"I believe that it has been the WE of all
of you that has given me the faith and you the strength to journey into the
next phase of life as a congregation. It is no accident that I will also receive
my Doctor of Ministry degree next month, on the thesis that we can as different
as each of us is; create a common theology, a faith stance to save the world
from the relationships, the WE that we are. I believe that all of us have a
theology that defines who we are and how we can make our world a more beautiful
place. I believe that too often Unitarian Universalists are overly concerned
with the horizontal relationships of meaning; giving breadth to our spiritual
understandings and welcoming those who are different into our midst. Rarely do
we give adequate attention to the vertical dimension; exploring how our
individual and communal meanings deepen our purpose to a greater power. Giving
name to those individual theologies will be part of our journey together. I am,
broadly speaking, a natural theist, an enchanted mystic with leanings towards
the Holy. Through my spiritual practice and luminescent experiences I have felt
the presence of a power in my life much greater than me. I reluctantly call
this power “God” or God/Power. However, because I also believe in the use of
reason to explain the universe, I am unable to define this God/Power beyond
these fleeting encounters. I do believe God/Power is made manifest through what
Henry Nelson Wieman terms the “creative interchange” we have with one another.
We can, and often do, create deep meaning and hope out of our relationships
with one another when it seems impossible to do so by ourselves.
I believe God/Power holds an attraction
that pulls each of us towards each other in what the feminist theologian Monica
Coleman terms “Gods calling”. The attraction of God’s calling is therefore
calling us forward into the world as agents of change and hope. And yet, my
explanation for our place in the cosmos is tentative at best since God/Power
exists beyond the rational. My theology rests in my belief that we are here to
make our world a better place within the larger cosmological context of an
expanding universe. While I can’t say with certainty that the “universe is
good” I can say that we have a responsibility as co-creators with God/Power to
make the universe, or at least our little corner of the universe, better. This
is what I mean by the freedom you all have to become a new kind of WE.
Theology does not tell us what to
believe –that must be determined through a careful reflection on our experience,
reason and intuition – but rather what we should do with what we hold
ultimately meaningful. If I believe that OUR calling is to co-create God/Power
in the world, then I am equally called to create that good which I believe
represents that God in the world. I am called to create a theology with a
congregation that can reach beyond such relativism to the bold possibility that
we are here for a greater and more unifying good than ourselves as subjective
beings in the world.
You gifted this theology, this faith to
me and I will take that precious gift and share it with the world. Even more importantly you have that theology
with you and you will give it meaning as you stretch into a new vision of
yourselves as congregation.
It is no secret that we have suffered
some deep loses over the years. Amidst
our dreams of building a new world, among the weddings performed, the babies
named, and meals served, we have seen many of our most precious people die. I
have conducted 52 memorial services in ten years. By any measure that is staggering amount of
loss. Most of those we bid farewell to were older but a few were younger. I
remember a 43 year old woman who had just married her lesbian partner and died
three weeks later. I remember Bruce Barr, a 48 year old father of two, who died
of oral cancer even though he never smoked.
It is a tremendous privilege to have journeyed with these beloved ones
at the end of their lives. Many of our elders are grieving that I won’t be here
to journey to the end with them. But amidst all that loss I learned one more
precious lesson, one more gift that is embedded in the WE.
It came from Dr. Bob Bloomfield. Dr. Bob was a pillar of this church. A
successful family physician he had done so much for us at the end of his life. He
started our senior pow wow that, despite its culturally inappropriate name, has
helped seniors navigate the terrain of old age with grace and courage. Just before Dr. Bob died he and I had a long
and private conversation in the hospital.
He told me he didn’t think he would survive this next surgery. I didn’t
argue with him, it was a long shot. He said “I have lived a long and good life,
John. I think I have done some good in the world. But I really didn’t know what good was until
I started coming back to church when you arrived. Good lives inside the love we share with one
another. Good is its own reward. And I
see now what you meant by our ministry together saving lives. I always argued with you that it was too
strong a phrase, that doctors save lives but not ministers.” I smiled. He went
on “But a life is not just our bodies, a life is our happiness and our purpose.
WE as a church have saved some lives, Rev. John, starting with my own.” Dr. Bob died the next day. WE are and always have been stronger than any
ME. Long after I am gone, you will still be that WE, you dreamed you would
become. So stay my dear people, stay and help make that WE together, freely now
and for those hundreds who will come. Our time is precious; let us fill it with
Love. Amen.
