THE OIL OF GLADNESS: A CONSIDERATION OF MINISTRY

A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford
6 October 2002

The Text
The spirit of God has filled me and I am sent to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn, to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. We shall build up the ancient ruins; we shall raise up the former devastations, the devastations of many generations. We shall be named ministers of our God.
Isaiah 61 (Adapted)


I spent some time this week exploring minister jokes on the web. One thing I discovered, or perhaps more accurately remembered in this, was how there are both ministers of religion, the kind I was looking for, and ministers as agents of the state. I also noticed the connections between these two kinds of minister.

For instance Ambrose Bierce, in his classic Devil’s Dictionary, tells us how a minister is "an agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador."

Here we find the minister, whether as an agent of the state or of the divine usually marked out for pomposity, foolishness, and self-centeredness. So, a fairly typical joke has a minister walking down the street when he comes across a gaggle of neighborhood children arguing about a puppy. He stands in the middle of the gang of ten and eleven-year olds and asks, what’s going on?

The kids explain how they’d found the abandoned, they decided, puppy; and were trying to decide who gets to take her home. At this point they’d figured the fairest way to decide was to have a contest. The kid who could tell the biggest fib would get to keep the puppy.

Well, the minister was aghast. He declared that such an enterprise was unworthy of the young people he knew (and nearly all these were children of members of the congregation he served). Being a minister, from that observation he launched into a bit of a harangue, detailing the evils of telling untruths, concluding with an illustration of how they might best behave by explaining how when he was their age, he himself never lied.

As he finished the kids stood around silently for a moment, and the minister felt that warm glow which can flow over us as when we’ve convinced someone of the righteousness of our cause. Then the oldest of the children picked up the puppy, and handed her over, saying "Pastor, obviously you win."

Well, jokes aren’t really my long suit.

But the point here is really a question, what is ministry? What is it that people like me are falling short of and which leads to all those jokes? What is it that so many people in my occupation aren’t actually living up to? What is ministry? What is ministry supposed to be?

Well etymologically a minister is "one who serves." But, of course the real question is "serves what?" It is with that particular question and our unfolding its answers that we might begin to see what it is ministry is really about. Today, the day we will celebrate the nearly twenty years Gerry Krick dedicated to us in his life of ministry, today, the day we have commissioned nine lay ministers for special service among us: today I want to reflect on the true nature of ministry, what it is that ministry serves, and why, and how.

So, ministry in all its shapes. Mine as one elected by this congregation to serve professionally. And that of our lay ministers, those people we’ve commissioned today by our intention and our words. And, I want to suggest; I want so strongly to suggest, also this is about the ministry of all of us who have joined ourselves together into this little band that is the gathered congregation of the First Unitarian Society in Newton. Today I want to reflect on what it might actually all be about.

I suggest each and every blessed one of us here serves. We are all about ministry. But whom do we serve? Who, pray tell, is that other we are serving? This is the critical question. In a Unitarian Universalist congregation whom are we serving? Or, perhaps more helpfully let’s push out that term, and ask what are we serving?

Certainly within this question we find ourselves confronting the great mystery of our lives. What is it that lies at the heart of our being, yours and mine, which compels us, which draws us, which pulls us to be more than we might otherwise be? What is it that resides within our hearts that calls us to our better natures, and to service?

I suggest we can call this inner reality by many names. The names used by our people over the generations have often been ancient of ancients, the holy, and God. But it doesn’t have to have those names. Names, after all, just point to something. So, what is that to which these names point?

I look within my heart, and I see something of connection. And there as we consider the nature of connection, we might find the point. Here the echoes of that seventh of our Unitarian Universalist statement of Purposes and Principles speaks a truth that I feel deeply, that so many of us feel deeply about interconnection, about relationship.

And that truth is how we occupying this small planet spinning through space and time are all one family. We are neither independent nor dependent. That is we are not completely autonomous beings, free to act on our whim without causing ripples of consequence for many, actually for all. Nor are we slaves to the conventions and patterns of the past, condemned by our genes or our history. Rather than being dependent or independent, what we really are is interdependent.

And it is that, known or felt, thought through or just sensed vaguely like through that famous dark glass, which is the source of ministry. The family is the other we serve. Again, please don’t get caught up in the pointing name, God or family. The other we serve is our true self, what we are at core.

That other we serve, when we live up to our best, our deepest possible, is the sacred reality of our deep connection each of us with the other. And as we know this, as a hint of possibility, or as our flesh and blood certainty, it is the source of that call to serve.

As we serve in all those different ways we can, we begin to discern the contours of our possible ministry. It ranges from pulpit to care crew, from putting together the newsletter to visiting the sick and the prisoner, from planning the annual canvas to teaching the fourth grade religious education class, from our attention to the oldest among us to the youngest among us. And more, much more.

And of course, this "more" is why there are so many jokes about people like me who have arrogated to ourselves the title of this most fundamental action of our living reality. I just don’t live up to it. Few ever live up to it in its completeness, maybe none. We all fall short of the power of this calling, of the possibility of this calling, of the dream of this calling. But, still it calls.

So, on September 11th a year ago, three hundred and forty-three firemen ran into a burning building, ran into a field of suffering and pain and death. Three hundred and forty-three Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists and who knows what other kinds of human beings, but people all serving that other, that secret truth, who ran into a burning building and to their deaths. Another name for what they were doing is ministry. Another name for those firemen was ministers. Ministers all.

No wonder there are jokes about people like me. But, maybe they’re jokes about all of us. What do you think? What if it is true that we are all connected in some profound and real way? What if the divine name is our family name, and we really are not dependent, nor independent, but rather profoundly and truly interdependent? What then is the nature of our call to each other, and our response to that call?

This last week I was sitting around a table with Fran and Anne and Wendy and Noreen, and we were talking about those four hundred and forty-three firemen. I was saying I’m going to talk about them as the primary illustration of what ministry can be. We all sat quietly with that one for a bit. And, I think maybe I felt a little like that clergyman in the joke with the children and the puppy and the fibs. I felt the warm glow of how powerful and true it is, and that I had said it

And then Anne said, "I wonder about what building it is I’m willing to run into." And I knew at that moment I wasn’t speaking the truth, she was. And then Noreen said, "I think the building for me is sometimes nothing more than talking to a person a little more clingy than I like. I mean," she said. "For me that building can just be paying attention to someone I don’t like. And how hard that can be."

How many of us are going to be called into a burning building, an actual burning building? Few among us, I hope. I really hope. But at the same time burning buildings surrounds all of us. There is so much sadness, so much suffering, so much that needs us. And how are we going to respond? How do I respond? How do you respond?

What is the burning building for your ministry? Remembering what that burning building means, and all the deaths and all the suffering and hurt, and those people who ran into that building--without trivializing such astonishing sacrifice, such great heart, what is the burning building of your ministry?

There is a lot of burning building for me. I have a sacred trust in this pulpit from which generations have spoken, calling people, women and men to their better selves, calling us to serve justice, to abhor self-satisfaction, to know ourselves truly, and to act from that knowing. Honestly, it’s a trust that I don’t feel I can live up to.

But, I must try. Today we are surrounded by the shades of war, clouds piling upon each other, dark and darker still. Our president calls us to act with force against a gathering evil. And he names evils truly. But, I also think he is wrong, deeply wrong, in his call for us to send thousands upon thousands of our young to kill and to die, when there do seem to be other options.

My burning building is to stand here in this pulpit, knowing people among us; good and thoughtful people profoundly disagree with this assessment. But, my commitment to you, my commitment to this call of service, of ministry is to speak as true as I can. And that means to say from this pulpit and out of the particular ministry to which you have called me, that this war to which our President calls us is misguided and wrong.

So for you, what are the burning buildings? Is the act of ministry you are called to grand? Or, is it small? Remember small isn’t trivial. Certainly small doesn’t have to be trivial. We mostly live in the small things. So, is your burning building simply an act of kindness to someone you don’t like? That small thing can be amazingly hard. Is your ministry taking a little more time with that person who doesn’t have good boundaries, but does have endless need? Or is it something else? What is it? What is it?

Here are a few questions you might ask yourself about your ministry. This week, have you devoted a little time to reflection or meditation or prayer, something that gives you perspective? Our small group ministry program is a dramatic example of how we’ve adapted practices of reflection to our own style. However they’re shaped, certainly such times of inward looking are necessary for successful ministry. Have you found some time to help the hungry? Have you found some time to clothe the naked? Have you found some time to engage the actions of citizenry within a republic, such a rare thing, such a right thing in a world of interdependence?

Now no one can do everything. And I’m not beating drums of shame or guilt. Rather I’m calling you to your best nature. So, if not this past week, what about next week? We all are called to do something. You and I are all called to ministry, to the actions of interdependence. So, honestly, within the depths of your own heart, from the knowledge of your own introspection, what are you not doing? What is the burning building you’re avoiding?

On this day in particular, when we’ve given ourselves just a little more time than usual to call ourselves to our better nature, to explore the healing of hurt, the possibility of service, the mystery of ministry; what is it that you should be saying, should be doing?

Such, you understand, is our calling, yours and mine, when we join together into this gathered community. So, let us take up our ministry. The spirit of the divine does settle upon us in this good and holy place, and the mantle of praise rests comfortably upon our shoulders, and the oil of heaven runs down our heads.

We have been called, and we have been commissioned. Now, let us take up our ministry. It is a good thing we’ve undertaken. No doubt. No doubt.

Amen.