Sermons/Talks/Lectures/Remarks

2006 Sermons

Christmas Eve Calling
Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

8PM Candlelight Service

12/24/06

I remember the Christmas Eves of my youth fondly. The family would pile into the car, huddling close to stay warm in the Ohio cold, sliding around on the vinyl car seats to try to heat them up more quickly. As we drove over the branching streets and past the occasional houses decked for the season with colored lights, the giddy anticipation of Christmas was almost too much to bear. Upon our arrival at the Presbyterian Church, the blast of warm air greeted us, as well as the familiar sanctuary filled with poinsettias and people dressed in their finest holiday attire. I remember how artificially bright the church seemed at night. Compared to the scene on Sunday morning, it was like another world.

Head for the Balcony

Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

December 10, 2006

At a workshop a few years back, I heard a consultant talk about how difficult it can be for leaders in any organization or family to see the big picture. Most of the time, he said, we get so caught up in the dance of life that we forget all the others dancing with us and beside us. He said it is imperative that we create opportunities to get ourselves off the dance floor from time to time and take a view from the balcony. Once we are looking from above, metaphorically speaking, we may see things that were impossible to see when we were busy in the hustle below.

9-11 24/7

Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
September 17, 2006

We were shaken from our slumber Tuesday morning

To news of unthinkable horror

To images of terror and a blatant disregard for humanity.

Shock, disbelief, sorrow bulldozed our spirits,

Leaving us little room for anything more than anger, grief and mourning.

Everything seems different now.

What is Our Sermon?
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
August 28, 2006

The first question is What is your sermon?

What is your sermon? Obviously you get to preach it from a pulpit the way I get to. Still, I contend, you do have a sermon. It’s the sermon you preach by the way you choose to live … the sermon described so well, I think, by Victoria Safford in our reading this morning, the sermon that is expressed every day as each of us goes “out blinking into the glare of our freedom, into the wilderness of work and the world” and determines what our commitments will be…how much love we will bring with us…how much arrogance…how much forgiveness, hope, love and gratitude we will carry as we return, each glorious and pain-filled time, to our walk towards morning. So, what is your sermon?

SUMMER TALKS/PRESENTATIONS

And The Pursuit of Happiness August 13, 2006 Elaine Rockwell

What's in it for us? Christianity and Community

August 6, 2006 -- Mary R. Sawyer

I'm Still Living My Life and I'm Not Beaten Yet!

July 16, 2006 --Ruthanne Harstad

The Public Service Gene July 30, 2006 --Louise Alcorn

Analysis for Fun July 9, 2006 -- Terry Swanson

The Power of Now July 2, 2006 -- Bob Sanda

Personal Watermelon May 25, 2006 -- Greg Pelley

Always a Sunset Glow
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
May 28, 2006

Life, after all, is our poem. Despite the limitations embedded in its language, we can interpret its metaphors for ourselves. We can translate our memories into its body, weaving them into stanzas of remembrance of those who have known.we "only have to say their names, ask them inside."

That night brought home the wisdom of the quote of liberal theologian Henry Nelson Wieman upon which I have built today's service: "When.[we] become sufficiently mature to apprehend the deeper meanings.[we] begin to die. The glow of life is always a sunset glow.

Not So Bad Mom (and Dad)
A service for Mother's Day Weekend
Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
May 13 & 14, 2006

If we have entered into the challenge of raising children ourselves, it is possible that some of the judgments of our parents we once clung to so easily may begin to fall away. An older friend of mine referred to this as softening. She told me that her adult son began to "soften" once he became a father. He treated her more kindly, took more of an interest in their relationship, started to give her a break. She called it softening, but maybe it's more like tenderizing.being pounded by the challenges of dealing with our own children's needs and expectations may help us see how the expectations we had of our parents were not so helpful (or fair). After all, parenting is one complicated enterprise.

Not Over Yet
--a service for Easter Weekend--
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
4/15 and 4/16/06

I love this weekend...this Easter weekend.especially in a UU church.because I believe the underlying message of Easter.that something new can arise from death.even painful, tragic death. is much too important to ignore or to assume it only belongs in the hands of literalists who maintain that one must believe the Bible as fact, who refuse to consider the Bible as the unwieldy, multi-authored, and multi-purposed literature most scholars believe it to be.

Even if I doubt the literal truth of the Gospel's resurrections stories, I still find meaning in them because I have seen their metaphorical truth.

A Living Wage is Right for Everyone
UUSC Justice Weekend
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
3/26/06

Simply put, poverty is a crisis in this country. Certainly the scenes from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina brought this fact home for most of us. But what is so troubling about the poverty that we are experiencing now as a nation is that so many of the impoverished work full-time jobs.often times physically challenging and emotionally demanding full-time jobs.with salaries that do not cover the basic expenses of life. In fact, nearly one in three children living below the official poverty line currently live in families where someone works full time year round-a 75% increase since 1991.

Everything I Needed to Know in Life I Learned As.
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
1/28/06 & 1/29/06

The day I first met the Savick family, I was wearing an orange plaid suit. I met them at Cedar Point, an Ohio amusement park where I had been hired for the summer to wander around "frontier trail" and interact with customers as "Doc Marcus," a snake-oil salesman.

We Are Who We Know
--a service for MLK weekend--
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
1/14/06 & 1/15/06

Paradoxically, the more we seek safety, the more dangers appear, and the more anxious we become. Only as we dare become open to the unexpected and the unknown do we understand how much greater than safety it is to be free.

Winter Interest
Rev. Mark Stringer
1/7/06 & 1/8/06

when I learned about "winter interest," it was as if my eyes had been suddenly refocused. I began to regard the landscape differently, searching for details amidst the white and gray of winter that I had previously overlooked.or maybe taken for granted. It's not that I had never seen these details before.. I just don't think I had properly appreciated them. Tree bark, in particular, became fascinating to me. Like wrinkly elephant skin or tubes of intricate sculpture, the tree trunks caught my eye.and my fingers, too.

At the Turning of the Year
Rev. Mark Stringer
12/31/05 & 1/1/06

Don't feel there is enough time in a day to be thoughtful about life? You'll be glad to know that this weekend, the good folks at the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service are delaying the start of the new year by adding a second to the world's atomic clocks.