Rev. Babcock's sermons in 2007

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DATE	SERMON TITLE	Notes
12/9/2007	Preparing for the Season	We have now entered the Hanukkah and Christmas season. Unfortunately, this time of year can be difficult and crazy as we try to prepare for the perfect holiday, find the perfect gift, write the most brilliant holiday message, and keep our spirits, and the spirits of those we love, merry. It's supposed to be "the happiest time of the year," right? How might we take back the deeper meanings of this special season? How might we keep our expectations reasonable? There are so many wonderful themes if only we take the time to stop, look, and listen. The sermon will investigate.
11/25/2007	Choose a Star	My sermon title is taken from a line in David Ignatow's poem, "For My Daughter": "When I die choose a star / and name it after me / that you may know / I have not abandoned / or forgotten you." How would you like to be remembered when you die? Most of us would rather not think about it. But it is never too late (or too early) to begin thinking about it. The sermon will investigate.
11/18/2007	Being Conscious of Our Treasures	Thornton Wilder once wrote that, "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." The sermon will consider the truth of his claim.
11/11/2007	A Faith without Borders?	Having just returned from a weeklong meeting of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, I will take a look at some of the ways that our liberal religious faith is manifested around the world.
10/14/2007	New Wine for New Wineskins	Members of the FRS Historical Committee will be re-enacting a service of 1925 on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Third Parish of Newbury, which eventually became, well, us - The First Religious Society in Newburyport. Attendees of this service should be prepared for how theologically and liturgically different Unitarian services of 1925 were from Unitarian Universalist services today. My sermon is basically about change and how it is both inevitable and necessary and oh, by the way, a part of who we are as Unitarian Universalists.
10/7/2007	Too Dangerous, Too Small	My sermon for this morning takes its title from a little quote by William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: "The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love." It is a difficult world for families, but especially for our children. Truth and love may be the two most necessary commodities we have to survive in it. The sermon will investigate.
9/23/2007	Are We Worth Dying For?	This sermon is in recognition of International Peace Day on September 21. My title is shamelessly stolen from a sermon preached by Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes during another war, the First World War, the so-called "war to end all wars." Holmes's sermon was included in a volume of Unitarian sermons from 1918 entitled The Soul of America in Time of War. He was an uncompromising pacifist, and one of the twentieth century's great Unitarian preachers. The question he poses is valid, though we might not like the answer.
9/16/2007	The Regions of Kindness	The sermon takes its title from a line in Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Kindness": ". . .how desolate the landscape can be/ between the regions of kindness."
9/9/2007	Deep Waters	"The purposes of the heart are deep waters, but a person of understanding draws them out" (Proverbs 20: 5). The sermon will investigate the wisdom of this ancient saying.
8/26/2007	Making the World Habitable	Reflections on the poet Philip Booth