Matt Alspaugh – A storm is brewing. Some of you remember the days before weather apps on your phone, before 21 day forecasts, before even computerized weather prediction, maybe even before weather satellites. A time when the prediction from the weatherman was really no more than prophecy.
You’d read the sky for storms, red sky in the morning – sailor’s warning, or the green sky presaging hail or tornadoes. You’d watch the dial of the barometer on the wall, comparing the two needles to discern dropping air pressure. With flags flapping, trees beginning to move in freshets of wind, you might look apprehensively at the line of dark clouds, and do the very few things you could to prepare. For us, it was to put the lawn furniture and the garbage cans in the garage, and then just hunker down inside, to see if this one was just a typical storm, or ‘the big one’.

Matt Alspaugh — “What was I thinking?” I’m asking myself now as I put together this sermon. This is the second of a series on our Seven Principles, this one focusing on the second principle, our affirmation and promotion of “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.” Fair enough, but our monthly theme is, “What does it mean to be a community of prophecy?” OK, second principle, prophecy, but also this is Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, and it seems wrong to leave him out. But King was kind of a prophet, so maybe. But there’s more — our Annual Meeting follows this service, so I ought to at least touch on what is salient for UUYO. And maybe I should tie it all up with that bible verse from Amos that this sermon is named after – “Let justice roll down like a river”. You might put on life preservers – this could be a wild ride!

Sermon – “Every Person Counts”

Introduction

Years ago, I took a pottery class at a local park. We learned the basics of throwing pots, of smashing a lump of clay down on the center of the wheel, then gradually bringing the wheel up to speed as we pushed the lump into a more or less hemispherical blob, perfectly centered on the wheel. That was the first hard thing – get it wrong and nothing else would go right.

Then the next step was to somehow push down in the center and with your other hand on the outside, begin to draw up the wall of a pot. Keeping your hands wet, always keeping your hands wet, moving over this wall, you could gradually elongate and thin the material and give it a graceful form.

Or maybe it would buckle and cave in — as it did for me, again and again. I think I was cursed with genetically too-dry hands. Or my sense of center was off. Or something.