Past Sermons
Did you miss a recent sermon? Or want to share one with a friend? Would you like to get a flavor of the kind of messages you might hear at First Parish? Click one of the sermons below, or browse our video archive on YouTube.
At the holidays, some of us will dust off recipes handed down from our families: instructions for making holiday meals, cookies and other treats. Our families also pass down recipes of faith, instructions and models for what it means to be a person of faith. How do we relate to and reckon with the religion we inherited from our families in ways that allow us to develop a life-giving spirituality of our own? Rev. Rob Hardies preaches
"Come with whatever seed of faith you can muster, and listen…” -Enfleshed Liturgies
Join us for a celebration of faith and doubt through story and song. Matt Meyer will reflect on a high stakes wager, a secret doubt, and what it takes to stand up to bullies in heaven and earth.
Matt is an itinerant troubadour and worship leader who has led hundreds of services for UU congregations across the country. He has a degree in hand drumming and serves as Director of Community Life for Sanctuary Boston.
One consistent element in our worship service is the hymn Spirit of Life. More than a song, it is a prayer - a plea, even - for Spirit to draw near: Spirit of Life, come unto me. For the hymn’s creator, Carolyn McDade, this hymn and this plea emerged from a difficult political moment, not unlike the one we face today. What wisdom can McDade’s hymn offer us now? And what does Spirit of Life reveal about our shared understanding of the sacred? Rev. Rob Hardies preaches.
17th century Japanese pot Matsuo Basho writes:
Deep into autumn
and this caterpillar
still not a butterfly.
As we find ourselves deep into autumn - deep into this long, tender transition of our lives and our world - let us come together amid the uncertainty of what comes next, holding one another in possibility. Sophia Doescher preaches.
Pema Chodron writes: “To. live is to be willing to die over and over again.” As we grow and change, we are constantly “dying” to our old selves and being “born” anew. Perhaps, then, we know more than we think we do about the border between life and death. Perhaps we’ve already glimpsed our lives from both sides. This All Souls Sunday we remember our dear, departed loved ones, and consider how accepting our mortality can be a source of power and strength in our lives. Rev. Rob Hardies preaches.
As the days grow cooler and shorter, we find ourselves turning to our community for a sense of warmth. With the autumn holiday of Samhain just around the corner, we take this time to reflect on all the things that hold us together, from the solemn and serious to the light-hearted, joy-filled and serendipitous. Valentin Frank preaches.
Video Recording
There is within each of us a place of inner peace and strength. In a time when we so often feel buffeted and worn down by the world, how do we re-discover and regularly return to this place? How can we move through the world from this place of peace and strength? Rev. Rob Hardies preaches.
Video Recording
What is lost when we place the "objective” above lived experience, memory, or the truth of our interconnected lives? Join Sophia Doescher and our Indigenous Justice Working Group as we gather the threads of perfectionism, urgency, and objectivity to practice truth-telling that resists erasure and reclaims our shared humanity. Sophia Doescher preaches
