Past Sermons

The beautiful alchemy that occurs when people meet at Spirit levels is widespread in arts and religious communities. Improvisation through deep friendships results in outcomes greater than the sum of the parts. This service will explore living with vision and creativity, in music and word. 

As we celebrate the Year of the Ox this Lunar New Year, how can we focus our attention and intention on building relationships that are strong and can survive even the harshest of circumstances? Dr. Kwong shares his personal and spiritual journey this past year and the role his friends and families have played to ensure mutual survival and even growth.

Dr. Kwong is the current ministerial credentialing director and previously congregational life staff for the UUA’s Pacific Western Region. He is also a program leader for the UU College of Social Justice and once served as the minister of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, where President Barack Obama went to Sunday School as a child.

This service will explore knowing when, how, or if to mend a friendship that has become frayed or broken. It will explore the ways in which trauma can influence our relationships and the ways in which we can heal from wounds, hurts, and trauma in self, others, church, and the wider world.

Our Vespers worship service is modeled after the traditional Taizé worship service, which uses silence, scripture, prayer, and repetitive singing of short chants and rounds to quiet the mind and promote deep meditation. The Taizé Community promotes peace and justice through prayer and meditation. Our Vespers service mirrors Taizé-style attention to silence, holy words, prayer, and singing, but has also evolved to include other meditative traditions such as yogic singing and Buddhist chanting. Followed by a time for community gathering. Every second Wednesday of the month (now virtual, through Zoom).

Click here to log in to Zoom.
Dial in: 301.715.8592; meeting ID: 997 7201 2495; passcode: 927624

Our friendships range in depth and breadth; from one-time friends representing a particular shared experience in your life; to long-time forever friends. Spiritual friendships are ones that have been sustained throughout a period of time and whose partners keep returning to one another because they share some core beliefs and values. In this service, we’ll hear from some members who have maintained a relationship throughout the years. We’ll reflect on the power and importance of those relationships.

The potent combination of long-term pandemic, decades of racial reckoning, and January insurrections is a lot to bear. When grief accumulates, and anger rises, we might find solace in resistance. How do we find a way through lament and sorrow towards the resistance of collective action?

Speaking on a call in November, one of our organizing partners said “The win is not the election. The win is when our communities have what they need.” This is about more than just end goals—it’s about how we do the work. This sermon will reflect on All Souls’ strengths, challenges, and opportunities as a progressive congregation in the nation’s capital.

Conventional Wisdom might suggest that in the faith-filled heart there is no place for anger. But anger is a natural emotion. What are the uses of anger? The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr said that we must be maladjusted to the ills of society. How can we use our anger creatively for a more just world?

Rev. Johnson, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of South Fork, has passion and expertise for racial justice work and ministry with youth. Before ministry, Kimberly worked as a union organizer with the UAW. She also taught Women’s and Gender Studies at New Jersey City University.

Our Vespers worship service is modeled after the traditional Taizé worship service, which uses silence, scripture, prayer, and repetitive singing of short chants and rounds to quiet the mind and promote deep meditation. The Taizé Community promotes peace and justice through prayer and meditation. Our Vespers service mirrors Taizé-style attention to silence, holy words, prayer, and singing, but has also evolved to include other meditative traditions such as yogic singing and Buddhist chanting. Followed by a time for community gathering. Every second Wednesday of the month (now virtual, through Zoom).

Click here to log in to Zoom.
Dial in: 301.715.8592; meeting ID: 997 7201 2495; passcode: 927624

The events of this past Wednesday will stay with us for a long time to come. This morning’s sermon will reflect on this moment in history in light of the theme of resistance. We’ll also welcome the virtual presence of Bokamosa to bring us music, dance, and song. 

It’s Bokamoso Sunday! The Bokamoso Youth can’t visit with us in person this year, so we’ll celebrate them through video and music.

Most of us could not say farewell to 2020 fast enough! It’s a new year and with it comes the hope of a healthier and more hopeful 2021. It’s natural to use early January as a time to look back to the past and forward to the future. What lessons do we resist learning; which ones should we carry with us into 2021 from All Souls past – and how might they help shape the future?

The last Sunday of this year falls on the second day of Kwanzaa, a day to celebrate the Kwanzaa principle known as “Kujichagulia.” This day acknowledges the importance of “self-determination” for the Black community, for peoples of color all over the world, and, indeed, for everyone. It affirms our right to determine the trajectory of our own journeys, to set the course for our own futures, and to have access to our own resources to forge the path ahead. Join us for a service inspired by the second principle of Kwanzaa and anchored in the words of James Baldwin, Lila Watson, and one of All Souls’ sainted poets, Mary Oliver.