Sermons
As, first, a member, and later a UU minister, I have been privileged to be able to share my thoughts with my own congregation in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as well as with other congregations in Germany, Switzerland and, in an online environment, around the world. Here is a small selection.
2005
The Global Ethic
“Our world is experiencing a fundamental crisis: a crisis in global economy, global ecology, and global politics. The lack of a grand vision, the tangle of unresolved problems, political paralysis,
mediocre political leadership with little insight or foresight, and in general too little sense for the ...[more]
God or no God? And does it matter?
Approximately 400 years or so ago, a debate that is still going on today started between Catholic theologians and philosophers about whether there is a God who is personally active in the world and in the lives of individuals, on the one hand, of whether there is any god at all, on the other hand, with varying levels of intensity depending on where the writers find themselves on the spectrum between those two extremes....[more]
2012
How to Become a Prophet
”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness...[more]
2014
Burning the Light of Hope
Back in June, when the world seemed a calmer, simpler and more peaceful place, I had an idea for a sermon to start off the new season. It was based on the simple observation that, although the world was a very dangerous place, that danger had been kept relatively distant. Dutch soldiers...[more]
2015
​
Contemplating Easter and the End of the World
Today, in churches all around Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia/Oceania, Easter is being celebrated. The Christian Easter. For those who somehow missed the details,
it’s a tale of redemption for the...[more]
2015
​
Amor Fati: Love your Fate?
Back a couple of millennia ago, but before Christianity had taken over, the Roman emperor was ruled by a philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius. A member of the Roman upper classes, he had taken the robes of a philosopher relatively early in live and was never destined to become...[more]
2015
​
Divine Perfume
By a very long shot, the most common way people come to religion, the way people have nearly always come to religion, is to be born into it. It’s a form of spiritual inertia, really. Your parents...[more]
2016
​
The Ends of the World
The summer has arrived...not calendrically, but meteorologically. And that brings us to the end of another service season....a season in which we have seen some familiar faces, Richard and Jopie Boeke, Dallis Rademaker...[more]
2016
​
The First Principle in Action
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us...[more]
2016
​
Spellcasting for Beginners
Casting spells has been part of the religious and spiritual landscape for as far back as we can remember and as far back as we can reconstruct based on paleontological and archaeological finds.
The nature of spells has followed more or less a standard pattern since those early beginnings: The supplicant asks a...[more]
2017
​
Between heaven and earth: the last border
Sermon for the first European Unitarians Together retreat in Neu-Ulm, Germany.
​
A man was driving through his neighbourhood when he saw a little girl sitting in front of the Catholic Church with a cardboard box filled with puppies.
“Catholic puppies for sale,” she called out to passersby. “Catholic puppies for sale.”
The man smiled and...[more]
​
2017
Most Favourable Interpretation
“So,” says one well-informed citizen to another, “what’s your opinion about what’s going on in the NFL with the ‘taking a knee’ protests?”
“Absolute rubbish,” say the other.
“Probably,”says the first. “But tell me anyway.” ...[more]
2018
​
Also Sprach Zarathustra
The other night, my wife and I were binge watching the ‘docudrama’ about the Unabomber, a homegrown terrorist in the United States. It’s a story that only lightly follows the real investigation, but one thing it got really right was the use of so-called forensic linguistics to track the Unabomber down. In a
nutshell, that methodology...[more]
2019
​
Things I learned from Jeroen
Back in July, many of you will remember, we gathered, along with some out of town visitors from other EUU fellowships, the Women’s Group, and Taco Ijzerman, in the Flevopark on
July 6th to celebrate the solstice. It was cut somewhat short due to rain, but was still nice to be able to get together for a less formal activity. Less formal, but not less spiritual, however.
We witnessed, for example, the dramaturgical battle ...[more]
2022
What's my motivation?
In just a few weeks, I shall be coming to the end of my time as an integrity officer with the Dutch Ministry of Defence. In the slightly more than 11 years that I’ve been doing it, my focus has been on behaviour in an institutional context, specifically a military context, and understanding ...[more]