? Is power real or imagined? If you have power can you use it wisely? These and many other aspects are investigated in this sermon.
Sunday, February 24, 2002
Evangelism, converting others to our religious tradition, has never really been one of our strong suits. Our passiveness about sharing our faith means that many people have never heard of us, or don't know what we are really about. To be Unitarian Universalist evangelists, we need to do nothing more and nothing less than live out this mission as fully and as publicly as we can. How do we go about this task?
Sunday, February 17, 2002
Could you be convicted of being a Unitarian Universalist? What evidence might "they" find in your house, your work, your associations, and your actions? At first glance, Unitarian Universalism does not appear to be a particularly demanding faith. But, despite appearances, Unitarian Universalism is an immensely challenging faith. What are those Challenges?
Sunday, February 10, 2002
What it means to be a Unitarian Universalist over generations with all the changes that have taken place in the denomination. The changes are reviewed from the denominations' founding as Universalists and Unitarians to the joining of the two to the present day. How does this adjust the perspectives of these whose ancestry has been part of this change?
Sunday, September 16, 2001
The tragic events of September 11 are recalled and our responses are called to mind. The initial disbelief, the shock, the worry about those we love, the frantic attempts to get in touch with them to see that they were OK, the fear, the anger and mourning all combined in a blur and mix that is hard to grasp. How do we handle the anger and call to action that results? The emotions are strong and how do we respond under the stress? We need to take time to grieve. We need to take time to resolve the anger and thoughtfully respond. There will by many ways to respond but we must never lose hope for a better world. Our individual response to evil is to do good.
Sunday, March 25, 2001
Most people in our congregation, as in other Unitarian Universalist congregations, come from another religious tradition or have no religious upbringing at all. Even those of us who have grown up in the UU faith have been exposed to and influenced by other religious traditions. How do we integrate those experiences into our personal faith? How does Unitarian Universalism deal with the great variety of religious perspectives in our congregations?
Sunday, March 4, 2001
Our Universalist heritage arose from the belief in universal salvation-that all would be reconciled to God and that none would suffer eternal punishment, regardless of religious beliefs or kind of life lived. Nowadays, when our beliefs about the afterlife vary so greatly, how do we understand universal salvation? Is there still a place in our religious tradition for this powerful vision of eventual unity?
Sunday, December 3, 2000
We human beings live our lives with the awareness of our own deaths. How does this knowledge shape us? On this Sunday, Rebecca explored the spiritual gifts and challenges of living life in the face of death.
