a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Neighborhood Sunday, September 28th, 2003
READING: Luke 10: 25-37
On Easter Sunday, in the year 2000 (which was, depending on how you want to calculate it, either the last Easter Sunday of the Second Millennium, or the first Easter Sunday of the Third) I got up before dawn in order to catch the early train for the four-hour trip from Aalborg, Denmark (which is located near the tip of the Jylland peninsula) to Copenhagen, so that I could attend services at the Unitarisk Kirkesamfund or "Unitarian Church Union" -- the only surviving indigenous Unitarian Congregation in Scandinavia.
At that point I had been living in Denmark for about a month. Technically I was a visiting doctoral fellow at the School for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Research on Interculturalism and Transnationality (more commonly known by the acronym "SPIRIT"), but in reality I had a very nice stipend from the Danish government to spend a semester in Europe basically doing whatever I wanted to...probably the closest thing to a MacArthur "genius" award I'll ever see.
Naturally, one of the things I was very curious about was religion, and in particular the odd phenomenon that in Denmark, where the "Folkekirke" or "People's Church" is supported by tax revenues, only about 2-3% of the people themselves actually attend services on any given Sunday, whereas here in the United States, where we have a voluntary church system, church attendance typically runs between 40% and 90% (or sometimes even more, depending upon what part of the country you live in).
I don't know that I ever really answered that question to my satisfaction (although I do have my theories), and I have to admit, it really wasn't much on my mind that morning either as I rode the train from Aalborg to Copenhagen, since the day before (also as part of my cultural research) I had attended something called a "Paaske Frokost" or "Easter Brunch" -- basically a six-hour party that began at two in the afternoon and continued until no one was left standing... herring, salmon, roast lamb, (and of course, Danish ham), potato salad, pasta salad, bean salad, deviled eggs, all lubricated with liberal quantities of Aquavit -- the "water of life" -- which really goes down quite smoothly after the second or third one, and only turns deadly the following morning.
But despite all that, I made it to my train on time: freshly showered and shampooed, closely shaved, and dressed in my Sunday best, which thankfully then gave me four hours to relax, drink coffee, write in my diary, enjoy the passing scenery, and reflect upon the Danish proverbs which decorated the interior of my car. Things like "Der er Kirke i hver Mands Bryst" ("There is a church in every man's breast"). Or better yet: "NÅR VANDET STÅR I MUNDEN, Lærer man vel at svømme" ("When the water is up to the mouth, one learns to swim well").
When I finally arrived in Copenhagen, I still had another 30 minute walk to get to the church, but by leaving Aalborg so early I'd given myself plenty of time before the start of services. I waited on the front steps until someone arrived to let me in, then hung around awkwardly in the vestibule listening for the Organist to begin the Prelude.
Although this was the only chance I would have to worship at the Unitarian Church in Denmark, it wasnâ't the first time I'd attended a Danish church, and I was really learning to enjoy the experience, despite the fact that my command of the Danish language really isn't all that great. Given a little time, I could usually puzzle out the Scriptural text in the pew Bible, or follow along the words to the hymns in the Salmebog. But the sermons were generally incomprehensible for me -- which in some ways was probably a good thing, since it left me free to make up a sermon more to my liking inside my own head; and which really didn't interfere much with my appreciation of the rest of the service either (an important, if humbling, lesson for a preacher). And the service at the Unitarian Church was really no different, except for the absence of communion...an activity which had never really meant that much to me in the States, but which I was gaining a new appreciation for as a sojourner in a foreign land.
So as the preacher droned on incomprehensibly that Easter Sunday I found myself admiring the fresco in the alcove behind the chancel where the high altar would ordinarily be. It was a representation of a scene from the story of the Good Samaritan, and I started thinking about how appropriate that particular iconography was for a Unitarian Church -- so much more appropriate than so many other stories from the Bible that might have been chosen instead. We've all known the story of the Good Samaritan since we were children. Even if we weren't raised in the Christian tradition, it's part of our cultural lexicon. A Samaritan is someone who does good deeds, who helps others in need, even if they happen to be strangers. Especially if they happen to be strangers....
It's easy for children to miss the subtext of this story, and even for adults the actual context is often obscure. A traveler is robbed, beaten, and left for dead at the side of the road. A Priest and a Levite (which is basically just another kind of priest) see him there but pass him by...not necessarily because they are bad people, nor even because they are afraid of being attacked themselves, but perhaps simply because they assume he is already dead, and touching a corpse would leave them ritually unclean and therefore incapable of performing their religious duties.
But a Samaritan -- an outsider, an outcast -- sees the body and takes the time to investigate. He's not worried about his formal religious duties interfering with his compassion for another human being, nor is he afraid to take the risk of becoming a victim himself. Or at the very least he is willing to face that fear. And all this in the context of the one Great Commandment of both Christianity and Judaism: "Love the Lord Your God With All Your Heart (and all your Soul and all your Strength and all your Mind), and Love Your Neighbor As Yourself." The lawyers, the Pharisees, to prove their own importance, may wish to quibble about the definition of "neighbor." But the Samaritan knows that if you happen to be in the neighborhood, whoever you see is your neighbor. Even if he happens to be a stranger, and you yourself are traveling far from home.
And then the sermon -- the Danish sermon -- was over, and the preacher was telling us all to take out our Salmeboger og Åbenet det til nummer fire hundrede fem og fyrre and soon the entire congregation was singing while I was still thumbing through the pages of the Salmebog and trying to figure out where we were in the order of service. Then afterwards (and this was unique in my experience in Denmark) the entire congregation was invited downstairs to the parish hall, where we all sat around a long table and were served more coffee and these amazing pastries -- and anyone who wanted to could say what THEY thought about the sermon, and even ask the minister what seemed to me to be pretty pointed questions about his ideas. And it was at that moment that I really KNEW that I was in a Unitarian Church, even though it was all happening in a foreign language, and I was thousands of miles away from home.
About a month later, I had a very vivid reminder of that Easter morning. I was back again in Copenhagen, this time with my mother, who was visiting me for a few weeks, and we were on our way to the train station, once again very early in the morning, when we were approached by a rather frail, elderly woman who started jabbering at me in rapid, heavily accented Danish. And I was trying to tell her that I didn't understand what she was saying, but she didn't seem to understand me either; she just kept grabbing at my arm and pointing to a nearby bus shelter, so I looked up at where she was pointing and saw...
...a Body, seated on the bench, slumped over against the glass wall, a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face....
Well, now the conversation suddenly got very interesting. I was trying to tell this woman (in a jumble of Danish, English, French, German, Greek and Latin all at once) that she needed to call the police, but she wasn't having any of it... she'd shown the body to me, and now she had to catch her bus,"Tak skal du have" ("thank you very much") and away she went.
And there I was.
This particular bus shelter was right outside a government hospital that had recently closed due to budget cuts, so naturally, being an American, I assumed that this young man had been shot in some sort of gang-related drug deal and then dumped by his buddies outside the hospital because they didn't want to risk involvement with the authorities. I tried to rouse him, but got no response, so I went inside the hospital just to see if I could find anyone there, and eventually located a caretaker, who explained to me (in English) about the hospital being closed, and then agreed to accompany me back outside to see the body for himself.
He also tried to rouse this fellow, a little more loudly and aggressively than I had, and sure enough, the body responded... and after a brief conversation between the two of them, the caretaker assured me that the gentleman in question was merely someone who had stayed out a little too late the night before, and had fallen asleep while waiting for his bus, having fallen down and banged his head against something hard earlier in the evening... but not to worry, because [wink,wink] he was feeling no pain. So I was able to explain all this to my mother, who of course had also seen the body, but basically understood nothing else of what had been going on, that everything was OK and that we could continue on our way.
And I honestly don't know to this day whether or not I would have spent as much time I did trying to help this stranger if I hadn't seen the fresco of the Good Samaritan in the Unitarian Church the month before. I do know this...having just seen that fresco, only a few blocks from that bus shelter, I would have felt like a terrible hypocrite if I had simply passed him by. As a general rule, we Unitarian Universalists don't ordinarily put much stock in Shame as a spiritual and emotional motivator, but I suppose there's a time and a place for everything. Because yes: I was confused, and also a little afraid, far from home on unfamiliar ground, and in many ways it would have been a lot easier for me to turn my back and walk away. But how was I going to explain that behavior to my mother? (who, in all honesty, would have probably just as soon walked away herself). And, more importantly, how was I going to live with myself afterwards?
"Who is my neighbor?" the Pharisee asked Jesus. And Jesus told him a story in response, a story about a social pariah who did the right thing when his more pious neighbors would not. Nowadays we have a slightly different question we sometimes ask ourselves whenever we are tempted to step outside the customary boundaries of social conformity. We ask ourselves "But what will the neighbors think?" And then we let the shame of that imagined response keep us from acting "abnormally."
And yes, there's a place for that. It's important, for example, that we know who our neighbors are, and that we recognize their inherent worth and dignity, treat them with respect and integrity, honor them in the same manner that we would hope they honored us. But there are also times when we have to expand those boundaries and take risks, step outside of our comfort zone, despite what we think the neighbors might think, and even though we may be a little afraid, or in unfamiliar territory.
Because if somebody doesn't do it, then no one will. And believe me, I know it isn't always easy to do what you know in your heart is right -- to be generous, to be compassionate, to be merciful -- especially when it feels like the comfortable thing, even the socially-acceptable thing, would be to do nothing at all.
But here's another side to this story. Sometimes, when we take the time to meet and actually talk with our neighbors, and listen to what they have to say, we discover that they've been thinking the same things we've been thinkng all along, and have merely been waiting for someone to take the initiative.
And sometimes, I'm sad to say, when we talk with our neighbors, and honestly listen to what they have to say, we discover that they aren't really the pleasant and congenial people we always thought they were before we truly got to know them, and that we don't really care what they think anymore because, well, I don't have to spell it out do I? But that can be liberating in its own way as well, because it leaves us free to follow our own light instead.
And sometimes when we talk with our neighbors, and honestly listen to what they have to say, we discover that we actually have a lot to learn from one another, and a lot to teach one another as well, and that we can encourage one another in our growth and learning, and support one another in our efforts to put our beliefs into action. And that, for those of you who are here visiting us on Neighborhood Sunday, is what we try to do in this church: fifty-two Sundays a year, plus three times on Christmas eve, and of course at the crack of dawn on Easter morning.
And we generally eat pretty good while we're doing it too.
And of course, as our neighbors, you are always welcome to join us here, no matter who you are. Because this church is a gift that this congregation gives to this community, in the same spirit of concern for our "neighbours and fellow cretures" that Timothy Wilkins expressed in 1758 when he donated a portion of his farm to the then newly-organized First Religious Society for the green and the Meeting House. The ministry of this church is essentially a ministry of hospitality; we open our doors and say "Come on in and make yourself at home," and although I haven't been here all that long myself, I think they really mean it. And although obviously no one institution can be all things to all people, I like to think that people of Good Will and Kind Spirit can find here what they need, even if it means bringing the basic ingredients yourself.
Or perhaps I should have said: "Even if it means bringing the basic ingredient: Your Self."
When I was living in Denmark, I sometimes thought that the main reason so few people attended church was because they took it for granted. It was part of the landscape, and as long as they paid their taxes they knew it would always be there for them: at Christmas and Easter, or if they wanted to be married, or to christen their children, and of course at the end of life as well. The church was a branch of the Government, like a hospital, or the Registry of Motor Vehicles, so naturally people only went when they absolutely had to.
But here in America the only reason we have churches at all is because individual people choose to support them and participate in them, and without that participation and that support, they disappear. And no, this is not a stealth stewardship appeal... it's just that I've been listening to the pledge drive on WBUR all this past week, and so I kind of have this language in my head. But the point I really want to make is this: that like most things in life, what you get out of your religious or spiritual involvement is just about equal to what you put into it.
So as I've said before, and as I will no doubt say many times again, don't wait until the water is up to your mouth before you start to learn to swim. Instead look for that church that exists within your own heart. And if you're having a hard time finding it right away, don't worry -- I promise you that it's there somewhere. Then bring whatever you find here, and share it with all of us, and let us share all of ours with you as well. And when we do this one small thing for one another, we all go home with far more than we arrived with....
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Sunday, September 21, 2003
LOVE IS THE DOCTRINE OF THIS CHURCH...
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday September 21st, 2003
READING:
“Outwitted” by the Universalist poet Edwin Markham. (I first learned this poem in a slightly different, gender neutral version, but this is the poem as Markham originally wrote it):
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
*****
I’m just kind of curious, but how many of you, after listening to last week’s bold declaration of the essential importance within the liberal church tradition of a prophetic, free pulpit, have come here this morning expecting to hear an old-fashioned political Jeremiad in the tradition of Theodore Parker (or perhaps even Cotton Mather) in which I bravely speak the truth to power, chastising the wicked and upbraiding the indifferent, calling sinners to repentance and the faithful to vigilant action? Well, I’m glad not to have to disappoint too many of you, because my topic here this morning is actually far more mundane. Two weeks ago I spoke about the work of the ministry, and in particular some of the things I’ve learned about that work from the example of my late mentor, Rhys Williams. Then last week I spoke a little about the work of the church in its five principal areas: Worship, Fellowship, Education, Pastoral Care, and Social Action (or what I called “Evangelical Missionary Outreach” -- a shared ministry which sees its mission as reaching out to others in hospitality and charity as we proclaim our “good news” in word and deed). And now today I want to talk about the thing which holds this all together, which is the notion of Covenant: the promises and agreements we make with one another as individuals which allow us to function together as a “beloved community of memory and hope.”
But first let me tell you a story from my childhood. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I heard the word "Covenant" used in a sentence. I must have been about thirteen or fourteen years old, and my family had just moved from California into a rather exclusive, lakefront neighborhood in the suburbs of Seattle, where the Homeowner's Association had all sorts of "covenants" about what colors you could paint your house, and where you could park your boat, and things like that. And one of these covenants happened to say that you couldn't attach a basketball goal to your garage. Well, this was tantamount to heresy in my family. We'd ALWAYS had a basketball goal attached to our garage. In fact, shoveling snow out of the driveway so that I could shoot hoop in the dead of winter is probably the one thing I have in common with Larry Bird.
And I can remember very clearly what my dad did when he learned about this "covenant." First he found a copy of the actual text of the document, and he read it over very carefully several times. That next weekend he went out to a junkyard and picked out about an eighteen-foot length of rusty, six-inch steel pipe, then stopped off at the hardware store on his way home for some brackets and some U-bolts and a couple of bags of Ready-Mix Concrete. Meanwhile, he had me out in the yard digging a four-foot-deep hole in our front lawn right next to our driveway. (You can see where this is going, can't you?) Apparently the covenants prohibited homeowners from attaching basketball goals to their houses or other existing structures, but were silent on the subject of erecting an eighteen-foot length of rusty six-inch steel pipe in the center of your front lawn and attaching a basketball goal to that. I'm not really all that certain about the rest of the details of this story (I think at some point there may have been lawyers involved), but I do know that within a few weeks just about every kid in our neighborhood between the ages of eight and fifteen was out shooting hoop in our driveway after school. That basketball goal stood proudly in our front yard the entire five years that we lived in that house. And I just so happened to be back in my old neighborhood the summer before last, and was kind of sorry to see that one of the subsequent homeowners had removed it. But I was also pleased to notice that probably every fourth or fifth house had a basketball goal in front of it. Some were on wheels, so that you could move them out of the way when you wanted to park your SUV there instead, and one even had an entire half-court constructed around it, complete with a painted foul-lane and a regulation three-point circle. And a few of them were even attached to garages.
I have to admit, although most days I’m awfully proud to be my father’s son, I’m also awfully glad that I’ve never enjoyed the privilege of having him as my parishioner. Because my Dad is precisely the kind of opinionated, outspoken, strong-willed individual whom ministers love to commiserate about whenever we get together at our private clergy meetings. Yet he also provides an excellent sermon illustration regarding some of the tensions and potential conflicts between the rights and privileges we enjoy as individuals, and requirements for living harmoniously in community -- the obligations and responsibilities we owe to one another as neighbors -- which Covenants are intended to protect. Of course, the kinds of covenants we use in churches are very different from those of Homeowners’ Associations. You’ll all recognize ours, of course, since we recite it every Sunday:
Love is the doctrine of this church;
The quest for truth is our sacrament;
And service is our prayer.
To dwell together in peace;
To seek knowledge in freedom;
To serve humanity in friendship;
To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine--
Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.”
Notice how uplifting the language is: it’s a statement of positive aspirations and affirmations, rather than a list of “thou shalt nots.” Not that there isn’t a place for that. But when we promise one another that we will always endeavor to be on our best behavior, even though at times we may disagree, it simply makes it that much easier for us all to get along. Within our larger Unitarian Universalist denomination, we have often historically contrasted this notion of "covenant" to the idea of a "creed." A Creed, of course, is a statement (or confession) of belief, and Unitarianism in particular has explicitly seen and defined itself as a non-creedal faith, since its very beginnings in this country. In fact, one of the tactics that the "Orthodox" Congregationalists used to smoke out the "Liberals" in their midst, nearly 200 years ago now, was to re-write their existing church covenants in order to incorporate very specific statements of theological belief, while the Liberals (who eventually become known as Unitarians) tended to prefer more latitude. "The Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth Life" the Liberals asserted, while the Orthodox likewise quoted scripture in reply "Can two walk together lest they be agreed?"
This brings me to the main topic that I want to talk about today, which is the nature of this relationship between agreement and belief, and the historical role of the idea of Covenant within our Congregational polity. Because regardless of how you want to understand and construct the formal relationship between "covenant" and "creed," as a practical matter, it is pretty difficult to agree to something, whole-heartedly, if you don't also believe in it whole-heartedly. The decision to enter into a Covenantal relationship suggests certain assumptions about the nature of being in relationship itself, and if we don't see eye-to-eye about what these assumptions are, not only with respect to the covenant that we make as a church, but also within the covenant of marriage, or the covenant of ordination between a minister and the laity ("the people"), or the associational covenant between autonomous congregations that creates the UUA, we are in for a world of hurt down the line, when the honeymoon is over, and the "…for worse, …for poorer, …in sickness, …in sorrow" part of the covenant starts to take effect.
So let me just take a few moments, as both a historian and a professional religious leader, to clear up a few minor points about what congregational polity is and what it isn't. Congregational polity is about autonomous churches. It is NOT about an "Antinomian" church. Let me translate that for you out of the Greek. "Autonomous" means that each congregation is responsible for ruling itself. It does NOT mean that there are no rules. Last week I mentioned how the Cambridge Platform of 1648, the source document upon which all of our subsequent polity is based, mandated that each local church was charged with the duty of performing ALL of the responsibilities of the Church Universal in and for the particular parish or society which it served. This was an un-funded mandate (of course), but it was handed down from the Highest Authority possible. Furthermore, although local congregations enjoyed a high degree of independence, they were not really considered Independent. They were inter-dependent, and were expected to maintain a "sisterly" communion with one another in at least six specific ways: Mutual Care, Consultation, Admonition, Participation, Recommendation, and Relief. Finally, (and this is the part that always seems to surprise people most when they hear it), although they were highly democratic, these local congregations were not intended to be little islands of pure democracy. They were what the Platform called "mixed governments" -- democratic in respect to the "fellowship" of the faithful, but also resembling a monarchy in that they were believed to exist under the sovereign rule and authority of God Almighty (and more specifically, were expected to follow the teachings or "holy ordinances" set down by his "son" The Lord Jesus Christ); and finally, they also resembled aristocracies in regard to the important role played by the ordained ministry: leaders whom the people themselves had elected to that sacred office.
Now I want you all to know that I didn't just make this all up. And yes, things have changed a lot since 1648. But before I get in too much deeper here, let me try to elaborate some of these ideas a little further. This notion of mixed government should not be entirely foreign to us, since we can clearly see vestiges of it in the United States Constitution's idea of checks and balances. Because the Puritans believed that human beings were essentially corrupt, (I believe the actual language from the Synod of Dort is "Totally Depraved"), they followed a system of political philosophy originally articulated by the Roman orator Cicero, who basically taught that the natural state of human beings was one of lawless anarchy -- the war of all against all -- a condition which persists until a strong leader or monarch comes upon the scene to impose order. Yet Monarchy inevitably degenerates into Tyranny, inspiring groups of virtuous individuals -- aristocrats -- to band together to overthrow the tyrant and assume leadership themselves on behalf of the people. But aristocracy likewise degenerates into an oppressive oligarchy, at which point the people themselves rise up to establish democracy, which in due course will itself again revert to anarchy (or something worse) until another strong leader comes along to once more establish order and begins the cycle all over again. Given this supposedly "natural" chain of events, the only stable form of government was thought to be a "mixed" government: one that combined the best elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy within a system of checks-and-balances which corrected the extremes of each.
Now you don't have to agree with everything Cicero thought in order to appreciate the wisdom of checks and balances. You don't even need to think that "Mankind" (and I use that word deliberately) is totally depraved in order to acknowledge that human beings are often selfish and make mistakes, or that even the most democratic societies need some sort of "law" to protect unpopular minorities from the "Tyranny of the Majority," and that someone fair and impartial needs to be empowered to enforce the rule of law, and that someone else -- a virtuous, independent authority accountable to principle and the welfare of the community rather than merely pursuing their own self-interest, is required to keep an eye on any over-zealous prosecutors.
But in our current context, this notion of "mixed government" means that we need to remember always to think about our Church Covenant in more than just one dimension. A Covenant is not merely an agreement between two or more individuals to walk together, it also embodies a certain kind of relationship between a group of people and their designated leaders (leaders whom they have elected to serve the community as a whole), and includes as well accountability to the sovereign creative Force which gives us life, and gives life its meaning. “Thus do we covenant with one another and with God” -- however one may choose to understand that word -- as the source of Ultimate Truth, or a supernatural "Higher Power," or maybe just our psychological "Super-ego," or perhaps even some combination of them all.
Covenants can be used to liberate, and they can also be used to control. Finding the balance of "mutual accountability and support" is a tricky enterprise -- it is much easier to consult, recommend and admonish than it is to listen to the recommendations of your consultant, much less to sit still and be admonished. Even the duty of participation seems simple enough, yet how many of us really participate as fully as we could? Likewise, the duties of mutual care and relief, although they seem the most burdensome, often allow us opportunities to be at our best when confronting circumstances that are absolutely at their worst. Yet the principle of Covenant insists that we remain in relationship, participating in one another's lives, both for better and for worse -- respecting the freedom of those who depend upon us, while at the same time controlling our own temptation to take over everything and be “in charge," even when we think we know all the answers. Covenant binds us together, as individuals, into a disciplined community of "disciples" -- of seekers and learners who are accountable not only to one another, but to the teachers and the pastors whom they have selected themselves to instruct and encourage them, and ultimately to the demands of Truth itself, however they may come to understand it.
Two CAN walk together, provided they agree to walk, together. Everything else (and most especially, the destination) is open to discussion. And sometimes, let's face it, it's the spirit that killeth, and the letter that giveth life; and courageous, broad-minded individuals are called upon to stand up for their rights under the Letter of the Covenant, in order to protect the True Spirit of the Covenant from the short-sighted and the narrow-minded, who are simply too focused on the road ahead, or their own fears and desires, and have forgotten what the world looks like from the mountaintop.
Thirty years ago, when my Dad and I mixed up two bags of concrete with a shovel in a wheelbarrow, and got that rusty eighteen-foot length of six-inch steel pipe standing up plumb in that four-foot-deep hole, and attached the backboard, and leveled the rim exactly ten feet above the driveway, and hung the cotton net which over the years would swish so many times (well, a few times anyway) with jump shots and hook shots and driving lay-ups taken by myself and my brothers and our friends and neighbors, we were certainly violating the narrow spirit of that covenant, even if we were within the letter of our rights. But we had a different vision of what that community ought to look like, and we that felt we owed it to our neighbors to help them learn to see eye-to-eye with us.
And sixty years ago, when my Dad was still a little boy, Homeowners Associations made covenants that restricted who you could or could not sell you house to, or even who was allowed on the streets after dark, and it took a lot of courageous individuals standing up and standing firm, and saying "this is wrong, and violates every fundamental standard of truth and justice and human decency" to change those covenants once and for all. And I'm not saying that my Dad's decision to put up a basketball hoop in our front yard is somehow the functional equivalent of Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus, any more than I would suggest that the mere existence of that 10-foot rim in our front yard somehow inspired my baby brother to grow to six-foot-five (although it certainly has been suggested by some). But I do know that sometimes it's important to have someone to stand beside, and something that we can look up to, rather than constantly looking over our shoulder, or down on the world and everything in it. Because without a strong sense of the real range of possibilities open to us, how can we possibly make a promise to anyone that we will work together to achieve our full potential?
I want to return to that Edwin Markham poem I read earlier this morning (this is the version I originally learned): “They drew a circle to keep us out--/Heretics, rebels, a thing to flout./But Love and I had the wit to win:/We drew a circle that took them in!” The Doctrine of Love is a doctrine of Inclusion. It says: you and I don’t have to be exactly alike for us to be friends, for us to learn from one another, for us to care for one another, for us to walk, and work, together to create a world in which real Peace and real Freedom and real Friendship are not just empty words, but living realities, and All Souls have grown into greater harmony with the Divine....
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday September 21st, 2003
READING:
“Outwitted” by the Universalist poet Edwin Markham. (I first learned this poem in a slightly different, gender neutral version, but this is the poem as Markham originally wrote it):
He drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
*****
I’m just kind of curious, but how many of you, after listening to last week’s bold declaration of the essential importance within the liberal church tradition of a prophetic, free pulpit, have come here this morning expecting to hear an old-fashioned political Jeremiad in the tradition of Theodore Parker (or perhaps even Cotton Mather) in which I bravely speak the truth to power, chastising the wicked and upbraiding the indifferent, calling sinners to repentance and the faithful to vigilant action? Well, I’m glad not to have to disappoint too many of you, because my topic here this morning is actually far more mundane. Two weeks ago I spoke about the work of the ministry, and in particular some of the things I’ve learned about that work from the example of my late mentor, Rhys Williams. Then last week I spoke a little about the work of the church in its five principal areas: Worship, Fellowship, Education, Pastoral Care, and Social Action (or what I called “Evangelical Missionary Outreach” -- a shared ministry which sees its mission as reaching out to others in hospitality and charity as we proclaim our “good news” in word and deed). And now today I want to talk about the thing which holds this all together, which is the notion of Covenant: the promises and agreements we make with one another as individuals which allow us to function together as a “beloved community of memory and hope.”
But first let me tell you a story from my childhood. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I heard the word "Covenant" used in a sentence. I must have been about thirteen or fourteen years old, and my family had just moved from California into a rather exclusive, lakefront neighborhood in the suburbs of Seattle, where the Homeowner's Association had all sorts of "covenants" about what colors you could paint your house, and where you could park your boat, and things like that. And one of these covenants happened to say that you couldn't attach a basketball goal to your garage. Well, this was tantamount to heresy in my family. We'd ALWAYS had a basketball goal attached to our garage. In fact, shoveling snow out of the driveway so that I could shoot hoop in the dead of winter is probably the one thing I have in common with Larry Bird.
And I can remember very clearly what my dad did when he learned about this "covenant." First he found a copy of the actual text of the document, and he read it over very carefully several times. That next weekend he went out to a junkyard and picked out about an eighteen-foot length of rusty, six-inch steel pipe, then stopped off at the hardware store on his way home for some brackets and some U-bolts and a couple of bags of Ready-Mix Concrete. Meanwhile, he had me out in the yard digging a four-foot-deep hole in our front lawn right next to our driveway. (You can see where this is going, can't you?) Apparently the covenants prohibited homeowners from attaching basketball goals to their houses or other existing structures, but were silent on the subject of erecting an eighteen-foot length of rusty six-inch steel pipe in the center of your front lawn and attaching a basketball goal to that. I'm not really all that certain about the rest of the details of this story (I think at some point there may have been lawyers involved), but I do know that within a few weeks just about every kid in our neighborhood between the ages of eight and fifteen was out shooting hoop in our driveway after school. That basketball goal stood proudly in our front yard the entire five years that we lived in that house. And I just so happened to be back in my old neighborhood the summer before last, and was kind of sorry to see that one of the subsequent homeowners had removed it. But I was also pleased to notice that probably every fourth or fifth house had a basketball goal in front of it. Some were on wheels, so that you could move them out of the way when you wanted to park your SUV there instead, and one even had an entire half-court constructed around it, complete with a painted foul-lane and a regulation three-point circle. And a few of them were even attached to garages.
I have to admit, although most days I’m awfully proud to be my father’s son, I’m also awfully glad that I’ve never enjoyed the privilege of having him as my parishioner. Because my Dad is precisely the kind of opinionated, outspoken, strong-willed individual whom ministers love to commiserate about whenever we get together at our private clergy meetings. Yet he also provides an excellent sermon illustration regarding some of the tensions and potential conflicts between the rights and privileges we enjoy as individuals, and requirements for living harmoniously in community -- the obligations and responsibilities we owe to one another as neighbors -- which Covenants are intended to protect. Of course, the kinds of covenants we use in churches are very different from those of Homeowners’ Associations. You’ll all recognize ours, of course, since we recite it every Sunday:
Love is the doctrine of this church;
The quest for truth is our sacrament;
And service is our prayer.
To dwell together in peace;
To seek knowledge in freedom;
To serve humanity in friendship;
To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine--
Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.”
Notice how uplifting the language is: it’s a statement of positive aspirations and affirmations, rather than a list of “thou shalt nots.” Not that there isn’t a place for that. But when we promise one another that we will always endeavor to be on our best behavior, even though at times we may disagree, it simply makes it that much easier for us all to get along. Within our larger Unitarian Universalist denomination, we have often historically contrasted this notion of "covenant" to the idea of a "creed." A Creed, of course, is a statement (or confession) of belief, and Unitarianism in particular has explicitly seen and defined itself as a non-creedal faith, since its very beginnings in this country. In fact, one of the tactics that the "Orthodox" Congregationalists used to smoke out the "Liberals" in their midst, nearly 200 years ago now, was to re-write their existing church covenants in order to incorporate very specific statements of theological belief, while the Liberals (who eventually become known as Unitarians) tended to prefer more latitude. "The Letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth Life" the Liberals asserted, while the Orthodox likewise quoted scripture in reply "Can two walk together lest they be agreed?"
This brings me to the main topic that I want to talk about today, which is the nature of this relationship between agreement and belief, and the historical role of the idea of Covenant within our Congregational polity. Because regardless of how you want to understand and construct the formal relationship between "covenant" and "creed," as a practical matter, it is pretty difficult to agree to something, whole-heartedly, if you don't also believe in it whole-heartedly. The decision to enter into a Covenantal relationship suggests certain assumptions about the nature of being in relationship itself, and if we don't see eye-to-eye about what these assumptions are, not only with respect to the covenant that we make as a church, but also within the covenant of marriage, or the covenant of ordination between a minister and the laity ("the people"), or the associational covenant between autonomous congregations that creates the UUA, we are in for a world of hurt down the line, when the honeymoon is over, and the "…for worse, …for poorer, …in sickness, …in sorrow" part of the covenant starts to take effect.
So let me just take a few moments, as both a historian and a professional religious leader, to clear up a few minor points about what congregational polity is and what it isn't. Congregational polity is about autonomous churches. It is NOT about an "Antinomian" church. Let me translate that for you out of the Greek. "Autonomous" means that each congregation is responsible for ruling itself. It does NOT mean that there are no rules. Last week I mentioned how the Cambridge Platform of 1648, the source document upon which all of our subsequent polity is based, mandated that each local church was charged with the duty of performing ALL of the responsibilities of the Church Universal in and for the particular parish or society which it served. This was an un-funded mandate (of course), but it was handed down from the Highest Authority possible. Furthermore, although local congregations enjoyed a high degree of independence, they were not really considered Independent. They were inter-dependent, and were expected to maintain a "sisterly" communion with one another in at least six specific ways: Mutual Care, Consultation, Admonition, Participation, Recommendation, and Relief. Finally, (and this is the part that always seems to surprise people most when they hear it), although they were highly democratic, these local congregations were not intended to be little islands of pure democracy. They were what the Platform called "mixed governments" -- democratic in respect to the "fellowship" of the faithful, but also resembling a monarchy in that they were believed to exist under the sovereign rule and authority of God Almighty (and more specifically, were expected to follow the teachings or "holy ordinances" set down by his "son" The Lord Jesus Christ); and finally, they also resembled aristocracies in regard to the important role played by the ordained ministry: leaders whom the people themselves had elected to that sacred office.
Now I want you all to know that I didn't just make this all up. And yes, things have changed a lot since 1648. But before I get in too much deeper here, let me try to elaborate some of these ideas a little further. This notion of mixed government should not be entirely foreign to us, since we can clearly see vestiges of it in the United States Constitution's idea of checks and balances. Because the Puritans believed that human beings were essentially corrupt, (I believe the actual language from the Synod of Dort is "Totally Depraved"), they followed a system of political philosophy originally articulated by the Roman orator Cicero, who basically taught that the natural state of human beings was one of lawless anarchy -- the war of all against all -- a condition which persists until a strong leader or monarch comes upon the scene to impose order. Yet Monarchy inevitably degenerates into Tyranny, inspiring groups of virtuous individuals -- aristocrats -- to band together to overthrow the tyrant and assume leadership themselves on behalf of the people. But aristocracy likewise degenerates into an oppressive oligarchy, at which point the people themselves rise up to establish democracy, which in due course will itself again revert to anarchy (or something worse) until another strong leader comes along to once more establish order and begins the cycle all over again. Given this supposedly "natural" chain of events, the only stable form of government was thought to be a "mixed" government: one that combined the best elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy within a system of checks-and-balances which corrected the extremes of each.
Now you don't have to agree with everything Cicero thought in order to appreciate the wisdom of checks and balances. You don't even need to think that "Mankind" (and I use that word deliberately) is totally depraved in order to acknowledge that human beings are often selfish and make mistakes, or that even the most democratic societies need some sort of "law" to protect unpopular minorities from the "Tyranny of the Majority," and that someone fair and impartial needs to be empowered to enforce the rule of law, and that someone else -- a virtuous, independent authority accountable to principle and the welfare of the community rather than merely pursuing their own self-interest, is required to keep an eye on any over-zealous prosecutors.
But in our current context, this notion of "mixed government" means that we need to remember always to think about our Church Covenant in more than just one dimension. A Covenant is not merely an agreement between two or more individuals to walk together, it also embodies a certain kind of relationship between a group of people and their designated leaders (leaders whom they have elected to serve the community as a whole), and includes as well accountability to the sovereign creative Force which gives us life, and gives life its meaning. “Thus do we covenant with one another and with God” -- however one may choose to understand that word -- as the source of Ultimate Truth, or a supernatural "Higher Power," or maybe just our psychological "Super-ego," or perhaps even some combination of them all.
Covenants can be used to liberate, and they can also be used to control. Finding the balance of "mutual accountability and support" is a tricky enterprise -- it is much easier to consult, recommend and admonish than it is to listen to the recommendations of your consultant, much less to sit still and be admonished. Even the duty of participation seems simple enough, yet how many of us really participate as fully as we could? Likewise, the duties of mutual care and relief, although they seem the most burdensome, often allow us opportunities to be at our best when confronting circumstances that are absolutely at their worst. Yet the principle of Covenant insists that we remain in relationship, participating in one another's lives, both for better and for worse -- respecting the freedom of those who depend upon us, while at the same time controlling our own temptation to take over everything and be “in charge," even when we think we know all the answers. Covenant binds us together, as individuals, into a disciplined community of "disciples" -- of seekers and learners who are accountable not only to one another, but to the teachers and the pastors whom they have selected themselves to instruct and encourage them, and ultimately to the demands of Truth itself, however they may come to understand it.
Two CAN walk together, provided they agree to walk, together. Everything else (and most especially, the destination) is open to discussion. And sometimes, let's face it, it's the spirit that killeth, and the letter that giveth life; and courageous, broad-minded individuals are called upon to stand up for their rights under the Letter of the Covenant, in order to protect the True Spirit of the Covenant from the short-sighted and the narrow-minded, who are simply too focused on the road ahead, or their own fears and desires, and have forgotten what the world looks like from the mountaintop.
Thirty years ago, when my Dad and I mixed up two bags of concrete with a shovel in a wheelbarrow, and got that rusty eighteen-foot length of six-inch steel pipe standing up plumb in that four-foot-deep hole, and attached the backboard, and leveled the rim exactly ten feet above the driveway, and hung the cotton net which over the years would swish so many times (well, a few times anyway) with jump shots and hook shots and driving lay-ups taken by myself and my brothers and our friends and neighbors, we were certainly violating the narrow spirit of that covenant, even if we were within the letter of our rights. But we had a different vision of what that community ought to look like, and we that felt we owed it to our neighbors to help them learn to see eye-to-eye with us.
And sixty years ago, when my Dad was still a little boy, Homeowners Associations made covenants that restricted who you could or could not sell you house to, or even who was allowed on the streets after dark, and it took a lot of courageous individuals standing up and standing firm, and saying "this is wrong, and violates every fundamental standard of truth and justice and human decency" to change those covenants once and for all. And I'm not saying that my Dad's decision to put up a basketball hoop in our front yard is somehow the functional equivalent of Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus, any more than I would suggest that the mere existence of that 10-foot rim in our front yard somehow inspired my baby brother to grow to six-foot-five (although it certainly has been suggested by some). But I do know that sometimes it's important to have someone to stand beside, and something that we can look up to, rather than constantly looking over our shoulder, or down on the world and everything in it. Because without a strong sense of the real range of possibilities open to us, how can we possibly make a promise to anyone that we will work together to achieve our full potential?
I want to return to that Edwin Markham poem I read earlier this morning (this is the version I originally learned): “They drew a circle to keep us out--/Heretics, rebels, a thing to flout./But Love and I had the wit to win:/We drew a circle that took them in!” The Doctrine of Love is a doctrine of Inclusion. It says: you and I don’t have to be exactly alike for us to be friends, for us to learn from one another, for us to care for one another, for us to walk, and work, together to create a world in which real Peace and real Freedom and real Friendship are not just empty words, but living realities, and All Souls have grown into greater harmony with the Divine....
Sunday, September 14, 2003
WHY IS A CHURCH?
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday September 14, 2003
READING: James 2: 1-8, 14-18.
[extemporaneous introduction]
The word for “church” in the Greek New Testament is ecclesia, and it means, literally, “to be called out” or “called together.” A church is a collection of individuals who have been called together out of the world in order to form a community with one another, a congregation where everyone is accepted just as they are, but also inspired and encouraged to become the kind of people that their Creator intends for them to be. The process by which this happens is a simple one. It begins by learning to look deeply within ourselves, until we find that place where our spirit touches the infinite, and then returning from that place with fresh insight and a new understanding of our unique personal gifts, which we can then begin to share with others. Or to put it another way, the church is a place where people who are hurt or broken can come to be healed and made whole, and people who are basically healthy and whole can grow to become wise and (dare I say it?) Holy -- empowered by an experience of the divine to do good in the world, because we act out of love and compassion for our fellow creatures, rather than recoiling in fear or pain, selfishness and shame.
One of the reasons that churches are able to accomplish this important transformation so effectively (at least in my expert opinion) is that churches remain, for the most part, one of the few truly “locally owned and operated” public institutions in our society. It is here in a "human scale" organization that human beings most effectively encounter the Divine -- through our relationships with one another. The 1648 Cambridge Platform, which is the document out of which our own congregational principles of church government have developed, states clearly that the ideal congregation one that is small enough to conveniently meet in one place, yet large enough to effectively do the work of the church as a whole. Each local congregation was understood to be an autonomous representative of the Church Universal, and was responsible for ministering effectively to the community which it serves.
And what exactly is this “work of the church?”
Well, a first major area of this work is Worship — in effect what we're doing right now. We gather together, in a public way, to celebrate our common values and lift up a shared heritage and traditions. In some churches worship can become a very elaborate production: there are hundreds of people in the choir, maybe even a small orchestra to accompany the organist, and of course only the most gifted and eloquent preachers occupy the pulpit. Sometimes there's so much going on that there is a very real danger of worship becoming a "performance," and the people merely spectators -- "lost in the footlights" of what is essentially an act of entertainment. But the word "liturgy" means, literally, the work of the people. Worship is something that we do, not something that we watch: an expression of devotion and gratitude for the many gifts which life has given us, and the important tasks which life demands of us.
A second major area of work for the church is Education, the means by which we rear our children within a community of faith, and deepen our own understanding and experience of that faith as well. In relatively small churches such as this one there is often a temptation to envy "big" church school programs because they look a lot more like "real" classrooms — full of kids, using the most up-to-date curricula… the teacher in front of the class, trying to keep everything in order while proceeding through the lesson plan. But I'm not so sure that this is really the best way to educate children about religion, or anything else, for that matter. It seems to me that classes which emphasize the interaction between a committed teacher and a handful of students are far more appropriate for the modeling of religious life and religious values. Unlike in "real school," life doesn't always give the test at the end of the semester. The test can come at any time; and it is the role of our teachers to help us learn our lessons in time to use them.
A third responsibility of the church is to cultivate a sense of Fellowship -- which I would define as the relationships formed between members of a congregation which support and encourage them in their journey of faith. One of the most striking features of contemporary society is its anonymity, which tends to preserve the illusion that we can always somehow hide from our mistakes. But in a church, everyone eventually seems to know one another’s business, and it can be easy to step on one another’s toes as well. One of the hardest things to do in the world is to approach someone with whom you've had a falling-out, and come to some sort of understanding or reconciliation, to mend fences, bury the hatchet. But it is also one of the most important things. In a church, you have to learn to forgive and to be forgiven; and it is this reciprocity and sense of mutual commitment to one another which takes us beyond the superficiality of many of our other social relationships.
This brings us to a fourth area of church work, which is Pastoral Care. I know that some of you may think that pastoral care is a duty best left to the pastor, and on some level this is probably true. But in our day-to-day lives as members of a religious community, it is essential that we all learn how to care for one another in times of crisis and pastoral need. Even in relatively small congregations, it is difficult for the pastor to be everywhere at once, or even to know everything that is going on. Ministers rely on the members of their congregations to tell them when things are happening in people’s lives that would benefit from a little pastoral attention. And I’m not just talking about calling the minister when you are about to go into the hospital, I’m talking about calling the minister when you know of someone ELSE who is going into the hospital. And there are lots of other things that folks can do to help their friends and neighbors in times of personal crisis that don’t require any professional training, only a kind heart and a compassionate eye. Shared ministry is an authentic partnership between the pastor and the people, in which we all work together in order to enhance the ministry of the church to the world.
The last major area of the work of the church is sometimes referred to as hospitality or charity, or (in more contemporary language) Social Action, but which I like to think of it as “EMO” -- Evangelical Missionary Outreach. I like this phrase "evangelical missionary outreach" for a couple reasons. First, because it reminds me that the work of the church is indeed a mission -- and it is this mission, this sense of purpose, which provides us with our identity and our reason for being. And second, because it makes it clear that this purpose is not something just for ourselves alone -- rather, it is essential that congregations reach out into their communities in order to serve as effective witnesses for the values and principles which we hold so dear, witnesses to our “good news;” and likewise that we serve as a haven, an oasis, a beloved community, for those who need it, who need for us to be here for them.
I want to turn now briefly to another topic, which kind of follows on from what I’ve just been talking about, and that is the place of political discourse in the free pulpit.
I believe very strongly in the separation of Church and State. The policies (and particularly the police powers) of our civil government should never be allowed to come under the control of any particular sectarian religious organization or ideology, and likewise (and perhaps even more importantly), that same power of government should never be allowed to influence or control the free expression and legitimate practice of religious faith in our pluralistic, secular society. Now obviously there is quite a bit room for ambiguity here, some gray areas which mostly have to do with arriving at a reasonable understanding of the notion of “legitimacy.” And we’ve seen some good examples of this in just the past few weeks, haven’t we? But it seems obvious to me that individuals who attempt to use the shield of religion in order to engage in illegal activities like theft, or murder, clearly are not protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, not only is worshiping a graven image explicitly prohibited by the Second COMMANDMENT, but setting up a massive stone monument to a specific religious tradition in the lobby of a public courthouse is probably not the best method for reassuring people who don’t necessarily share those beliefs or belong to that faith tradition that they are about to receive a fair and impartial hearing before the bar of justice. (Of course, maybe that was the whole point all along). My view, however, is Thou shalt not commit idolatry on public time or with the public dime (maybe that’s the message they OUGHT to erect in the Alabama Supreme Court). And I’m sure we can all think of other activities of dubious legitimacy (I won’t try to itemize them all here) which from time to time may bring church and state into conflict with one another. But on the whole, a strict wall of separation between church and state is one of the key principles that make both authentic democracy and freedom of religious belief possible in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic world.
The dynamic relationship between religion and politics, however, is not nearly so easily delineated. If politics is the practice of making decisions as a community, and religion represents the expression of our highest values and aspirations, it is only natural that our religious convictions must, on some level at least, influence and shape our political opinions. This is NOT to suggest that we should allow our politics to become our religion. Because politics also represents the art of the possible, an ability and the willingness to compromise in order to achieve agreement in the here and now. Religion, on the other hand, in many ways represents our vision of the impossible: our trust in things which we feel but cannot see, our hope for a better and more perfect community in times to come. So the two are related, but they are also distinct, and unavoidably influence one another in our never-ending effort to become better people than we now are, and to put our beliefs and values into practice in our everyday lives.
Conservative Religious leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are rarely shy about expressing their political opinions whenever the opportunity arises. And there are many religious leaders, myself included, who would attribute much of the rancor and acrimony of contemporary political discourse to the sanctimonious, “holier-than-thou” self-righteousness of the Fundamentalist Christian Right, who (as best I can tell) sincerely do believe that God favors one political party over another, just as they believe that America is divinely favored over all the other nations of the world, despite our awkward Constitutional separation of Church and State.
My own political sentiments (as it probably won’t take you too long to figure out) tend to lean pretty solidly in the other direction, although I am, in fact, a registered Independent, and have been pretty much all of my adult life. In accordance with my liberal religious views, I also tend to be rather liberal on most social issues, although I can unquestionably be quite conservative about some things, such as the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties it was intended to protect. And I’ll tell you honestly, I can’t remember the last time I actually voted for a Republican candidate. Even so, as an historian, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the principles which originally gave rise to the party of Lincoln, back in the days when it was also the party of Abolition, and thus enthusiastically supported by a great many Unitarians here in New England. And I still respect and admire those same principles of liberty, independent thought, duty, nobless oblige, and the honorable privilege of public service (as opposed to using a position of public trust as a means of protecting one’s social privilege) whenever I see them exhibited by contemporary “moderate” Republicans such as Elliott Richardson, William Cohen, George Mitchell, or most recently, James Jeffords.
And my promise to all of you is this: whenever I do speak of politics from this pulpit (as I’m confident I will often have occasion to in these increasingly troubled times), I will always attempt to speak out of the teachings of our religious tradition rather than merely expressing my private political opinions. I will try to be fair rather than partisan, to look for points of consensus as well as points of criticism, and to embody the virtue of civility, which I still believe is essential to the smooth functioning of civil society. But I would also remind you that one of the obligations of the Free Pulpit is to speak prophetically, in the tradition of Jeremiah: to speak the truth to power, to speak-up for those who cannot speak for themselves, to be the voice of those who have no voice: the oppressed, the marginalized, the down-trodden. The free pulpit is also a critical pulpit, which endeavors always to confront the power of evil with the light of truth. But my purpose in speaking up and speaking out is not to tell you what YOU should believe, but rather simply an attempt to articulate and share my own most deeply-held beliefs, something which is both my duty and my responsibility as your minister, in the hope that you might somehow find whatever meager wisdom or insight I may possess beneficial in your own spiritual journeys.
Speaking out prophetically about issues of Social Justice is only one small part of our larger ministry of Community Activism, which in turn is only one aspect of the overall work of the Church. By meeting regularly for public worship, by educating our children while learning from one another, by simply enjoying one another’s company, treating one another with dignity and respect, and caring for one another in times of need or crisis, we do God’s work here in our small corner of the Universe, Carlisle Massachusetts. And through doing that work, we show the world our faith, not just in words, but by deeds of hospitality and outreach to our Neighbors and fellow Creatures....
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday September 14, 2003
READING: James 2: 1-8, 14-18.
[extemporaneous introduction]
The word for “church” in the Greek New Testament is ecclesia, and it means, literally, “to be called out” or “called together.” A church is a collection of individuals who have been called together out of the world in order to form a community with one another, a congregation where everyone is accepted just as they are, but also inspired and encouraged to become the kind of people that their Creator intends for them to be. The process by which this happens is a simple one. It begins by learning to look deeply within ourselves, until we find that place where our spirit touches the infinite, and then returning from that place with fresh insight and a new understanding of our unique personal gifts, which we can then begin to share with others. Or to put it another way, the church is a place where people who are hurt or broken can come to be healed and made whole, and people who are basically healthy and whole can grow to become wise and (dare I say it?) Holy -- empowered by an experience of the divine to do good in the world, because we act out of love and compassion for our fellow creatures, rather than recoiling in fear or pain, selfishness and shame.
One of the reasons that churches are able to accomplish this important transformation so effectively (at least in my expert opinion) is that churches remain, for the most part, one of the few truly “locally owned and operated” public institutions in our society. It is here in a "human scale" organization that human beings most effectively encounter the Divine -- through our relationships with one another. The 1648 Cambridge Platform, which is the document out of which our own congregational principles of church government have developed, states clearly that the ideal congregation one that is small enough to conveniently meet in one place, yet large enough to effectively do the work of the church as a whole. Each local congregation was understood to be an autonomous representative of the Church Universal, and was responsible for ministering effectively to the community which it serves.
And what exactly is this “work of the church?”
Well, a first major area of this work is Worship — in effect what we're doing right now. We gather together, in a public way, to celebrate our common values and lift up a shared heritage and traditions. In some churches worship can become a very elaborate production: there are hundreds of people in the choir, maybe even a small orchestra to accompany the organist, and of course only the most gifted and eloquent preachers occupy the pulpit. Sometimes there's so much going on that there is a very real danger of worship becoming a "performance," and the people merely spectators -- "lost in the footlights" of what is essentially an act of entertainment. But the word "liturgy" means, literally, the work of the people. Worship is something that we do, not something that we watch: an expression of devotion and gratitude for the many gifts which life has given us, and the important tasks which life demands of us.
A second major area of work for the church is Education, the means by which we rear our children within a community of faith, and deepen our own understanding and experience of that faith as well. In relatively small churches such as this one there is often a temptation to envy "big" church school programs because they look a lot more like "real" classrooms — full of kids, using the most up-to-date curricula… the teacher in front of the class, trying to keep everything in order while proceeding through the lesson plan. But I'm not so sure that this is really the best way to educate children about religion, or anything else, for that matter. It seems to me that classes which emphasize the interaction between a committed teacher and a handful of students are far more appropriate for the modeling of religious life and religious values. Unlike in "real school," life doesn't always give the test at the end of the semester. The test can come at any time; and it is the role of our teachers to help us learn our lessons in time to use them.
A third responsibility of the church is to cultivate a sense of Fellowship -- which I would define as the relationships formed between members of a congregation which support and encourage them in their journey of faith. One of the most striking features of contemporary society is its anonymity, which tends to preserve the illusion that we can always somehow hide from our mistakes. But in a church, everyone eventually seems to know one another’s business, and it can be easy to step on one another’s toes as well. One of the hardest things to do in the world is to approach someone with whom you've had a falling-out, and come to some sort of understanding or reconciliation, to mend fences, bury the hatchet. But it is also one of the most important things. In a church, you have to learn to forgive and to be forgiven; and it is this reciprocity and sense of mutual commitment to one another which takes us beyond the superficiality of many of our other social relationships.
This brings us to a fourth area of church work, which is Pastoral Care. I know that some of you may think that pastoral care is a duty best left to the pastor, and on some level this is probably true. But in our day-to-day lives as members of a religious community, it is essential that we all learn how to care for one another in times of crisis and pastoral need. Even in relatively small congregations, it is difficult for the pastor to be everywhere at once, or even to know everything that is going on. Ministers rely on the members of their congregations to tell them when things are happening in people’s lives that would benefit from a little pastoral attention. And I’m not just talking about calling the minister when you are about to go into the hospital, I’m talking about calling the minister when you know of someone ELSE who is going into the hospital. And there are lots of other things that folks can do to help their friends and neighbors in times of personal crisis that don’t require any professional training, only a kind heart and a compassionate eye. Shared ministry is an authentic partnership between the pastor and the people, in which we all work together in order to enhance the ministry of the church to the world.
The last major area of the work of the church is sometimes referred to as hospitality or charity, or (in more contemporary language) Social Action, but which I like to think of it as “EMO” -- Evangelical Missionary Outreach. I like this phrase "evangelical missionary outreach" for a couple reasons. First, because it reminds me that the work of the church is indeed a mission -- and it is this mission, this sense of purpose, which provides us with our identity and our reason for being. And second, because it makes it clear that this purpose is not something just for ourselves alone -- rather, it is essential that congregations reach out into their communities in order to serve as effective witnesses for the values and principles which we hold so dear, witnesses to our “good news;” and likewise that we serve as a haven, an oasis, a beloved community, for those who need it, who need for us to be here for them.
I want to turn now briefly to another topic, which kind of follows on from what I’ve just been talking about, and that is the place of political discourse in the free pulpit.
I believe very strongly in the separation of Church and State. The policies (and particularly the police powers) of our civil government should never be allowed to come under the control of any particular sectarian religious organization or ideology, and likewise (and perhaps even more importantly), that same power of government should never be allowed to influence or control the free expression and legitimate practice of religious faith in our pluralistic, secular society. Now obviously there is quite a bit room for ambiguity here, some gray areas which mostly have to do with arriving at a reasonable understanding of the notion of “legitimacy.” And we’ve seen some good examples of this in just the past few weeks, haven’t we? But it seems obvious to me that individuals who attempt to use the shield of religion in order to engage in illegal activities like theft, or murder, clearly are not protected by the First Amendment.
Furthermore, not only is worshiping a graven image explicitly prohibited by the Second COMMANDMENT, but setting up a massive stone monument to a specific religious tradition in the lobby of a public courthouse is probably not the best method for reassuring people who don’t necessarily share those beliefs or belong to that faith tradition that they are about to receive a fair and impartial hearing before the bar of justice. (Of course, maybe that was the whole point all along). My view, however, is Thou shalt not commit idolatry on public time or with the public dime (maybe that’s the message they OUGHT to erect in the Alabama Supreme Court). And I’m sure we can all think of other activities of dubious legitimacy (I won’t try to itemize them all here) which from time to time may bring church and state into conflict with one another. But on the whole, a strict wall of separation between church and state is one of the key principles that make both authentic democracy and freedom of religious belief possible in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic world.
The dynamic relationship between religion and politics, however, is not nearly so easily delineated. If politics is the practice of making decisions as a community, and religion represents the expression of our highest values and aspirations, it is only natural that our religious convictions must, on some level at least, influence and shape our political opinions. This is NOT to suggest that we should allow our politics to become our religion. Because politics also represents the art of the possible, an ability and the willingness to compromise in order to achieve agreement in the here and now. Religion, on the other hand, in many ways represents our vision of the impossible: our trust in things which we feel but cannot see, our hope for a better and more perfect community in times to come. So the two are related, but they are also distinct, and unavoidably influence one another in our never-ending effort to become better people than we now are, and to put our beliefs and values into practice in our everyday lives.
Conservative Religious leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are rarely shy about expressing their political opinions whenever the opportunity arises. And there are many religious leaders, myself included, who would attribute much of the rancor and acrimony of contemporary political discourse to the sanctimonious, “holier-than-thou” self-righteousness of the Fundamentalist Christian Right, who (as best I can tell) sincerely do believe that God favors one political party over another, just as they believe that America is divinely favored over all the other nations of the world, despite our awkward Constitutional separation of Church and State.
My own political sentiments (as it probably won’t take you too long to figure out) tend to lean pretty solidly in the other direction, although I am, in fact, a registered Independent, and have been pretty much all of my adult life. In accordance with my liberal religious views, I also tend to be rather liberal on most social issues, although I can unquestionably be quite conservative about some things, such as the Bill of Rights and the civil liberties it was intended to protect. And I’ll tell you honestly, I can’t remember the last time I actually voted for a Republican candidate. Even so, as an historian, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the principles which originally gave rise to the party of Lincoln, back in the days when it was also the party of Abolition, and thus enthusiastically supported by a great many Unitarians here in New England. And I still respect and admire those same principles of liberty, independent thought, duty, nobless oblige, and the honorable privilege of public service (as opposed to using a position of public trust as a means of protecting one’s social privilege) whenever I see them exhibited by contemporary “moderate” Republicans such as Elliott Richardson, William Cohen, George Mitchell, or most recently, James Jeffords.
And my promise to all of you is this: whenever I do speak of politics from this pulpit (as I’m confident I will often have occasion to in these increasingly troubled times), I will always attempt to speak out of the teachings of our religious tradition rather than merely expressing my private political opinions. I will try to be fair rather than partisan, to look for points of consensus as well as points of criticism, and to embody the virtue of civility, which I still believe is essential to the smooth functioning of civil society. But I would also remind you that one of the obligations of the Free Pulpit is to speak prophetically, in the tradition of Jeremiah: to speak the truth to power, to speak-up for those who cannot speak for themselves, to be the voice of those who have no voice: the oppressed, the marginalized, the down-trodden. The free pulpit is also a critical pulpit, which endeavors always to confront the power of evil with the light of truth. But my purpose in speaking up and speaking out is not to tell you what YOU should believe, but rather simply an attempt to articulate and share my own most deeply-held beliefs, something which is both my duty and my responsibility as your minister, in the hope that you might somehow find whatever meager wisdom or insight I may possess beneficial in your own spiritual journeys.
Speaking out prophetically about issues of Social Justice is only one small part of our larger ministry of Community Activism, which in turn is only one aspect of the overall work of the Church. By meeting regularly for public worship, by educating our children while learning from one another, by simply enjoying one another’s company, treating one another with dignity and respect, and caring for one another in times of need or crisis, we do God’s work here in our small corner of the Universe, Carlisle Massachusetts. And through doing that work, we show the world our faith, not just in words, but by deeds of hospitality and outreach to our Neighbors and fellow Creatures....
Sunday, September 7, 2003
INSIDE WORK, NO HEAVY LIFTING
A sermon by Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
First Religious Society in Carlisle
September 7, 2003
READING: 2 Timothy 2: 20-25
I’ve been a little surprised this past week about how anxious I’ve been feeling about the approach of this moment. Not that this is really my very first Sunday in this pulpit, I’ve preached here before, a couple of times; but it is my very first REAL Sunday as your called and settled parish minister, and that somehow makes it special, which in turn makes me anxious -- in both the good and the unpleasant sense of that word. Which is why I am wearing all of my “special" clothes....
Last Spring, when I preached here as a candidate, I mentioned the advice that my mentor, Rhys Williams, had given me when I was his student intern twenty-five years ago, about not trying to tell folks everything I knew on the first Sunday, because they just might expect me to do it again EVERY Sunday; and I’ve been thinking about that advice quite a bit as this Sunday has approached, not just because it is still good advice twenty-five years later, but also because (as some of you already know) Rhys passed away this past July 20th from pancreatic cancer. So he’s been on my mind a lot as I’ve been reflecting about all the other things he taught me about being a good minister, and beginning a new ministry.
Yesterday afternoon I attended the memorial service held for Rhys at the First and Second Church in Boston, the congregation that he served faithfully for 40 years. And it was amazing to me, as I listened to the eulogists, many of whom had also been Rhys’s students and proteges, how similar all of our experiences were, and likewise how much of Rhys’s style and philosophy I have incorporated into my own ministry, often without my even being consciously aware of how they got there. Rhys was very much what I like to think of as a “Hands on/Hands off” kind of mentor. He was always there to listen, and to provide encouragement; but he never tried to tell you what to do or how to do it, and whenever you came to him uncertain of yourself or the quality of your own work, his response would inevitably be “I’m sure it will be fine.” Not that it always was, mind you, but he gave you the freedom to learn from your mistakes without necessarily suffering the consequences of failure. His leadership style was to find the best people possible and to give them the room to discover and do their best; and he was particularly adroit at mentoring younger seminarians such as myself, who may have possessed plenty of ability and “potential” but who were perhaps not quite as sure of themselves as Rhys was of them.
He was also without question the kindest and most generous person I have ever met, and on this point everyone who knew him well would agree. “Caring is Sharing; Living is Giving” -- I can’t tell you how many times I heard him say those words. He loved to work behind the scenes; always sharing the credit when things went well, never pointing the finger when things went badly, and somehow he always seemed to know the inside dish, what was REALLY going on, before anyone else did. And when you spoke with him, he had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in his life. And the funny thing was, at that moment, you were. His theology was one of “Pragmatic Optimism;” -- he always seemed to see the best in any person or situation, and that alone inspired people to live up to his high opinion of them.
He also believed in brevity; yesterday his seminary roommate and lifelong friend David Pohl characterized Rhys’s philosophy as: “Stand up to be seen, speak out to be heard, sit down to be appreciated.” And he loved to tell funny stories to illustrate points in his sermons, sometimes with only the most random and tenuous connection to his topic. One of his favorites, which he told at my installation in Midland Texas, was about “a retired minister who decided to fulfill one of his great dreams -- to climb Pike’s Peak in Colorado. He had almost reached the summit when he slipped and fell 30 feet. There he grasped at a branch and found himself dangling over a 3,000-foot precipice. He held on with all his strength, struggling to gain a firm footing. But it was to no avail. Soon he became exhausted. He thought of his religious faith as he was almost giving up hope. Turning his face skyward, he called out ‘Is there anyone up there?’ A voice boomed back, ‘Yes.’ The minister asked ‘Who is it?’ The reply came back ‘I am God.’ ‘Will you help me?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘What must I do?’ ‘First, let go of the branch.’ There was a very long pause, and then the minister called out again, ‘Is there anyone else up there?’ “ The point, of course, was that we should never give up hope. But we should also always be realistic about our options. And this was Rhys, both in life and in death.
In any event, Rhys taught me an awful lot of things about both life and the ministry, and he tried to teach me a lot more than I was really able to understand or appreciate at the time; things which, for some inexplicable reason, I simply had to learn for myself, typically the hard way, and only much later became capable of seeing the wisdom of what he’d been trying to tell me all along. And, of course, like all great mentors, he taught me as much by example as he did by precept, and those lessons, over time, have turned out to be the most subtle, and the most valuable, of all. And I know (because he told me) that he was delighted that you had invited me to settle here in Carlisle, and equally delighted that I accepted your invitation. Because, as you might have already inferred, he had a very high opinion of this congregation and its potential, and he felt that we might do well together. And I, for one, am not inclined to disappoint him.
I wanted also to say just a few words about the title of this sermon, which I did NOT pick up from Rhys, but actually heard for the first time from one of THIS congregation’s former student interns, my Divinity School classmate Eric Heller, who did his field education here in Carlisle at about the same time that I was an intern at First and Second. Eric was a few years older than me; he was a military veteran, who’d served in Southeast Asia -- and when people asked him why he had decided to study for the ministry he would respond by saying “It’s inside work, with no heavy lifting.” And gosh I thought that was clever! Of course, now that I’ve stood at my share of gravesides (occasionally in the pouring rain), I’ve discovered just how weighty a handful of dirt can be. And I’ve also officiated at my share of garden weddings (generally a much more pleasant occasion for working outdoors), and I’ve lifted the (literally) TONS of boxes of books I’ve accumulated over my years in this profession more times than I care to count. So on that level, at least, Eric was wrong; ministers don’t always work inside, and there is plenty of heavy lifting.
Yet even with those caveats, at first glance this still looks like a pretty cushy occupation. An hour on Sunday morning, plus an occasional evening meeting or two, make a few phone calls, answer a few e-mails, now and again maybe a hospital visit or a counseling session, a little administrative paperwork just to tie it all together...it’s really not that much, when you compare it to a REAL job. Of course, there’s always the “inside” work to consider: the inner, spiritual work we clergy do on ourselves, to keep ourselves fit to BE professional religious leaders. Not to mention the “heavy lifting,” the burdens that other people share with us, and which we help them to bear as best we can. So maybe there really is a little bit more to this job than meets the eye. It’s kinda hard for me to say, since I’ve never really done anything else -- managed a bookstore for a few years, a little restaurant work when I was young, some college teaching as a graduate student (but what kind of work is that?). The only real difference I see between those jobs and the professional ministry is that even on days when I don’t “do” much ministry, I never stop “being” a minister. But perhaps that, in many ways, is what makes all the difference in the world.
Historically of course, Ministry (along with Law and Medicine) has always been understood to be one of the three “learned professions,” which basically meant that in order to “practice” one needed to have attended college and mastered the ancient languages. But nowadays, with so many people attending college, and so many occupations assuming the mantle of “professionalism,” these categories, and boundaries, are not always so clear. For example, is the primary responsibility of a “professional” minister to the people they serve, or to the standards of their profession? The easy answer to this question is obviously "Both." But try finding that perfect balance in real life. It's a common problem in all professions. Standards of professional practice often conflict with the desires of the clients. If you deviate from the standards, you are considered unethical; but if you don't satisfy the client, you don't get paid. I am reminded of something John D. Rockefeller supposedly once said to his attorney: "I don't pay you to tell me what I can and cannot do. I pay you to tell me HOW to do what I WANT to do!" (and presumably stay out of jail while doing it).
Yet even "zealous advocates" like attorneys have limitations on what they can and cannot do in order to represent their clients. True professionals are supposedly disinterested "experts" who apply their specialized knowledge, their "expertise," for the benefit of their clients according to the recognized standards of the profession. And they maintain their integrity by maintaining a monopoly, a professional cartel which polices those standards, drives out renegades, and squashes competition. If you want the job done “professionally,” you have to do it their way.
Yet this notion of "professionalism" is, in many ways, antithetical to both the idea and the IDEAL of ministry. The whole idea of ministry is that you give knowledge away, you try to spread it around as widely as possible. Moreover, in its broadest sense, ministry is something churches do as a group, and the minister is basically someone who hangs around to try to make certain that things go smoothly. Now don't misunderstand me: I believe very strongly in the standards of professional ministry. I know that ministers spend a lot of time in school in order to become “credentialed,” and that we do (or should) possess a specialized expertise that can help make our churches more effective, and enhance the lives of all who participate them. But I also recognize that ministers are not individuals who are set apart from the group by virtue of their profession, but rather must share and participate in the common life of the group in order to be most effective in their professional role. It's built right into the nature of the job, in which the leader must also be the servant of all. When authority derives from the power of love (rather than the assertion of the love of power) is ONLY the generosity of those with whom we work that allows us to make a living at this at all, and it is only with their help and cooperation that we are able to effectively meet our professional responsibilities.
When you think of Ministry as a Vocation, a “Calling,” rather than a “profession,” you suddenly see it from a very different perspective. It becomes something you do because you love it; one of those dream jobs that you can’t believe people are actually willing to give you a paycheck to keep doing. Because ministry truly is an occupation that offers a very nice combination of working with ideas and working with people, which provides ample opportunities for self-development, which gives you a lot of control over your time (although never quite enough time to go around!), and which above all else, honestly does offer a wonderful chance to make a difference in the world because of what you do, to have a real impact both on the lives of people, and on the society in which they live.
And this is why I am so delighted, and grateful, that you have called me to settle here in Carlisle as your new parish minister. By extending this invitation to me, you have done something much more complicated and involved than merely hiring a new professional employee to undertake the “usual and customary duties” of an ordained clergyperson. In a very real sense, we are entering into a partnership, in which I will do my best to utilize my unique skills and knowledge, education and professional "expertise," in order to help you cultivate your own special gifts for service, to teach and guide and lead you by example as we work together to create a new and dynamic ministry for this church here in the 21st century. Your shared vision of this church’s compelling mission, combined with your own spirit of generosity and cooperation, are the essential ingredients which will enable me to be as successful in my ministry here as your previous ministers have been. Because my ministry really is your ministry as well, and it will never be truly effective without your active participation and support.
I recently heard it suggested that one reason that our society no longer seems to look to the ministry for leadership the way it used to is because people no longer really believe in God. Yet is seems to me that if this is true, then we need wise and insightful professional ministers now more than ever. Disasters which we have traditionally attributed to the Divine — Famine, War, Pestilence and Death — we are now fully capable of bringing on ourselves. We NEED an awareness of the things we hold sacred in order to save us from our own inhumanity. This is the real mission of the modern church and its ministry: to help humanity to see a better way, and to inspire one another to act generously to bring it about, not only for ourselves, but for all with whom we share this planet. I look forward to sharing this important responsibility here in Carlisle with all of you.
Let us begin today.
First Religious Society in Carlisle
September 7, 2003
READING: 2 Timothy 2: 20-25
I’ve been a little surprised this past week about how anxious I’ve been feeling about the approach of this moment. Not that this is really my very first Sunday in this pulpit, I’ve preached here before, a couple of times; but it is my very first REAL Sunday as your called and settled parish minister, and that somehow makes it special, which in turn makes me anxious -- in both the good and the unpleasant sense of that word. Which is why I am wearing all of my “special" clothes....
Last Spring, when I preached here as a candidate, I mentioned the advice that my mentor, Rhys Williams, had given me when I was his student intern twenty-five years ago, about not trying to tell folks everything I knew on the first Sunday, because they just might expect me to do it again EVERY Sunday; and I’ve been thinking about that advice quite a bit as this Sunday has approached, not just because it is still good advice twenty-five years later, but also because (as some of you already know) Rhys passed away this past July 20th from pancreatic cancer. So he’s been on my mind a lot as I’ve been reflecting about all the other things he taught me about being a good minister, and beginning a new ministry.
Yesterday afternoon I attended the memorial service held for Rhys at the First and Second Church in Boston, the congregation that he served faithfully for 40 years. And it was amazing to me, as I listened to the eulogists, many of whom had also been Rhys’s students and proteges, how similar all of our experiences were, and likewise how much of Rhys’s style and philosophy I have incorporated into my own ministry, often without my even being consciously aware of how they got there. Rhys was very much what I like to think of as a “Hands on/Hands off” kind of mentor. He was always there to listen, and to provide encouragement; but he never tried to tell you what to do or how to do it, and whenever you came to him uncertain of yourself or the quality of your own work, his response would inevitably be “I’m sure it will be fine.” Not that it always was, mind you, but he gave you the freedom to learn from your mistakes without necessarily suffering the consequences of failure. His leadership style was to find the best people possible and to give them the room to discover and do their best; and he was particularly adroit at mentoring younger seminarians such as myself, who may have possessed plenty of ability and “potential” but who were perhaps not quite as sure of themselves as Rhys was of them.
He was also without question the kindest and most generous person I have ever met, and on this point everyone who knew him well would agree. “Caring is Sharing; Living is Giving” -- I can’t tell you how many times I heard him say those words. He loved to work behind the scenes; always sharing the credit when things went well, never pointing the finger when things went badly, and somehow he always seemed to know the inside dish, what was REALLY going on, before anyone else did. And when you spoke with him, he had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in his life. And the funny thing was, at that moment, you were. His theology was one of “Pragmatic Optimism;” -- he always seemed to see the best in any person or situation, and that alone inspired people to live up to his high opinion of them.
He also believed in brevity; yesterday his seminary roommate and lifelong friend David Pohl characterized Rhys’s philosophy as: “Stand up to be seen, speak out to be heard, sit down to be appreciated.” And he loved to tell funny stories to illustrate points in his sermons, sometimes with only the most random and tenuous connection to his topic. One of his favorites, which he told at my installation in Midland Texas, was about “a retired minister who decided to fulfill one of his great dreams -- to climb Pike’s Peak in Colorado. He had almost reached the summit when he slipped and fell 30 feet. There he grasped at a branch and found himself dangling over a 3,000-foot precipice. He held on with all his strength, struggling to gain a firm footing. But it was to no avail. Soon he became exhausted. He thought of his religious faith as he was almost giving up hope. Turning his face skyward, he called out ‘Is there anyone up there?’ A voice boomed back, ‘Yes.’ The minister asked ‘Who is it?’ The reply came back ‘I am God.’ ‘Will you help me?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘What must I do?’ ‘First, let go of the branch.’ There was a very long pause, and then the minister called out again, ‘Is there anyone else up there?’ “ The point, of course, was that we should never give up hope. But we should also always be realistic about our options. And this was Rhys, both in life and in death.
In any event, Rhys taught me an awful lot of things about both life and the ministry, and he tried to teach me a lot more than I was really able to understand or appreciate at the time; things which, for some inexplicable reason, I simply had to learn for myself, typically the hard way, and only much later became capable of seeing the wisdom of what he’d been trying to tell me all along. And, of course, like all great mentors, he taught me as much by example as he did by precept, and those lessons, over time, have turned out to be the most subtle, and the most valuable, of all. And I know (because he told me) that he was delighted that you had invited me to settle here in Carlisle, and equally delighted that I accepted your invitation. Because, as you might have already inferred, he had a very high opinion of this congregation and its potential, and he felt that we might do well together. And I, for one, am not inclined to disappoint him.
I wanted also to say just a few words about the title of this sermon, which I did NOT pick up from Rhys, but actually heard for the first time from one of THIS congregation’s former student interns, my Divinity School classmate Eric Heller, who did his field education here in Carlisle at about the same time that I was an intern at First and Second. Eric was a few years older than me; he was a military veteran, who’d served in Southeast Asia -- and when people asked him why he had decided to study for the ministry he would respond by saying “It’s inside work, with no heavy lifting.” And gosh I thought that was clever! Of course, now that I’ve stood at my share of gravesides (occasionally in the pouring rain), I’ve discovered just how weighty a handful of dirt can be. And I’ve also officiated at my share of garden weddings (generally a much more pleasant occasion for working outdoors), and I’ve lifted the (literally) TONS of boxes of books I’ve accumulated over my years in this profession more times than I care to count. So on that level, at least, Eric was wrong; ministers don’t always work inside, and there is plenty of heavy lifting.
Yet even with those caveats, at first glance this still looks like a pretty cushy occupation. An hour on Sunday morning, plus an occasional evening meeting or two, make a few phone calls, answer a few e-mails, now and again maybe a hospital visit or a counseling session, a little administrative paperwork just to tie it all together...it’s really not that much, when you compare it to a REAL job. Of course, there’s always the “inside” work to consider: the inner, spiritual work we clergy do on ourselves, to keep ourselves fit to BE professional religious leaders. Not to mention the “heavy lifting,” the burdens that other people share with us, and which we help them to bear as best we can. So maybe there really is a little bit more to this job than meets the eye. It’s kinda hard for me to say, since I’ve never really done anything else -- managed a bookstore for a few years, a little restaurant work when I was young, some college teaching as a graduate student (but what kind of work is that?). The only real difference I see between those jobs and the professional ministry is that even on days when I don’t “do” much ministry, I never stop “being” a minister. But perhaps that, in many ways, is what makes all the difference in the world.
Historically of course, Ministry (along with Law and Medicine) has always been understood to be one of the three “learned professions,” which basically meant that in order to “practice” one needed to have attended college and mastered the ancient languages. But nowadays, with so many people attending college, and so many occupations assuming the mantle of “professionalism,” these categories, and boundaries, are not always so clear. For example, is the primary responsibility of a “professional” minister to the people they serve, or to the standards of their profession? The easy answer to this question is obviously "Both." But try finding that perfect balance in real life. It's a common problem in all professions. Standards of professional practice often conflict with the desires of the clients. If you deviate from the standards, you are considered unethical; but if you don't satisfy the client, you don't get paid. I am reminded of something John D. Rockefeller supposedly once said to his attorney: "I don't pay you to tell me what I can and cannot do. I pay you to tell me HOW to do what I WANT to do!" (and presumably stay out of jail while doing it).
Yet even "zealous advocates" like attorneys have limitations on what they can and cannot do in order to represent their clients. True professionals are supposedly disinterested "experts" who apply their specialized knowledge, their "expertise," for the benefit of their clients according to the recognized standards of the profession. And they maintain their integrity by maintaining a monopoly, a professional cartel which polices those standards, drives out renegades, and squashes competition. If you want the job done “professionally,” you have to do it their way.
Yet this notion of "professionalism" is, in many ways, antithetical to both the idea and the IDEAL of ministry. The whole idea of ministry is that you give knowledge away, you try to spread it around as widely as possible. Moreover, in its broadest sense, ministry is something churches do as a group, and the minister is basically someone who hangs around to try to make certain that things go smoothly. Now don't misunderstand me: I believe very strongly in the standards of professional ministry. I know that ministers spend a lot of time in school in order to become “credentialed,” and that we do (or should) possess a specialized expertise that can help make our churches more effective, and enhance the lives of all who participate them. But I also recognize that ministers are not individuals who are set apart from the group by virtue of their profession, but rather must share and participate in the common life of the group in order to be most effective in their professional role. It's built right into the nature of the job, in which the leader must also be the servant of all. When authority derives from the power of love (rather than the assertion of the love of power) is ONLY the generosity of those with whom we work that allows us to make a living at this at all, and it is only with their help and cooperation that we are able to effectively meet our professional responsibilities.
When you think of Ministry as a Vocation, a “Calling,” rather than a “profession,” you suddenly see it from a very different perspective. It becomes something you do because you love it; one of those dream jobs that you can’t believe people are actually willing to give you a paycheck to keep doing. Because ministry truly is an occupation that offers a very nice combination of working with ideas and working with people, which provides ample opportunities for self-development, which gives you a lot of control over your time (although never quite enough time to go around!), and which above all else, honestly does offer a wonderful chance to make a difference in the world because of what you do, to have a real impact both on the lives of people, and on the society in which they live.
And this is why I am so delighted, and grateful, that you have called me to settle here in Carlisle as your new parish minister. By extending this invitation to me, you have done something much more complicated and involved than merely hiring a new professional employee to undertake the “usual and customary duties” of an ordained clergyperson. In a very real sense, we are entering into a partnership, in which I will do my best to utilize my unique skills and knowledge, education and professional "expertise," in order to help you cultivate your own special gifts for service, to teach and guide and lead you by example as we work together to create a new and dynamic ministry for this church here in the 21st century. Your shared vision of this church’s compelling mission, combined with your own spirit of generosity and cooperation, are the essential ingredients which will enable me to be as successful in my ministry here as your previous ministers have been. Because my ministry really is your ministry as well, and it will never be truly effective without your active participation and support.
I recently heard it suggested that one reason that our society no longer seems to look to the ministry for leadership the way it used to is because people no longer really believe in God. Yet is seems to me that if this is true, then we need wise and insightful professional ministers now more than ever. Disasters which we have traditionally attributed to the Divine — Famine, War, Pestilence and Death — we are now fully capable of bringing on ourselves. We NEED an awareness of the things we hold sacred in order to save us from our own inhumanity. This is the real mission of the modern church and its ministry: to help humanity to see a better way, and to inspire one another to act generously to bring it about, not only for ourselves, but for all with whom we share this planet. I look forward to sharing this important responsibility here in Carlisle with all of you.
Let us begin today.
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