Peels, Visionaries, and Dancers
Rev. Tom Owen-Towle
January 28, 2007
This is my single sermon squarely on the nature of Unitarian Universalist ministry, so I hope it gives you some useful context as you approach the crucial selection of your settled minister.
Well, for starters, some Unitarian Universalist ministers wear robes, some don’t. Some pray, others meditate. Some preach sermons, others give addresses. Some do closing words, others offer benedictions.
Some have partners who are active in the local church; others will arrive alone or have partners who are quite busy outside the parish. Some ministers love the rich traditions of Judaism and Christianity, others honor the heritage of skepticism and choose a vacant altar over the idolatry and tribalism that often haunts the old symbols. Some love the Buddha or Lao Tzu, Esther or Mohammed, and there are others who will prefer Shakespeare or Emma Goldman, Isaiah or Annie Dillard over any of the religious greats. Or others will draw equally from all sources of savvy, the universe over.
Some ministers are great listeners and so-so administrators; some are good organizers and some are good scholars, some rare ones are both. Some are terrific at small talk, others quite awkward. Some, believe it or not, are bona fide introverts given to bursts of extroversion, especially on Sunday mornings.
Whatever type your minister will be, she or he is bound to please some people and eventually, if the minister is smart, most of the people. Those congregants who aren’t pleased, make their adjustments, and, if they’re devoted Summitarians, they’ll likely settle in to a state of peaceful co-existence. Still other committed Unitarian Universalists, for one reason or another, will pull back from the new regime, or even withdraw. There’s nothing sinister about any of these responses; they just happen.
I offer all this, so you’ll realize that you’re not going to be forging a perfect match at Summit this coming March 25th, when you take your congregational vote. So, for goodness’ sake, don’t aim for perfection; rather go for a sufficiently fine match, that will enable both pulpit and pew to grow in wisdom and compassion and enable Summit to make sizable strides toward evolving the kind of beloved community in Santee of which you can be roundly proud.
Whatever quirks and eccentricities your new minister may exude, know this my friends: ministers don’t make churches, neither do congregants; ministers and parishioners working creatively together grow healthy churches.
Moreover, every good minister will need to become some version of a banana peel, a visionary, and a dance partner, all three. Let me explain.
First, you can expect your minister to be an effective catalyst or banana peel. That means that good ministers will sneak up on people, trip them and knock their heads and hearts against reality–sometimes painful and sometimes comforting reality. These collisions can happen in worship, in meetings, in a hospital or at a party, during a crisis or engaged in a shared project, or simply on the fly.
Slip–whop! And a new insight about self emerges. Slip–whop! And renewed commitment to a family or cause or an article of faith develops. Slip–whop! And the courage to face dying occurs. Not all at once, mind you, but every banana peel collision launches a powerful religious process. You see, good ministers create conditions wherein transformative collisions happen. So, you’ll want your settled minister to be a banana peel. Don’t settle for less.
In addition to being banana peels, you’ll want your called religious professional to be a visionary. Not just a person who can see ahead but someone who will forge ahead. Prophets are people who have hunches about where beauty and justice lie, and, more importantly have the courage to travel there, and even coax, sometimes goad, others to join the search.
If banana peel ministers help people confront reality, what is…then a visionary minister enables laity to embody hope, what might yet become. Such ministers will pull you out of ruts, spring you beyond mediocrity toward excellence.
A good minister will keep you on purpose, ever moving forward…reminding you that you are lovable and capable, and reminding you of your innate power and worth. Because whenever your imagination and will grow faint, you could use a spiritual nudge to launch you toward the fullness of your being.
Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote:
Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best of minds. We live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which we never enter, and with our hands on the door-latch we die outside.
Well, my friends, good ministers are visionaries, and as such willing to keep Summit’s noble and particular vision alive. Good ministers refuse to allow laity to fall into the trap of being known as the almost people. Summit almost touched beauty? Summit almost cared about one another? Summit almost served East County? Summit almost grew children of character?
Rather they’ll urge fellow Summitarians to burst in upon those mysteries and harmonies, to take the risk, to make the move, to open the door, to create a beloved community that will dare to change, for the better, lives inside and outside these walls.
The third quality is one which requires inordinate teamwork.
Perhaps the profoundest approximation of religion is symbolized by the dance. Dance as in gamboling with other creatures, ideas, Divine Mystery–dancing as well with moments of deep pain and insistent promise. Never forget that religion, before it was spoken, was danced. And our Unitarian Universalist religion is incorrigibly relational, first and last, an interdependent web that yearns to be danced up-close and personal.
For as Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote: “we are dancers, free, barely touching as we pass, but partners in the same pattern.”
Dearly Beloved Summitarians, soon, in fact within two months, you will fashion a covenant with your called minister, you will formalize your troth: that old fashioned phrase of incomparable beauty and substance. You will pledge your troth (literally a blend of truthfulness and trust…and yes, we humans can’t do any better than that). You will pledge your troth to serve souls right here in Santee and beyond–for better, for worse, for as long as your dance is mutually empowering.
Many summers ago, Carolyn and I obtained this gorgeous and evocative bronze sculpture, created by Northern California artist-friend, Robert Holmes, entitled The Dancers.
We fell in love with The Dancers because it’s a striking, visual dialogue between two creations, at once both cool and precise, warm and humane, spiritual as well as sensual. In its semi-abstract form this sculpture reminds us that religious life bridges the practical and the visionary.
I display it this morning to remind fellow Unitarian Universalist partisans of some fundamental religious wisdom.
For starters, The Dancers reminds us not to fuss and feud, as our parishes are prone to do, about who’s leading or following in the ministerial dance. For in healthy congregations, we’re all stewards (literally, “keepers of the hall”), we’re all summoned straightway into the dance, we’re all spiritually equipped to master the twin arts of leadership and followership. In the final analysis, what matters is the dance, what matters is that the gambol known as shared ministry swirls on in creative circles of compassion and delight.
So I invite all of us, but especially the members and friends of this special 19-year-old outpost of liberal religion, to ponder today how you will choose to dance most joyously and justly with a new partner in the days ahead? Your current dance is already mutually gratifying, good for you, good for me, good for us–but, I assure you, you’ll need to update your choreography, lest you’re lulled into one comfortable cadence or step. Your ministerial dance must be ongoingly shaped afresh, for new occasions teach new duties as our hymn implores.
This sculpture would also remind us of the tension, the pull, the stretch necessary in any empowered ministry or imaginative dance. For as poet Marge Piercy notes: “loving leaves stretch marks.”
Note the dancers are neither clinging to one another nor bounding unfettered. They’re neither leaning upon nor propped up by the other. Rather they stand tall, separate, with clasped hands, swaying and stretched. The strength of each dancer is visibly flowing into the other.
Yes, you will be dance partners with your new colleague, dancers free, barely touching as you pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The Dancers further recall that partnered ministry, at its finest, rarely freezes but remains fluid…keeps gamboling. This sculpture exudes movement; so should this singular parish exude movement as your dance leaps ever-forward. After all, Unitarian Universalism–both theologically and operationally–is a movement. We’re a religion in flux, perpetual motion. Semper reformanda, “ever reforming and being reformed” has been our central mantra since the 16th century in Transylvania. Revelation for us is never sealed. Nothing is fixed or settled; everything matters. Our dance bops on and on and on…
Furthermore, The Dancers declare that life is fun, bathed in mirth and graced with zaniness. The religious quest is not to be waged as drab toil or a bitter battle but to be embodied as a sporting proposition, an interplay of opposites, a cosmic dance…with everyone lured from the sidelines squarely onto the dance floor, shifting with each dance: be it a jitter-bug, reel, waltz, or rock-and-roll.
And with its openness between the figures, we’re prompted that life’s empty spaces are as shapely and crucial as our intertwining bonds. “Let there be spaces in our togetherness, and let the winds of heaven dance between us. Love one another but make not a bondage of love,” offers the Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran. Pulpit and pew can grew close but refrain from cloying or being clingy.
And there’s more truth whenever congregants and clergy choose to boogie together: namely, whenever we’re cut off from another’s touch and grip, we’ll tumble and crash to the ground; yet with the light, firm hold of fellow faithful fools we’re enabled to dance adventurously and gracefully into the unknown.
Finally, The Dancers, with its outstretched arms, remind Summit stakeholders to welcome strangers into your communal dance. Dare to move beyond cozy and clannish parties. For healthy and hospitable congregations reach out with open arms to the newcomer…that their dance might be more varied, more inclusive, more wondrous than ever before. Widening your circle dance is a particularly relevant stretch for such a tight-knit band as yours. Yes, for your parish dance to flourish long and lovingly into seasons beyond counting, you must always welcome one more frolicker, and then another, then another.
And so, when the dancing days of any ministerial match come to a close, yours included, we Unitarian Universalists can gladly surrender our dance into the arms of new partners…confident that we will continue to be held in the embrace of the Eternal One.
But I’m not quite done, after sharing three images of shared ministry: banana peel, visionary, and dancers. Allow me some final words about what your professional minister will need from you. After 40 years, you can well imagine that I’ve mustered some working hunches.
Your new minister will need you to help them face things when you see fear or regret in their eyes. And I charge you Summitarians to care enough to confront your minister whenever they have unnerved or ignored you.
And when they foul things up, which ministers are wont to do sometimes, maybe even smudge the institution of Summit you cherish in common, your called companion will need your understanding and forgiveness.
Ministers need congregants to love and enjoy us, whenever that’s possible, but through thick and thin, at all times, we ministers need you to respect us. And, well, if respect isn’t possible, then your partnership will likely be doomed.
And, friends, in an oft-dreary, lonely world your new minister will need the release of your wit and the restorative energy of your embrace. Deliver them both in ample measure. Don’t be shy with your humor or touch.
And in an oft-ugly world, she or he will need you to help them relocate some beauty and goodness, even show them some new beauty and goodness they seemingly haven’t yet been ready for.
And, yes, you will need to oppose her or him whenever they appear to be wrong. To confront them when you have to say something important that you think they may not be hearing. And it goes both ways, doesn’t it? Both pulpit and pew need forebearance when things are fouled up and appreciation when things are going swimmingly.
And always, take the chance to ask of your minister: tell me more, tell me more of what’s on your mind or in your heart. For, in a truly shared ministry, Summitarians are members, one of another, yoked in a common enterprise, trying your darnedest to grow a beloved community which includes yet always transcends everyone, pulpit and pew alike.
And so, my friends, I hope I’ve convinced you that all members and friends of Summit share a high and holy vocation. It’s high not because it’s remote or distant. It’s not high because you’re going to place your new minister on a pedestal. No, it’s a high calling because it’s holy, it’s high because shared ministry poses a rare opportunity to lift people to wondrous heights of being. Ministry’s a high calling, because it can put us humans in direct communion with all that’s meaningful and worthwhile.
Well, that’s plenty for today, for soon, you’ll be enjoying the grand opportunity of calling a banana peel, a visionary, a dance partner…to join you in the highest of human partnerships…the sacred, shared trust we call ministry.
And know this: some of us clergy, either of blessed memory or still on the sidelines, folks like Bob Lehman and Ned Wight, Chris Smith and Frank Willey, Bonnie Tarwater, Don Stouder and Tom Owen-Towle will be cheering you on, giving you all the spiritual support possible, that together you and your newly settled minister might dance into seasons of wonder and wisdom, compassion and creativity…seasons beyond counting.
Rev. Tom Owen-Towle
January 28, 2007
