Unitarians in Edinburgh

Our Programme of Worship

Sermon Subjects for June 2009

Our Minister Rev Maud Robinson is conducting the services at the Dublin Church on 5, 12, 19 July and will be on leave on 23 and 30 August 2009.

05.07.09	'Make Plans and Take Pictures?' – visiting minister - Rev Bill Darlison The American academic Kai Krause says that the way to happiness is to 'make plans and take pictures' i.e. to live in the past and the future. How sound is this advice, and how does it square with the advice given by the world's spiritual luminaries?
12.07.09	Lacrimae Rerum - The Tears of Things – visiting minister - Rev Bill Darlison 'Lacrimae Rerum' is a phrase from Virgil's Aeneid and refers to the undeniable fact that to be human means to suffer. In this address I will look at the various ways in which this has been described in the religious traditions and suggest a possible response.
19.07.09	'Smiling through the Tears' – visiting minister - Rev Bill Darlison This follows on from the previous sermon. How can we continue to live happily, in spite of the fact that we have to suffer?
26.07.09	Embracing the Sinner within Ourselves and within Others - Rev Maud Robinson The Christian Feast of Mary Magdalene reminds us that Jesus, in common with other great spiritual leaders, held a special place in his heart for the outcast and the sinner. This may hold an important lesson for all of us.
02.08.09	August Living our Principles III - Rev Maud Robinson The third in a series of services taking an in-depth look at the religious principles outlined in our constitution, and which we aspire to live up to within our community and in the wider world. Our third principle challenges us to cherish the whole creation and respect the interdependence of the earth’s community.
09.08.09	Imago Dei - Rev Maud Robinson - with sermon by Rev Colin Bossen The phrase ‘imago dei’ is Latin for the image of God. In the book of Genesis it is written that ‘God created human beings in his own image’ (1:27). What if the reverse is true, and human beings have actually created God in our own image? How might such an idea challenge our understanding of God and humanity?
16.08.09	What’s the Difference? – Rev Maud Robinson Deep faith doesn’t have to have anything to do with what one believes about the nature of the universe, or the existence or otherwise of supernatural beings. So what’s the difference?
23.08.09	August Enlightenment’s Fruition in Darwin: Unitarian and Free Thinkers Influence - lay leader Martin Gienke Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, and his Lunar Men were centred in the Enlightenment. Darwin’s Unitarian background, and his contact with Edinburgh’s Free Thinkers, all shaped his values and scientific methods. Questioning, the wonder of nature, out-of-the box thinking, challenge to orthodox views and the importance of reasoning, all figure prominently in the Enlightenment and in Darwin’s approach to his scientific quest. The service will explore some of the connections, and the importance of these qualities, in today’s scientific and spiritual thinking.
30.08.09	Cosmos – member at St Mark’s Ann Sinclair Part of the stuff that we are made of originated in the big bang. Science is not cold, but rich and exhilarating, and no more so then when considering the origins of the universe. How can it but move us to wonder and awe?

A Typical Sunday Service at 11.00 am

Musical Prelude

Greeting

Good morning and welcome to St. Mark's the home of Unitarians in Edinburgh.

Lighting Of The Peace Candle

The candle is lit by a member of the congregation for whatever they choose to light it for. Among those for whom the candle has been lit have been:

people in the news for whom the candle lighter has a special concern
people of other faith traditions who are celebrating a major festival
concerns and causes in which the lighter has a special interest

Hymn 1

1) Down the ages we have trod
Many paths in search of God,
Seeking ever to define
The Eternal and Divine.

2) Some have seen eternal good
Pictured best in Parenthood,
And a Being throned above
Ruling over us in love.

3) There are others who proclaim
God and Nature are the same,
And the present Godhead own
Where Creation's laws are known.

4) There are eyes which best can see
God within humanity,
And God's countenance there trace
Written in the human face.

5) Where compassion is most found
Is for some the hallowed ground,
And these paths they upward plod
Teaching us that love is God.

6) Though the truth we can't perceive,
This at least we must believe,
What we take most earnestly
Is our living Deity.

7) Our true God we there shall find
In what claims our heart and mind,
And our hidden thoughts enshrine
That which for us is Divine.

Opening Words

Love is the spirit of this church,
and service is its law.

This is our great covenant:

to dwell together in peace
to seek the truth in love,
and to help one another.

Prayer/Meditation

This prayer uses words from the
Buddhist Metta Sutta and from the
Khasi (North East India) Unitarian tradition

Let us cultivate boundless goodwill.
Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.
Let none in anger or ill-will wish another harm.
Even as a mother watches over her child, so with boundless mind should one
cherish all living being, radiating friendliness over the whole world,
above, below, and all around, without limit.

O God, root and source of body and soul, we ask for boldness in confronting evil.
When you are within us, we have the power to countenance all that is untrue.
O Father and Mother of all humankind, may we redeem our failings by
the good work that we do. In the name of the one, the only God.

Church News & Announcements

The Month's Good Cause, chosen by a church member, and for which a collection bowl is put out every Sunday;
Intimations of events during the coming week;
Who the flowers are going to - someone sick, or housebound, or celebrating, or deserving our thanks;
Other notices which people may wish to share
Announcement of the collection

Collection and Musical Interlude

The organist usually plays whilst the collection is taken.

Readings

There are usually three readings. These three were used in a service centering on the theme of forgiveness:

SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN Matthew 18:21-22

Peter asked Jesus: "How many times can a companion wrong me and still expect my forgiveness? As many as seven times?"

Jesus replied to him
"My advice is not seven times, but seventy times seven"

FORGIVENESS Greta W Crosby Tree & Jubilee P54

"Forgiveness" is one word, but not one act alone. Forgiveness is the process we live through in order to restore a relationship. Forgiveness is the process of coming back together again with another, or with oneself, after a separation based on wrong doing, or grievous shortcoming. Sometimes the wrongdoing is the separation. Forgiveness involves the acknowledgement and, where possible, the mutual recognition of what went wrong, of what we are doing to right the balance, and especially of the meaning and importance of the relationship. Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is anchoring a wrong in its own time, letting it recede into the past as we live and move toward the future.

THE FINAL FORM OF LOVE by Reinold Niebuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Hymn 2

Hymn Board Mother Sprit, Father Spirit, Where are you?
In the skysong, In the forest, Sounds your cry.
What to give you, What to call you, What am I?

Many drops are, In the ocean, Deep and wide.
Sunlight bounces, Off the ripples To the sky.
What to give you, What to call you, Who am I?

I am empty, Time flies from me; What is time?
Dreams eternal, Fear infernal, Haunt my heart.
What to give you, What to call you, O, my God?

Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, Take our hearts.
Take our breath and Let our voices, Sing our parts.
Take our hands and Let us work to Shape our art.

Norbert F. Capek 1870-1942
[Unitarian martyr who died in Dachau Concentration Camp]
English version by Richard Frederick Boeke (b. 1931)
from translation of Paul and Anita Munk

Sermon

The sermon may be about any number of issues but among them will be:

questions of personal faith
matters of current ethical concern
topics about the Unitarian way in religion

Offerings

of Music this may be organ, piano or other music
of Silence a brief time for your own thoughts and prayers or simply time to rest in the quiet
of Words these words may relate to the sermon, may be prayer, mediation or reading.

This is one set of words appreciated by many people:

If recognising the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community,
the strength we gather will be our salvation.
If you are black and I am white,
it will not matter.
If you are female and I am male,
it will not matter
If you are older and I am younger,
it will not matter
If you are progressive and I am conservative,
it will not matter
If you are straight and I am gay,
it will not matter
If you are Christian and I am Jewish,
it will not matter
If we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened,
and that does matter.
In this spirit, we build community and move toward restoration.

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley

Hymn 3

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine;
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

Closing Words

May the compassion which was in Jesus and in Gautama be in us also enabling us to be healers, reconcilers and compassionate friends.
Amen