HELLO, I MUST BE GOING
A Homily
James Ishmael Ford
13 September 2015
Pacific Unitarian Church
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
I’ve been told of the interim minister who always began his first sermon at a new congregation by singing that little song from the 1930 Marx Brothers farce, Animal Crackers.
Hello, I must be going.
I cannot stay,
I came to say
I must be going.
I’m glad I came
But just the same
I must be going.
I will not sing it. And you’re welcome for that. My principal contribution to the musical program of a worship service is when it comes time to sing to step away from the microphone.
I understand why that bit of that song is repeated one way or another. It’s good to say and to repeat that principal aspect of an interim minister for those who don’t understand, and to underscore it for those who do. In this world nothing is forever. And one could say in that sense we’re all interims. But in this case I am, how shall we say, an intentional interim. Pre-fired. So, if you find me annoying in any way, don’t worry, I will be gone before terribly long. And, if you really like me, I’m sorry, but it is the same. I am bound by covenant to leave within two years maximum.
Congregation and elected, called, settled minister traditionally sink together into a relationship that when it goes well is something powerful. It speaks to the mysteries of our human hearts, and what relationships might be like given intentionality, and a little time. Now, my task while among you is a bit more focused. And a lot of it is shaped by those time constraints.
Foremost, I have been charged with listening and reflecting, and then washed through my decades of experience as a minister and, really, just as importantly, maybe more so through my years as a human being who has lived through a truck load of seriously weird stuff. As your interim minister I’m charged to speak true out of my experience and measured insight to you in ways intended to help you tweak what needs tweaking in your organization, and help you prepare yourselves for the next phase in the long journey that is congregational life. To use the abiding metaphor of today’s service, we are pulling out of the harbor and toward the sea. There are a few obstacles here and there in that. And me, I’m a tugboat brought in to push a little here, and prod a little there, just to help you on your way.
And to that task at hand I’ve been reading a lot, and I’ve been asking questions, and I have a few preliminary thoughts I’d like to share. You know, good news, and bad news. The first of the good news is we’re pretty pure Unitarian Universalists. When it gets down to it, despite the fact each of us may think our congregation, whether it is in Providence, Rhode Island, Wichita, Kansas, or Palos Verdes, California, is absolutely unique, born like Athena straight from Zeus’ forehead; when in point of fact that’s one of the things we all share in common.
We Unitarian Universalists are an independent lot. We think for ourselves. And we are suspicious of claims to authority, whatever they might be, wherever they might come from. That’s a big reason why UU ministry has been likened on more than one occasion to herding cats. How goes that old story of the church visitor, who comes from a very conservative Christian background, who during the coffee hour tells an old member, “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Some of those things that minister said were outrageous. I don’t believe I agreed with more than half of what she said.” To which the old UU replied, “You believed half?”
The bad news is, well, the same thing. We’re independent to a fault. And we don’t always pull together when we need to. We sometimes forget what it means to come together and live together for our own good, and for the good of others. So, during our time together here at Pacific Unitarian I’d like to find opportunities for us to reflect on the nature of our liberal tradition where we have bound ourselves together not by creeds or statements of belief, but by covenants, contracts, if you will. It can be powerful stuff.
For many of us the harder part of the past couple of years can be seen starkly in all the staff transitions. To not acknowledge there’s been hurt isn’t helpful in any sense. And in this time of change and consolidation, I think maybe we’ve lost a little focus on our larger vision, on what we are, and what we want to be. How could we not? There’s been a lot of flux, and that holds the attention.
But, here’s some more on that good news: I’ve been around the block a few times. And let me tell you, bottom line: you’re okay. I love the laughter I hear every Sunday. I love the kids running in and around. I see a good range of generations. I see people who care for each other. I see people who are working to make a serious community where we can raise a next generation, where each of us can grow deep, and from where we can do some good in this world.
So, let me remind you of a little about that larger vision. Our liberal religious message of freedom, reason, and tolerance is near unique among spiritual communities, and there are those who hearing it will respond and join us if they get half a chance. It’s time for us to focus on our essential health, our broad and this-worldly spirituality and to act from that place. And you are. I like the initiatives already taken here, like the Pacific Sage Preschool, which really shows our principles in action. Oh, and have I mentioned how much I love that every Sunday lunch? Talk about welcoming and building community…
And, we need to be practical. For one, it is our task in the interim to bring our budget into alignment with our realities. And things will be a little tight for a while. But, I can report your board is working diligently. I hope you don’t mind my saying our board. I am temporary, but I already feel the tendrils of affection and care at the heart of this community winding around me and holding me. Feeling that reality is part of why I am so optimistic about the future of this congregation. I can tell you they’re competent and dedicated to the project. We’re very lucky.
So, we only have a few moments. And I want to shift gears. I can imagine another question hanging out on my first Sunday standing here in this place of honor. What are you going to have to endure during my time in the pulpit here? This is, after all, where most in the congregation are going to encounter me week after week. While perhaps not totally in my nature, I think I can say what you’ll hear fairly succinctly.
A small anecdote. From time to time I find myself thinking of my seminary days. Among the memories welling up I think a lot of my class on preaching, Homiletics 101, as they like to say in my trade. The professor was the Reverend Dr James Chuck, a working preacher, as well as adjunct professor of homiletics at both the American Baptist Seminary of the West and the Pacific School of Religion where I was training. He was at the time also senior minister of the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco, which he would go on to serve for forty years.
I can still see that moment, some twenty-seven or eight years ago. A slight man, the professor stood glowering at us as we walked into that first class. Professor Chuck wore a three-piece suit with a thin pin stripe running through the fabric. Looked on the expensive side to my untutored eye. He sported a watch chain that extended across his stomach, and which included a dangling Phi Beta Kappa key that he idly fingered. I looked down at my Birkenstocks and Hawaiian print shirt and felt somehow I missed the memo.
When we finally took our seats Dr Chuck launched into a brief explanation of what is what. First he offered an observation about the steady decline in both the intellectual and spiritual capacities of seminarians since his day. He then moved on to the heart of the deal, explaining how the great preacher comes to have three sermons. And, with an even deeper glower, offered how it would behoove us all to quickly figure out what our meager single sermon was. And with that we launched into a semester long exploration of the sermon within Western culture in most of its variations. He worked us hard.
It’s now been a bit more than a quarter of a century since I first preached a sermon as a Unitarian Universalist minister. And, I can say I have three sermons. Or, rather, I’ve shifted that one sermon to another, on two occasions. Probably not quite the same as Dr Chuck meant, but, its what I have. Given that we will be together for a while, perhaps you’d be curious about them.
My first sermon was “Can’t we just get along?” What can I say, I was nervous at the time. But, it has occurred to me on occasion since that’s really not a bad sermon. Particularly as we reflect on the nature of covenant, of relationship within a liberal spiritual community and how for all our similarities we can at the same time be wildly different. Particularly useful as we encounter the inevitable differences between the general attitudes of older members and newer members.
Later my sermon was “Each of us is precious, and we are all woven out of one another.” It’s kind of theological, but also is the great message of contemporary Unitarian Universalism. I am, I find, what has been called a First and Seventh Principal preacher. That is I believe when we bring those two great observations of our contemporary liberal tradition together, about the preciousness of the individual and the reality that is so because we are all of us woven out of each other, constantly creating and being created, where we are in truth one family. The consequences to this observation are many. I find in it, among other things, our call to the work of justice. Our dream of building a land that can be. And so I love to unpack this insight. I have. I will.
And, so, what about the third sermon the one that I think of as my mature reflection? And the one that you may actually here the most, or at least, it will regularly inform all my other sermons. Well, that third sermon is pretty simple. It actually has three points.
Show up. Be present. Pay attention. And, actually, that can be further reduced to one word: intimacy.
It turns out the secret of living this life we share, of finding purpose and meaning, of living full, and not fearing death turns on one thing: intimacy. Be one with the flow of life and death. Open your heart to it all, don’t turn away. Be one with. Kind of like that woman playing at the waterfall in Zhuangzi’s story. Actually that’s the deal which we find in the first two sermons, getting along, and noticing how precious we are within our deep intimacy. There’s the bottom line. It’s actually all about intimacy.
Intimacy is the way into the mystery. Actually intimacy is the mystery. And very much, it is our way.
So, with that brief introduction to what I see, and what I’ll try to bring, thank you so much for welcoming me among you. I will do my best. I promise.
So be it. Blessed be. And, amen.
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