Call to Worship
“A Parable for Pulpit
Committees” by Clinton Lee Scott
Now it came to pass that while the elder in
Israel tarried in Babylon, a message came to him from a distant city saying,
come thou and counsel with us. Help us to search out a priest for the one that
has served us has gone mad. And the elder in Israel arose and journeyed to that
distant city. And when the men of affairs were assembled, the elder spake unto
them saying, what manner of man seeketh thee to be your new priest? And they
answered and said unto him, we seek a young man yet with the wisdom of gray hairs.
One that speaketh his mind freely yet giveth offense to no one. That draweth
the multitude to the temple on the Sabbath but will not be displeased when we
ourselves are absent. We desire one who has a gay mood yet is of sober mind.
That seeketh out dark sayings and prophecies yet speaketh not over our heads.
That filleth the temple, buildeth it up yet defileth not the sanctuary with a
Motley assortment of strangers. We seeketh one that put the instruction of the
young first but requireth not that we become teachers. That causeth the
treasury to prosper yet asketh not that we give more of our substance. Verily
we seek a prophet that will be unto us a leader but will not seek to change us,
for we like not to be disturbed. And the elder in Israel answered and said unto
them, when I have found such a priest I will indeed send him unto you, but you
may have to wait long, for the mother of such a one has not yet been born.
Sermon, Part 1
I’m
somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, somewhere in the middle
of a road trip. I’m 21 years old and
I’ve just been accepted to the Master of Divinity program at Harvard Divinity
School. I’m in the car with Tim, my
minister and friend and mentor, and he’s taking me along on a weekend preaching
trip to a small UU Fellowship. Tim and I
will co-preach the sermon for which I’ll receive a $25 honorarium, my first
paid ministry gig. I don’t think I was
worth that much.
Tim
was brilliant. He had five degrees: a
Bachelor degree, a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard, an MFA in creative
writing (with Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Dillard as his advisor), a Master in
Interdisciplinary Studies (with Marcus Borg as his advisor), and a Doctorate in
history. He served churches in Texas,
Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, and Maine.
He died from cancer a few years ago and I miss him. So, we’re in the car and Tim is holding
court, professing about the vocation of ministry.
Tim
observed that in medieval times, religious leaders were the ones within society
who were educated and literate.
Disciplines that we understand to be entirely secular today were once
extensions of theology and philosophy, available only to those who knew how to
read Greek and Latin. Civil law was an
extension of ecclesiastical canon law; medicine was learned alongside theology;
universities were established to train religious leaders.
Now,
I don’t want any of you to get the wrong idea here. I’m not holding up medieval society as a
model. I think the bumper sticker that
says “Religion ruled the dark ages” makes a valid point. And, especially at this moment in history
when theocracy is ascendant in Kansas, when the separation of church and state
is under attack, when science and reason and medicine and law are being
willfully ignored, I don’t want you to take what I’m saying the wrong way.
All
I am saying is that the ministries of many of those priests and monks and
theologians from centuries ago were anything but narrow. Take Michael Servetus, the Spanish theologian
who wrote a Unitarian theology and who also was the first medical doctor to
correctly describe the workings of the circulatory system. British Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley
advised Thomas Jefferson on religion and political philosophy and his science
laboratory helped to advance science’s knowledge of the chemistry of
gasses. This is to say nothing of
fascinating lives of hundreds of Roman Catholic cleric-scientists who advanced
scientific understanding over the course of centuries. The Trappist monks brew beer. A broad definition of ministry, indeed.
I’ve
begun with this long digression about ministry in the middle ages to make a
point about ministry in a roundabout way.
When we think of ministry narrowly, we miss the point. At Harvard Divinity School I was surrounded
by hundreds of students preparing for ministry, but most of them were not
preparing for careers as parish ministers.
The exceptions here were the Unitarian Universalists and some of those
who belonged to liberal Christian denominations such as the United Church of
Christ. Many of my classmates who
belonged to conservative or even mainline denominations had issues with the
politics or the theological orthodoxy of their denominations, and the gate to serving
the local church was the most tightly guarded gate. Many of my classmates wouldn’t bother to seek
ordination; some were barred from it outright on account of their gender or
sexual orientation. My classmates from
Harvard went on to find ministry outside the parish, becoming chaplains,
community organizers, and international activists. Large numbers went on to become the CEOs or
the Executive Directors of non-profit organizations and agencies. One of my friends became the executive
director of Boston’s largest domestic violence shelter. Others graduated from the Divinity School and
ran food banks or youth anti-violence programs or AIDS charities or hospice
care centers or international human rights organizations.
According
to my friend Tim, parish ministry is one of the last true generalist
professions. In the course of any given
week I write sermons, design worship services, teach classes, counsel
parishioners, visit people in their homes or in the hospital, officiate at
weddings and memorial services, work with committees of volunteers, and do all
kinds of behind the scenes management and administration. I also work with and speak on behalf of local
organizations whose values are aligned with Unitarian Universalist values. If that is not general enough for you,
consider these recent examples of ministry: a family in our church invited me
over to decorate Christmas cookies and answer their young children’s questions
about death; before the November elections and the August primaries I received
calls from members of the church on both the Kansas and the Missouri side
asking me for whom they ought to vote; a manager of a successful company came
to my office to talk through a difficult personnel decision and its ethical
implications. When the phone rings,
there is no telling what I’ll be asked.
I may never have been asked to make a scientific breakthrough as relates
to our understanding of the circulatory system – I’ve never been asked to brew
a Belgian ale either – but there are many years left in my ministry.
This
first part of the sermon is about my ministry, and I have to say that one of
the things that suits me particularly well about parish ministry is that it
does ask me to be a generalist. The
demands of the work are diverse. The
work includes solitary study, research, writing, and reflection and public speaking in front of several
hundred people and teaching and
facilitation of small groups and
meeting one-on-one. It demands
interactions with people of all ages.
The work is done in the minister’s study, in the sanctuary, in the
hospital, in people’s homes, in the program spaces of the church, in public,
and, well, just about anywhere. I also
should confess that I really do like that the work is largely self-directed,
well, self-directed and God-directed, but that is another sermon.
Another
thing that makes me a good match for parish ministry is the fact that I really
like the church as an institution. That
may seem obvious, but it’s important. I’ve
met people who thought they would like teaching, but couldn’t stand
students. I’ve met parish ministers
who’ve discovered that they don’t like parishioners. I like church people. I do not have any illusions. There is no such thing as a perfect
congregation just as there is no such thing as a perfect minister. Every church, even this one, has its share of
warts and blemishes, its challenges and frustrations. But despite all that, I like congregations. I like the way they bring together a pretty
startlingly diverse collection of people and asks them to go deep together, to
be vulnerable with each other, to be a community.
So,
I’ve just said why I think parish ministry suits me. But, I haven’t actually shared what exactly I
understand ministry to be. The very
first hymn we sang this morning, the lovely “Wake, Now My Senses,” with its
lyrics by UU minister Thomas Mikelson and its lilting Irish tune, is really a
hymn about ministry. And, I think it is
points at what I see as the essence of ministry.
The
first verse begins, “Wake, now, my senses, and hear the earth call.” The hymn is about receiving a calling. The second verse announces, “Wake, now, my
reason, reach out to the new; join with each pilgrim who quests for the
true.” So, perhaps the calling is to be
a teacher, a professor. The third verse
continues, “Wake, now, compassion, give heed to the cry; voices of suffering
fill the wide sky.” Now the calling is
different. The hymn is describing a
doctor, a practitioner of the healing arts.
But then the fourth verse changes the calling again. “Wake, now, my conscience, with justice thy
guide; join with all people whose rights are denied.” The fourth voice is about the calling to be a
lawyer. So, is the calling to be a
professor in search of truth, a doctor in search of healing, or a lawyer in
search of justice? Which is it? The fifth verse, answers with a resounding,
“Yes.” “Wake, now, my vision of ministry
clear.”
And,
just like that we’ve come around to my friend Tim’s point about the generalized
medieval figure of the minister, overlapping with scholarship, medicine, and
law. Understanding, health, and justice.
Learning,
healing, doing justice: these are not in conflict with one another. However, they can be in tension with each
other. And, ministry is there in that
tension, and, also, somehow above it.
That’s
what I want to say for now about my ministry.
Reading
“Anyone’s
Ministry” by Gordon McKeeman
Ministry
is
a
quality of relationship between and among human beings
that
beckons forth hidden possibilities.
inviting
people into deeper, more constant
more
reverent relationship with the world
and
with one another.
carrying
forward a long heritage of hope and
liberation that has dignified and informed
the
human venture over many centuries.
being
present with, to, and for others
in
their terrors and torments
in
their grief, misery, and pain.
knowing
that those feelings
are
our feelings, too.
celebrating
the triumphs of the human spirit
the
miracles of birth and life
the
wonders of devotion and sacrifice
witnessing
to life-enhancing values
speaking
truth to power
standing
for human dignity and equity
for
compassion and aspiration
believing
in life in the presence of death
struggling
for human responsibility
against
principalities and structures
that
ignore humaneness and become
instruments
of death.
It
is all these and much, much more than all of them, present in
the
wordless
the
unspoken
the
ineffable.
It
is speaking and living the highest we know and living with the knowledge that
it is never as deep, or as wide or as high as we wish.
Whenever
there is a meeting
that
summons us to our better selves, wherever
our
lostness is found
our
fragments are united
or
our wounds begin healing
our
spines stiffen and
our
muscles grow strong for the task
there
is ministry.
Sermon, Part 2
The
first section of my sermon began with medieval clerics. The second part begins with the Protestant
Reformation and Martin Luther. One of
the core organizing principles of the Protestant Reformation was the idea of
the “priesthood of all believers.” This
meant that people could experience God directly, without the mediation of a
priest. It also meant that people could
be trusted to read the Bible on their own and discover God’s word for
themselves. The Unitarian theologian
James Luther Adams, expanded on Luther’s idea, speaking about the “prophethood
of all believers,” essentially saying that the work of justice making is shared
among us. This second section of the
sermon is about your ministry and our shared ministry.
I
spoke about my ministry existing in that space of confluence and tension
between the seeking after understanding, the healing of hurts, and the work to
advance justice in our world. Interestingly
enough, our congregation’s mission statement touches on these three: spiritual growth, caring community, a
peaceful, fair, and free world. Your
ministry? I would say that your ministry
is exactly the same: to grow deeper in
understanding, to tend to each other’s pain, and to work for a more just
world. This description seems to work as
well as any.
I asked members of the church to
express what ministry means to them. One
member wrote, “My online dictionary gives one broad definition as
‘to attend to the needs of someone’. In that
sense, as members of the human species we are called to that level of ministry
for each other. Religion codifies what that might (should) look like, and
church gives us an opportunity to know what needs are out there, and the
collective inspiration, coaxing, and courage to step up to the plate
and do what needs doing.”
If
ministry is the advancement of understanding, healing, and justice, it follows
that each of us, in our own differences, might feel particularly drawn towards
one of these more than the others.
However, any one of these, on its own, may become grotesque and
unhealthy. Those who seek only after
truth may become paralyzed by inaction.
Simply being right may not save us.
The search for healing can become about simply feeling good. And, the pursuit of justice can become an
ineffectual martyrdom.
Ministry,
writes Gordon McKeeman, means speaking and living the highest we know, uniting
our fragments, healing our wounds, and stiffening our spines.
In
Unitarian Universalism, there was a term that began to be used in the early
1990s. The term was “shared ministry,” a
term that described the relationship between the minister and the congregation,
and between the members of congregations themselves. I’m interested in why this term emerged when
it did. This term was developed by a
Protestant woman named Jean Trumbauer whose concepts were carried into
Unitarian Universalism. It’s been
pointed out to me that it was at about precisely this time that Unitarian
Universalism as a whole began to become more comfortable with theological
language. Many lay people began to see
their service to one another and the world as ministry. Earlier in our history, many ministers even
rejected the concept of ministry!
One
of the biggest programs of the UUA during this time was the extension ministry program,
a program designed to help small, lay-led congregations to be able to get a professional
minister. The UUA matched ministers with
congregations seeking their first minister and then gave the congregations a considerable
amount of money.
This
program had its share of successes as well as its share of failures. The ones that were successful were the ones
that had a shared and expansive sense of ministry while the ones that failed
had a limited sense of ministry.
The
ones that were successful saw it this way:
What a boon! What an opportunity! Now we have the capacity to create and
develop and experiment with and explore all these new avenues for ministry. We rejoice in these possibilities. They reacted to the presence of professional
minister by feeling liberated to develop their own ministries as members of a
congregation. This was the path towards
expansiveness.
The
ones that failed saw it differently: now
that we have a professional minister, we have someone to do all the work of
ministry. This ministry is important, so
let’s make sure we manage our minister.
She represents a big investment, so let’s watch her closely. This was the path towards smallness and
frustration.
In
the words of Gordon McKeeman, “Ministry is a quality of relationship between
and among human beings that beckons forth hidden possibilities… being present with, to, and for others…
celebrating the triumphs of the human spirit… witnessing to life-enhancing
values and speaking truth to power... all these and much, much more than all of
them.”
As
long as there is truth to be discovered, as long as there are hurts to be
healed and pain to be lessened, as long as there is justice to be pursued,
there is the need for ministry calling us, calling all of us, on.
