Today’s sermon is the first of a series of close readings of sacred texts. Today was the launch of our children’s and youth programming for the year, and it seemed appropriate to take “teaching our children” as the sermonic focus too. Enjoy.
Peace,
Rev. Laura
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Living with the Texts: Hear, O Israel!
The Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig, Minister
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton
September 19, 2010
So what’s this about “Living with the Texts,”
the first half of my sermon title today?
The texts I’m talking about
are the great scriptures of world religions—
like the Bible, the Qur’an, the ancient Hindu texts,
the Buddhist sutras, the Tao Te Ching.
For the next nine months, I’m going to be preaching
on a different one of these texts each month,
because I think they have a lot to teach us.
Let me be clear right up front:
I’m not trying to say the Bible or any other scripture
should be the boss of our spiritual lives.
Ever since Emerson and Thoreau back in the 19th century,
we Unitarians have been saying, we get our religious authority—
we figure out what we believe and how we think we should live—
based on our own personal experience and our own inner wisdom.
Over the years, we freed ourselves from the idea
that we had to accept whatever the Bible said.
We learned to trust ourselves. Continue reading →
