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Note: Sermons for all weeks are not available at this time. Links will be added as more sermons are published.

September 12 - Water Communion Sunday. We begin a new church year with our annual Water Communion service. Bring water from a favorite place you've been since June (Dudley Pond, the Gulf of Maine, your garden hose?). No Sunday School or child care; everyone in church.

September 19 - Sermon by Ken, "Our Unitarian Universalist Identity", as he begins his 26th year in Wayland and the church begins its 360th!

September 26 - Sermon by Kimi,  "What stones do we have?" The essay "Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism", by James Luther Adams, is the jumping off spot to give each of us some stones we can carry in our pockets.

October 3 - Sermon by Ken, "Ralph Waldo Emerson: Prose Poet of Paradox" Over a century and a half after Emerson began publishing essays, people continue to read them by choice. Today's sermon presents a quick biography, and then a brief introduction to Emerson's thought and his writing style.

October 10, Solidarity Sunday - Sermon by Steve Landale, ministerial intern, "Love in Dreams, Love in Reality". Unitarian Universalists often talk about diversity as if it were a happy utopia with no cost. What are the real challenges and benefits of being a truly "Welcoming Congregation"?

October 17 - Sermon by Ken and Kimi on finding healthy responses to frustration and anger. The service marks the start of a national week of concern for domestic violence; the week will culminate with an area-wide vigil on Saturday, October 23, at 7 p.m., beginning at the Methodist Church on Main Street in Cochituate.

October 24, Bring a Friend Sunday! - Sermon by Ken. If there is anyone you have wanted to introduce to Unitarian Universalism or to First Parish, this is the Sunday to do it. Visitors will be greeted warmly, but without any pressure. Both services will try to express our faith in a way that an outsider may find both rewarding and illuminating.

October 31 - Sermon by the Rev. Deborah Pope-Lance, "Things That Go Bump in the Night". Deborah, an intern in the 1970s and now an affiliate minister at First Parish, is a UU community minister who provides programming and consultation on the ethics of ministerial practice and congregational life in various denominations.

November 7-Sermon by Ken, "Elizabeth Tarbox." The Newcomers' Brunch follows the second service, at 12:30 p.m. in the Vestry.

November 14 - Sermon by Ken, "Akhenaten: the First Heretic".

November 21 - Thanksgiving Sunday service with a homily by Ken. The Children's Choir will sing.

November 28-Maddie Sifantus and members of the Wayland Golden Tones will lead a service around the theme, "Singing Through Our Lives". In our age-segregated society, churches are some of the few truly multigenerational places we have left. Music is a bridge between people, a place to tell our stories, and a place to let our light shine. Come see-and hear-what we mean.

December 5 - Sermon by Steve Landale, ministerial intern, on the spiritual lessons that Hanukkah and the Christian Advent season have for our over-scheduled lives. If you feel you don't have time to come to church, then this one's really for you!

December 12, Music Sunday - First Parish Choir, soloists, and assembled orchestra will perform Bach's Cantata no. 142, Uns ist ein Kind geboren ("Unto Us a Child Is Born"). Ken Sawyer, liturgist.

December 19, Christmas Sunday-Homily by Ken, "Paying Jesus Homage" Children's Choir will sing.

December 26 - The day after Christmas, we'll be gathering at First Parish in Sudbury (in Sudbury Town Center) for a special service with three Unitarian Universalist congregations: Sudbury, Framingham, and Wayland. Ministerial intern Steve Landale will be preaching on what Unitarian Universalism has to offer the next century.

January 2 - Sermon by Ken, "Finding Your Religion", about which Ken says, "How could I resist? There is a new book out, bound to be a best seller, written by a UU minister I've known well for over twenty years, Scotty McLennan, chaplain at Tufts. The book cover features a depiction of Scotty by his college roommate, "Doonesbury" artist Gary Trudeau, and on the back cover the book is endorsed by their chaplain at Yale, William Sloan Coffin. Scotty's topic-and mine in this sermon-is expressed in the book's subtitle: 'When the Faith You Grew Up with Has Lost Its Meaning.'"

January 9 - Sermon by Affiliate Minister Ben Hall on his experience as a chaplain working with psychiatric, chronically ill, and disabled patients in Rhode Island. Ben grew up in First Parish and is now a First Parish Affiliate Minister.

January 16 - Sermon by Ken Sawyer, "The Minister, Martin Luther King, Jr.", the first in a five-part series of winter sermons on heroes of faith

January 23 - Sermon by Ken Sawyer on a very different (indeed, a fictional) hero of faith, Harry Potter.

January 30 - Sermon by Ken Sawyer, on the third of five heroes of faith, Abner Kneeland, the 19-century Universalist minister who was the last American convicted of blasphemy (for views that many of us now hold). Ken's series will conclude in February with his personal favorite, onetime Wayland resident Lydia Maria Child, and the 18-century German playwright and poet Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, author of the words to the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and (like the others, even Harry Potter) a notable religious liberal.

February 6 - Sermon by Ken on Lydia Maria Child, "The Most Interesting Person Who May Have Sat in Your Pew, Except You."

February 13 - Sermon by Kimi, "Control: What Is It Good For?" In the deepening of winter, we have time to reflect on those moments when our lives felt out of control. Is there anything we can do about it?

February 20 - Sermon by Ken on Friedrich Schiller, "Joy, Thou Goddess: The Protestant Spirit Turns Pagan."

February 27 - Wisdom from the World's Religions." Ministerial Intern Steve Landale and members of the World Religions class will lead us in an exploration of what we as Unitarian Universalists have to learn from the major religions of the world.

March 5 - Sermon by Ken on this year's UUA study resolution "Can We Live On Less? Must We? Should We?"

March 12 - Sermon by Kimi, "No One Right Way: The Ideas of Daniel Quinn". The second in our series on finding responsible ways to live.

March 19 - Sermon by Ken, "A Community. A Vision: Making Them Last."

March 26 - Sermon by Ken, "So Far We've Come, So Far to Go," with help in the service from members of the Racial Relations Task Force and others.

April 2 - Sermon by Kimi, "Kimi's Top Ten Ways to Rally the Family".

April 9 - Sermon by Ken, "How Judaism Blessed the World."

April 16-Music Sunday-The First Parish Choir will present Henry Purcell's "Come Ye Sons of Art." Kimi Riegel, Liturgist.

April 23 - Easter Sunday-An intergenerational service to celebrate the themes of the season: rebirth, renewal, and the blessings of life. Homily by Kimi.

April 30- "Question and Answer Sunday," a long-time favorite at First Parish. Parishioners will get to pose any questions they want to Ken, Kimi, Steve, and Polly.

May 7 - Sermon by Ken,  "The Faith Of The Failed."

May 14--First Parish Youth: "Teenage Life Today: More than Secks, Druggs, and Rok and Role." The high school youth of First Parish would like to invite you to worship with them and share in what life is like for them at this turn of the millennium.

May 21 - Sermon by Kimi, "Anna Garlin Spencer: A Unitarian Woman of Note." Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer's picture hangs on the wall at Kimi's alma mater, Meadville Lombard Theological School. Come this Sunday and learn about this little-known voice for all women's issues.

May 28 - Sermon by Ken, recalling some of the memorable people who have died since last Memorial Day weekend.

June 4 - While clergy and members of the congregation are on retreat in New Hampshire, the service at First Parish will be led by a distinguished visiting Unitarian Universalist minister.

June 11 - Flower Sunday-Bring a flower to contribute to the Flower Communion; you'll get a different one back.
 

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