Thus Far

“Thus Far”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for the Sunday of our Annual Meeting
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 3, 2009

Five years ago and a day you called me to be your minister. I continue to be grateful for that call. I continue to learn from you—as a minister and in so many other dimensions of my life. We speak of “the learning congregation.” A learning congregation has a learning minister, and that rests on the basic assumption that both are paying attention. I believe you are, and I know that “paying attention” is a most valued lesson you have taught me. I’ll explain.

Several years ago, my husband Dan and I faced the harrowing task of teaching our kids to drive. Some of you have been through this. It can be downright terrifying. I’m talking about what the parents go through! Patting your tummy and rubbing your head is the simplest of tasks compared to what any of us must be able to do to get behind a wheel and take to the road. My mantra as a driving educator was singular: “Pay attention! No, don’t check the radio. No, don’t put a tape in. No, don’t channel cruise. No, don’t look at me when you’re talking. Pay attention to the road. You’ll get the knack of the clutch and the brakes (we taught them all on stick shifts). That’s the easy part.” The tough stuff is focusing completely on the road, which includes all other drivers and every single pedestrian.

Ministry isn’t so different, and you know I came from a city where the level of stimulation assumes what we call “multi-tasking!” Multi-tasking might help us survive in New York City or in Boston, but it does not make a good minister. Early on, a few of you gently suggested to me that when I greet you after worship and when I’m with you in conversation, please do not turn my head in anticipation of the next person. When you appear at the door of my study, you feel more welcome if I let go of what I’m working on and not try to greet and complete at the same time. Okay, I’m getting it! And I invite you to remind me when I lapse back into the mode of survival on Lexington Avenue or the cross-town shuttle. I’m still learning. One person at a time; each moment holds a universe.

Then there’s preaching. You’ve taught me so much. Stories connect. Go easy on information. Don’t cram a sermon like you’re stuffing a hefty bag. Be conversational; this isn’t a lecture; it’s relational. You’ve reminded me to preach with you not to you. An unfolding happens when I know, I just know, that what I’ve said and how I’ve said it connects with who you are and where you are at a moment in time, at least some of you. I’ve learned that it is impossible minus one to connect with all of you all the time.

You’ve reminded me week by week and year by year that you’re authentic Unitarian Universalists. You do not walk to a common step or think to a common thought. And for each of you, there’s a galaxy of opinion. Some of you come from traditions in which you’ve been taught that the words of clergy are writ in stone. There are Sundays when I would thank whatever God you believe in for such faith, however blind it might be. Yet I find it far more inspiring to know that you question freely what I say and what I propound. I invite you to continue to question and challenge. It reminds me that you’re paying attention, and it brings us into deeper and closer connection.

You’ve even taught me how to preach about politics. This might surprise some of you who claim that politics doesn’t belong in the pulpit, however often I’ve noted that politics are simply a mode of structuring ourselves in community. Who could ever doubt, for example, that there are “church politics?” However, when I address those sticky matters of power and privilege that so commonly overlap with the arena of secular politics, you’ve thoughtfully taught me to be explicit in qualifying that you don’t have to agree with me. Some of you don’t need such qualification, but I concede to the need of many who were raised in a more hierarchical faith tradition.

What else?

You’ve taught me to take time for myself and my family. I’m still learning, since the Protestant work ethic instilled by my family of origin and my definitively Presbyterian roots haunts me with the message that nothing I ever do is enough. That’s not you; that the unforgiving echo of my past. My husband, Dan, reminds me of what you tell me: “No one on their death bed ever shows remorse about not spending more time in her office—or her study.” I still need such reminding.

You’ve taught me to celebrate! Not that I hadn’t a clue about how to celebrate, but you’ve upped the ante. You throw great parties! You let your hair down. You prepare amazing breakfasts and dinners and receptions. The most recent Spring Fling and Circle Ministry potlucks come to mind. Even when you roll up your sleeves and do what we might call an “industrial strength clean-up/fix-up Sunday,” you turn it into a celebration. You resist taking yourselves too seriously; and in so doing, you call me out of that part of me that takes myself too seriously.

You embody generosity—generosity of time and talent and imagination and yes, money. Just a few days ago, a certain mortgage was burned. You don’t like financial albatrosses, and this one is off our backs. You continue to support our operating expenses, even in the uncertain economy that is center stage these days, even with some tough cuts in a budget that you will soon vote on. In concert with you, I seek to give as generously as I can to support and sustain this congregation. It is a gift given and received.

You remind me year after year how imaginative you are. Last September I stood in this pulpit and recounted the New Testament parable of the sower who sowed seeds on ground that was variably productive. I suggested that each of us is a sower and then offered $1,000 of “seed funding”—funds withdrawn from my ministerial expense budget—in the form of twenty envelopes, each with a $50-bill; and I invited 20 of you to come forward, take an envelope, and use your gift “to seed a ministry within or beyond this congregation and to share with this church the story of how this happens.” The stories that have unfolded, stories like that told by Chartis this morning and all the stories recounted in this year’s Lenten Manual under the theme “Promises Kept,” remind me of how wondrously imaginative you are.

You rise to the challenge of a surprise, whether that surprise is positive or not so positive. When I stood in this pulpit last November and shared with you the news of my early stage breast cancer, you rose to that challenge with extraordinary grace and compassion. You encouraged me to take the time I needed with the surgery required and the requisite recovery. Through our Care Circle, you brought sumptuous dinners to our home and sent cards and even flowers. Through the all encompassing love that is our Care Circle you have graced all those among us who have known those exceedingly unpleasant surprises of a scary diagnosis, a life-threatening injury, or the loss of a loved one. By your actions, you remind me again and again that you are a congregation both gracious and resilient.

You have provided grist for what my colleague and mentor Forrest Church taught me: “Play to the health of a congregation!” Every congregation is first and foremost an assembly of humans, and as humans we’re susceptible to bouts of backbiting, gossip even, nay saying sometimes. Through the many ways in which we seek to practice shared ministry, accountability for who we are and what we do comes to the light of day; so that if one of us offends—and periodic offense is inevitable—we who are downwind of it try hard to speak the truth in love to that person, sometimes in the thoughtful company of our Shared Ministry Committee. It works. Beloved community is the stuff of mutual accountability. To make this work, I seek to give most of my attention to that which is loving, direct, engaged, and accountable in this parish akin to an apple tree on which almost every apple is a joy to digest!

You’ve taught me a heightened appreciation of architecture. These buildings in which our congregational life has spanned almost three centuries are more than buildings. They are historic reminders of the elegant simplicity of 18th century New England architecture. They bear silent witness to the early history of this nation as we know it and to the individuals and families who have been drawn here to discern what is sacred as life is celebrated through worship, through rites of passage that include weddings and dedications and memorial services, and through pivotal decision making that shapes who we are and who we will be as a congregation seeking to realize a faith of covenant grounded in love.

You’ve taught me a love of place. How fortunate I am to be your minister in this village by the sea. Now this is a lesson that didn’t take me long to learn. You perhaps know that I’m an aquaphile, a lover of water and above all, the ocean. Sheer joy is that first dive into the surf when it no longer renders us numb. The robe that I wear carries a hem of appliquéd waves, mirroring our spiritual alignment in our common love of those waves.

Now here we go into the high tides of matters spiritual. Over the course of my five years with you, I have heard a multitude of times that you would like me to be more spiritual. Sometimes I comply, albeit likely by accident. Slowly, slowly, I realize that matters of spirit mirror matters of theological perspective. What is spiritual to one is mundane to another. I have stopped trying to second-guess you about what you mean by spiritual, since this congregation’s spirituality and indeed Unitarian Universalist spirituality is kaleidoscopic, a shifting pattern of who we are as a religious community. Perhaps the most helpful lesson that I’ve learned in the venue of spirituality is to value, cherish even, the divergence. To consider that one day I will “get it” is illusory. In fact, when I expressed to my mentor and seasoned colleague, Victor Carpenter, my frustration about what you all mean by spirituality or what any of us means by that term, Victor responded that “Defining spirituality is like bottling fog.” While fog is not to be ignored; neither is it to be understood once and for all. I have learned simply to respect the mystery and to keep my heart and mind open without trying to land on a “right answer.” In biblical language, spirit translates into breath translates into wind. Spirit is as core to our living as breath, as elusive to our grasp as wind.

You have taught me how much timing matters when any of us considers what we can do and what we can’t. Some of you wear many hats in our parish life and wear them well. Some of you remind me that there are times when you need to go hatless, when you need to be exempt from any committee or task force, when you simply need to be more than do or when you need to do elsewhere also. There are after all the draws of family and job and community. First Parish Unitarian Universalist is not the only show in town. Though here we hit a challenge, and I would be grateful for a magic wand, maybe even a twirling baton, the kind used this past week in California by one quick-thinking female to ward off an aggressor. How to diffuse the challenge of Sunday morning sports? I’m not convinced it’s a brick wall. I invite you to strategize with me as I will strategize with fellow clergy in Cohasset and neighboring communities how to effectively advocate for Sunday afternoon sports, so that families might once again regard Sunday morning as the venue for church. What we who are parents teach our children about caring behavior can only go so far. The lessons and experiences that I know can and do accrue for our children through our religious education curriculum will serve them through a lifetime. Why not transition into a schedule that permits our children and parents a day to have church and sports too! I ask you to join me as advocates for a Sunday that holds both.

Finally, you have given me abundant cause for gratitude. I am grateful that you called me to be your minister. I am grateful that you have ridden waves—some of them white-capped—with me, that you have been patient with me, that you are increasingly direct with me and that you communicate increasingly through the institutions of this parish such as our Shared Ministry Committee or our Parish Committee or our Religious Education Committee. I am grateful for your wisdom, your intelligence, your wit, your imagination, your energy, your humor, and your hope. I am grateful that you manifest in so many ways the promise of this faith and this congregation and that together we enter the sphere of our larger selves, the sphere of community that is intentionally caring, just, and inclusive.

Those words of Forrest on the November evening of my installation continue to ring true:

“Want what you have.
Do what you can.
Be who you are.
And remember, it’s not about you.”

I’m trying. I’m trying. And you are such laudable partners on the journey.

I love you each and all.

Amen.