I learned early on in ministry that the covenant between minister and congregation can be mysterious and complex.
It was early in my time here in Portland. I was certainly still trying to figure out just what in the world it meant to be a minister. I had been to theological school. I had been in churches all my life. I had heard the call. But newly settled in this congregation I was very much still figuring it all out.
I was at the grocery store one day. I think it may have been in the produce section. I notice this person who seems to be checking me out. I don’t recognize them. I go about my shopping and I continue to notice the person noticing me. Finally, the person approaches. She looks down into my cart and then she looks up at me. Her eyes grow wide. She puts her hand on my arm and says, with a mildly astonished voice, “you eat.”
Well this revelation didn’t seem like it should be much of a surprise to anyone. After a little conversation I came to understand that this was a fairly new member of the church and her experience of me up until that day in the store had been to see me up front here in the chancel, in my robe. She had not imagined that I had a life outside the church, let alone a life that included eating food. As the story unfolded I think I managed to not say what was going through my mind, something like, “well, duh, of course I eat.”
Every minister will tell you about times when they have come face to face with the expectations that come with the role. Many will share the experience of someone coming up to them after a sermon and saying: when you said so and so… it changed my life… and you are standing there and thinking… but I didn’t say that. Most of the time you don’t say anything because you know that they got something that they needed and it doesn’t really have much to do with you. That part of ministry can be a little humbling sometimes.
I’ve come to learn over time that ministers can have a particular role in the life of a congregation and in people’s lives. A minister can come to represent some combination of parent and God and maybe even dash of first grade teacher. Getting angry is generally frowned upon. As is swearing. One colleague learned that the hard way at a Habitat for Humanity build when they hit their thumb with a hammer. Let’s just say that the whole project suddenly got really, really quiet.
Mostly it is a great privilege to be in the role. But those expectations and all that comes with them, usually unspoken, can be a challenge. That may be why that day years ago in the store has stuck with me. You just can’t always know what any day in the produce section is going to bring.
Our spiritual theme this month is covenant. The simplest definition of covenant that I’ve heard is simply to come together. And there are many dimensions of covenant in a community like ours. There is the covenant between and among congregants—how it is we pledge to be together. There is the covenant that lives between the church and its members—what promises are made there? What is the mission we all look towards living out together? And it felt like an important time to make a space to talk about the covenant that lives between ministers and congregation. Especially in this time as this congregation looks Rev. Bill’s retirement and the calling of a new senior minister.
Rev. Bill said a couple weeks back that indeed ministers and congregations, at their best, grow together and call forth the best in each other. And that is very much true. At their best ministers and congregations are in a kind of dance together. They can call out the best—and sometimes not the best—in each other. Ministers are the visible leaders of a congregation for a time but then when they leave the role they also need to step away from the congregation, at least for a time. They need to make a space for the ministers who will follow. It is the congregation that is that continuity.
This congregation has tended to have long relationships with its ministers. That goes back to the beginning with Thomas Lamb Eliot when he arrived at age 27 in 1867 and was here for the rest of his life, into the 1930s. That was the beginning of that pattern of long ministries, something that Eliot and the rest of his family are known for. There is a group of congregations in our movement known as Eliot churches that have certain characteristics, including those long tenures.
Now I have at times wanted to put Eliot and others on a pedestal. He was a very important leader in the life of our city and he did get this congregation off on a strong footing. But pedestals, we learn, can be inherently unstable. Cindy Cumfer, our church historian, has been helpful in putting Eliot’s work in the context of his time—and of showing the ways that he didn’t always get it right.
Eliot came from New England stock and he had a view of the world that was common among Unitarians at that time. It was a view of the world that put his class—white Anglo Saxton protestants—at the top of the hierarchy. Eliot was ahead of his time in some ways he ministered to many people but definitely not in others. That was certainly the case when it came to Native Americans who were here first and others, including African Americans, were not seen as anything but equal.
Now, especially as we come to understand more deeply the role of white supremacy culture all around us, it is important to look at our history through this lens. It is hard to look forward if we can’t have a fuller understanding of our past.
That history and the way we tell the story needs to be a living thing. And that’s how it is with some larger covenant that is part of that story too. How the ministry of a congregation is a work in progress, a living thing. It is not just a story of accomplishments but also the story of how they—and sometimes we—can fall short. Those stories can get pretty well established and sometimes it is important to retell the stories from some other perspectives.
Rev. Bill and I have wondered at times what the Eliot’s would think about an African American man and a gay man leading the church in this present era, and before that a divorced woman serving as senior minister. Could they have imagined?
Sometimes when I despair about how slow progress can feel I have this mischievous image of one of those forefathers at least sifting a bit in their graves is not turning over entirely.
Times change. People change. But that essential covenant is something that lives on through generations. Through people. It is a striving. There is a line from the hymn we sang earlier in the service, “what they dreamed be ours do to…” But I think there also needs to be what they did be ours to know and to understand.
Ministers and congregations grow together, side by side. And while it would appear that it’s the minister who is telling the story, in fact the story is being told—being lived—by the whole congregation. Maybe that is another way of looking at that covenant: the telling of the story of a community of people. Ministers, in telling that story bring their stories into that narrative of a community. Their identities come to also shape the identity of a congregation, from generation to generation.
When I was called here as an out gay man a little over 25 some years ago I’m not sure that I appreciated that it was all that big deal for the congregation. But back then the church hadn’t had a lot of out gay voices in its pulpit. Queer folks, I’m told, got the message in the days before that time that they were welcome but not too welcome here. But then the church went through a kind of transformation when it wrapped the block and declared its block a hate free zone and welcomed gays and lesbians in. Looking back that opened a door that I, some years later, was invited to walk through. But at the time I don’t know that I had an appreciation for that. I think I was probably more anxious about my sexual orientation than most of the folks in the church. Mostly I got heard a message that said “yes, we are with you.” That’s the part where congregations play an incredible role in making a space for their ministers to succeed.
Now it would be easy to want to romanticize all this. One of the things I have learned in these years is that change does take time, and in particular real systemic change. And part of that change is the realizing that with change can come the need to give things up. It means being open to shifting cultures and noticing who has a seat at the proverbial table and who does not. But change is often hard and sometimes it means that we aren’t always kind to each other.
A few months into my ministry here I had a board member, an older straight white male, tell me that I wasn’t welcome here. He even said that with my arrival all the straight men in the congregation had left, which was quite a statement. Clearly my so called gay-dar was not as accurate that I thought it was. What I eventually learned in that situation, which is so often the case in ministry, that it really wasn’t about me. I represented for him some new reality that he wasn’t quite ready to accept.
But I have also learned that that is how change, how growth, for individuals and for a community, happens. It means a willingness to be together, even when things might be uncomfortable. It means making a space where growth—and challenge—can happen. It means recognizing the privilege some of us have. It means making a space to see who is welcome at the table and who is not. It means being willing see ourselves as part of a new and unfolding story.
It was not long after Rev. Bill came that he decided to put up the Black Lives Matter prominently on the side of the church. This was before you saw BLM signs as prominently displayed all over the city like we do today. Many were supportive, many were thrilled. Some had questions. And some weren’t happy about it at all.
It wasn’t long before the office started getting calls. Mostly from the larger community. Didn’t all lives matter? What about me? Some of our office volunteers who took those calls felt more comfortable responding than others did. We created a short statement for our volunteers to use. And over time I think we all came to be a little more comfortable—and articulate—in responding. It came to be part of the shared story. I believe those talking points are will there on the volunteer desk, albeit a little tattered.
And the learning and the growing continues. There was a time not long ago when use of the phrase white supremacy culture was a trigger for many, especially for white folks. And certainly still is for some. But in a remarkably short time it is now part of our vocabulary. It is even now part of the narrative of this congregation. And I think that’s the way it is supposed to be. Making a space to learn and to grow together. And that isn’t always easy. But I don’t think easy is what it’s about. Yes, some have left but others have come in. We are, as individuals, as communities within this community, the community as a whole, works in progress.
And underneath all of that is a living covenant that we’ll be on this journey, in this story, together. With all of its questions and learning. With all of its disease and its joy. That covenant is a living thing and one that grows and changes over time.
With the affirmation of the 8th principle earlier this year this congregation has made its commitment to be anti-racist and multicultural, more central to its own work, its own story.
We talk about ministers having callings but I have come to learn that institutions, just like people, have callings. They have a mission and live out that mission as the present times call for. And sometimes we find ourselves in certain moments in history that are set apart. The church I was called to all those years ago was about proactively welcome LGBTQ people into this space. And that work, we know is certainly not finished. Most especially when it comes to our trans siblings. But the church of today is at another juncture, centering especially the voices of black and brown and indigenous siblings. That, in particular is how the church is being asked to bear witness in this time.
But part of that call asks us all to look at issues of power and privilege and change, and those usually aren’t easy. And sometimes it comes with a a sense of loss. Not change isn’t always easy.
In all of this there needs to be space to make mistakes, for patience. An important part of knowing and telling that story includes those times when forgiveness is necessary, those times when we don’t live up to our ideals. Forgiveness for others and maybe most of all forgiveness for ourselves when we fall short of our own ideals. Being in covenant, for ministers, for congregants, for the whole congregation asks us all to make space for all of that.
Churches I have learned—maybe you have too—are very human institutions and we don’t always bring our best selves to the effort. But amazingly I have to say that all too often we do seem to manage that. Hopefully out of that covenant can come a trust that allows us all to open, as individuals and as a community.
There can be in all of this is a kind of grace as more and more we might be able to see our own lives in the lives of others. Seeing that our destinies are really tied together. That so often one oppression intersects with another and how part of the spiritual task, the covenants asks us to hold all of that. To understand that oppression, in its many forms, harms all of us. It is about seeing that our individual lives and all of the parts of our identity we bring, are welcomed and valued.
Each of our stories is part of that larger story, that larger narrative of our times. I’m mindful of that whenever I find myself preaching or praying. It all comes out of that ongoing conversation, that ongoing covenant.
One of the hardest things in this covid time has not been being together in the ways we are used to being together. Here in the sanctuary. And I really miss the face to face conversation. Yes, there are zoom chats and phone calls. But what I miss are those short conversations after church, often in the narthex. Little check ins. This comment or that comment. Hearing about whatever it is that’s going on in someone’s life. Maybe an exchange that says I see you.
Maybe that is really what is at the heart of that covenant we share. A commitment to see each—to bear witness to—each other. Maybe that is most of all true in these days and months ahead.
The times we are in continue to feel so uncertain. Any illusion we had of life going back to some kind of normal somehow is long gone. Now the questions are more about just what the contour of life will be. Just how have our lives been reshaped and how will they continue to be reshaped.
There are things we know but so much that we don’t know. How is it we live with that uncertainty.?
Words again of the poet:
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
Love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
Over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
–from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese
Through these times of uncertainty, through these times of peril. Through these times of possibility and hope, may we know we are part of the family of things. May we know we are not alone. May we keep in mind that vision of a beloved community that will never let us go. Amen.
Prayer
Spirit of life and of love, god of many names and no name at all, hear our prayers. Be with us, spirit, in these times that would trouble—that should trouble—us all. Call us to say no to hatred, to all that would hold some of us—and ultimately all of us—back. May we see in our coming together a path forward, and may we see ourselves on this journey together. Grant us courage, grant us wisdom, grant us perseverance. And through it all call us to love, that we might build that Beloved Community and that it might help all of us to find our way, together. Amen.
Benediction
As we go forth on this day, may we be held in that never ending love. May that we our promise. May that be our prayer.
Topics: Covenant