"Our Shared Ministries:
A Sermon in Three Parts"
A Sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman, Rev. Judy Tomlinson
and the Council on Ministries
December 7, 2008
ANCIENT & MODERN READINGS:
Our first reading is from the Christian Scripture, The Second
Book of Corinthians:
If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious
is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious
has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if
what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory
of that which lasts!
The second reading is from the late Mother Teresa, who wrote:
Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be
put into action and that action is service. Whatever form we are,
able or disabled, rich or poor, it is not how much we do, but how
much love we put in the doing; a lifelong shar-ing of love with
others.
SERMON: Our Shared Ministries
Part I: An Overview of Our Ministries
By the Council on Ministries: Claudia Sanders, Jerry Fried, Francesca
Elms, David Sailer, Doug Andrews and Elizabeth Schroeder
I'm Claudia Sanders and I'm the Chair of the Council on Ministries.
We're joining Charlie and Judy in the service today so that we can
introduce ourselves to you, tell you a little about what our function
is and to present a slide show we put together that showcases the
many ministries of the congregation.
So what is considered a ministry? A ministry in this context is
everything that the congregation does to advance its mission. Far
from being limited to our professional ministers, it encompasses
committees, activities and functions that we're involved in on a
regular basis to help advance our mission - "We are a liberal
religious community seeking transformation in our hearts, our homes,
our community and our world." There's a good chance that many
of you are involved in a ministry but may not have yet thought of
it in that way.
The Council on Ministries represents the entire ministry of the
congregation and one of our roles is to assess the various ministries
of the congregation and make recommendations based on the assessment.
One way we do this is by holding an annual focus group to elicit
feedback on the ministries. We also help facilitate the resolution
of conflict when problems arise. There are times when a member,
or members, of the congregation have concerns or problems with a
particular ministry and the Council on Ministries is here to help
facilitate a process in which every effort is made to reach as positive
an outcome as is possible. We invite you to talk with us about concerns
you may have about a ministry. We'd also like to hear about ministries
that are working well. Our members are Jerry Fried, Francesca Elms,
David Sailer, Doug Andrews and Elizabeth Schroeder.
We're going to be available to talk with you on January 11th in
the Alliance Room during each Coffee Hour. Please stop by to say
hello.
Slide Show Presentation
Shared Reading: Anyone's Ministry by Gordon McKeeman
Ministry is…
A quality of human relationship between and among human beings that
beckons forth hidden possibilities;
Inviting other people into deeper, more constant, more reverent
relationship with the world and with one another;
Being present with, to, and for others in their terrors and torments;
in their grief, misery and pain;
Knowing that those feelings are our feelings too;
Celebrating the triumphs of the human spirit, the miracles of birth
and life, the wonders of devotion and sacrifice;
Witnessing to life-enhancing values; speaking truth to power;
Standing for human dignity and equity, for compassion and aspiration;
Believing in life in the presence of death; struggling for human
responsibility against principalities and structures that ignore
humaneness and become instruments of death;
It is all of these and much, much more than all of them present
in
The wordless,
The unspoken,
The ineffable.
It is speaking and living the highest we know and living with the
knowledge that it is
Never as deep, or as wide
Or as high as we wish.
Whenever there is a meeting that summons us to our better selves,
wherever
Our lostness is found, our fragments are untied, or our wounds are
healing, our spines stiffen and our muscles grow strong for the
task…there is ministry.
Part II: The Ministry of Religious Education
By Rev. Judy Tomlinson
Religious educator Maria Harris has said education is about the
process of remaking, recreating, reconstructing, and reorganizing
our human experience. It gives that experience meaning and helps
us decide where to go and what to do next.
This past Thursday, I attended the monthly meeting of the New Jersey
UU Religious Education professionals. Our topic was a whole array
of new life-span curricula called, Tapestry of Faith, which is currently
being published by the UUA.
These curricula are free, on line and down-loadable by anyone.
In fact, we are using two of them ourselves this year: "Creating
Home" for K/1 and "Moral Tales" in the 2nd and 3rd
grades. In the past our curricula have had themes like world religions,
anti-racism, social justice, sexuality, Jewish and Christian scriptures
and Unitarian Universalist history and heritage. These new curricula
feature what are called "core stories" from many cultures
and original stories that reflect our values.
Unitarian Universalists occasionally complain that we do not have
a single source - like a bible - from which to draw. And while living
in ambiguity can be uncomfortable and challenging, it makes all
of us UU's face faith issues head on and, I think, ends up making
our faith more authentic.
If we knew all the answers it wouldn't be Unitarian Universalism.
We are in the midst of creating original religion based upon our
own heritage, reason and experience passed through the crucible
of telling our truth in community and putting our beliefs into practice.
It is hard to put original religion into a box. And so, it is hard
to put Unitarian Universalist religious education into a box.
I just mentioned some of the themes we talk about in RE: UU history
and heritage, world religions, etc. But it's not the subjects that
we teach that make it religious education but the quality of the
relationships between the teachers and the learners, the relationships
between those who do the teaching, and the relationships between
the learners. That's what makes it religious.
If, as Rev. William Ellery Channing wrote in 1836, religious education
stirs up our minds, inspires us to a fervent love of truth and touches
inward springs; if it quickens and strengthens the power of thought
and awakens our conscience and our moral discernment; if, in short,
it awakens our souls and excites us to cherish our spiritual lives,
then it is religious education.
Anything else is simply education about religion.
I would add that the goal of religious education is to help us
all realize that we are connected to one another and to the world
around us. We are one. To explore our own connection with the holy,
to find our unique gifts and put them into action in the form of
service to our community and our world.
How is it done? At our teacher training in the fall I asked our
volunteer teachers what would make teaching our children and youth
a spiritual experience for them? I think we need to start there,
with the teachers approaching teaching as a spiritual act and ask
them to prepare accordingly. To look at the subject matter and find
where it touches their lives and spirits. "Where does your
life tell me about my life?" Parker Palmer has asked. And then
to listen reverently, facilitate caringly and engagingly, and to
learn deeply from one another. That is the ministry of religious
education.
Part III: "From Spirit to Soul to Religion"
By Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
We are a liberal religious community seeking transformation in
our hearts, our homes, our community and our world. My task this
morning is to somehow stitch together the various pieces of our
shared ministry into some kind of whole and united vision of what
it is that we all come together to do here. Then, together we can
hold up that vision in ways that allow each of us to see ourselves
within it. Together, each of us, recognizing our parts in that vision,
can be held in it, by one another, in esteem, in faith, and in the
healing process of the brokenness of our own lives. When we work
together to heal the brokenness in the community around us, in the
world around us, we are each healed, each made more whole in the
process. Together we move from spirit to soul to the shared work
of religion.
Mark Morrison-Reed, Minister Emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of Toronto, Ontario, who was one of our few African-American
clergy, wrote:
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the
bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship
discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of
others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling
for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The
religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow
to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do
all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength
is renewed.
I really drew the shortest straw and got the easiest part for our
presentation this morning. There's not much work in sewing together
pieces that are already so well fit together, so well joined together.
I want you to know in this season of gratitude, just how full my
heart is with gratitude for all the shared ministries that are the
life of this congregation. I'd like to share just a few pieces that
have come across my desk this past week that really attest to what
I'm talking about. It has not been a quiet week in my hometown.
This week I learned that our Undoing Racism Committee is planning
an antiracism training workshop for the spring. In addition to many
others they are especially reaching out to the Montclair Town Council
and leadership so that our community might be a more effective agency
for change in our evolution toward ending racial and ethnic based
oppression here in Montclair. We might also note here the fact that
two of our very active congregation members not only serve this
congregation so well, but also serve the township as mayor and town
councilman. Jerry Fried and Nick Lewis carry with them our values
and our support as they tend to the governance of our town. Not
to mention John Carlton, Chair of the Board of Education, who likewise
extends our values and the work of our mission in that public venue.
This week I heard from our Rainbow UUnion, a group formed several
years ago to assure and support our efforts to be welcoming, affirming
and embracing of the GLBT community (gay, lesbian, bi and transgender).
They are also planning a worship service for this spring that will
not focus on GLBT issues, but instead on supporting our UU-United
Nations Organization. We do heal ourselves when we heal the world
around us!
In a related matter, I would report that my work on the New Jersey
Civil Union Review Commission has just come to an end. I want to
be quick to point out that my work on the commission was in reality
our shared work. I would not have had the opportunity nor the honor
of serving on that commission, had it not been for my relationship
with you, the people of this Unitarian Universalist Congregation
at Montclair. I've not, for a moment over these past two years,
forgotten that this has been our shared project.
Advance copies of our final report have been issued to the Governor
and leaders of the Legislature, but the actual publishing date for
the report will be this Wednesday, December 10th. I'm not at liberty
to publicly share the content of the report until then, but I can
share from an e-mail the commission received this past week from
our Chair, Frank Vespa-Papaleo, who is also the Director of the
New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. As I read it to you, I would
invite you to recognize and experience Frank's words as being directed
at you as well - for my participation has truly been your participation.
…the votes are in from the CURC. 13-0. Our final report is
unanimous… Con-gratulations to everyone for your incredible
work, and everyone's collective efforts. This was not easy, but
you each made this a significant moment in our state's history.
Whether you have had the time to think about it or not, your work,
efforts and votes made this a historic process and a historic report.
Despite the many disagreements, we worked tirelessly to ensure a
fair, thorough and extensive review of the issues before the commission.
It was difficult, but I believe that the process worked well.
… What each of you have done, and what the CURC has done collectively--along
with the staff and volunteers--is to write an important chapter
in New Jersey history, and the history of civil and human rights.
The next chapter will be written by the elected political leaders,
not any of us, but we can all be proud that we will have provided
them with some of the tools to make some important decisions going
forward. Thank you.
We here can all be proud to have been a part of this process. The
outcome of the report is indeed as I suspect most of you imagine
it to be. I'll be more than happy to talk about it after this Wednesday.
Perhaps the next phase of our shared ministry in this area will
be to contact our various state legislators to encourage passage
of legislation that will promote the kind of loving justice that
together we stand for.
Another piece to come across my desk this week came from the Promise
the Children Committee and from the computer of our own indefatigable
Joe Thomasberger. As our email announcements are sent out from the
congregation office later this week, we will be including the list
of four very doable actions to take in this holiday season to end
hunger in America. Joe is constantly on the lookout, on our behalf,
to find ways to make a difference in the lives of our children and
of those who might have less than we do.
Of all the incredible confirmation of our shared ministry brought
to my attention this week, one of the most touching pieces has been
the work of our New Sanctuary Movement Committee, (NSM) as together
we try to help ease the pain and untangle the perplexing path of
the Carmona family. As many of you may remember Señor Carmona
has been detained in the Elizabeth Detention Center, facing possible
deportation. Many of us met Señora Angelina Carmona and their
four children two weeks ago at our Thanksgiving luncheon. The outpouring
of support from our congregation was phenomenal. It continues to
be. I'm not exaggerating when I say that dozens upon dozens of e-mails
were exchanged just this week in arranging transportation for visitation,
clothing for the children and other offers of assistance.
The NSM leadership is doing an incredible job on our behalf. They
will be turning to the rest of us for further support, both financial
and otherwise, as we continue to work with the Carmona family through
what will probably be about a three month period. There will be
a special appeal made here next week and then Mary Moriarity, Roseann
Murray & Co. will staff a table to take your questions and accept
your contributions during Coffee Hour after the services next week.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, of gratitude and of generosity, it is
quite amazing that, in this period of severe financial recession,
I learned this week that our congregation managed to set an all-time
record for our Annual Turkey Collection for the Human Needs Food
Pantry. Nearly $3000! This was accomplished with the help of significant
contributions from a couple of very generous households. But it
would not have been accomplished at all, had we not all done what
we could do. That's how shared ministry works - we lead when we
can, and we follow by participating when that is what we can do.
And finally, the last but certainly not the least of the major
pieces to pass my way this week, has been the ongoing work of the
Capital Campaign Committee, which continues to go all out, both
in working with members of the congregation to be sure that funds
are available to pay the bills, as well as with staff and our Building
and Grounds Committee to ensure that the money is spent efficiently
and effectively. Even when most of us cannot see it, the network
of our shared ministry in the ongoing care of these facilities assure
the security of this home for our liberal religious franchise.
These are just the big-ticket items that I've learned about this
week. This doesn't even mention the dozens of other ongoing initiatives
by so many of you in the service of our mission. Everything we do
towards the fulfillment of that mission is a part of our shared
ministry. That mission: We are a liberal religious community seeking
transformation in our hearts, our homes, our community and our world.
We are in the business of transformation. We come together in spirit
to nurture our souls. It is in that nurturing we create this religion
that we share. In so doing: we abet transformation; we give meaning
to our lives; we help to make the world - little by little - closer
to being the kingdom of heaven on earth, where the unity of All-That-Is
is made evident in all that is done.
Today you have met your Council on Ministries. Their job is to
keep a finger on the pulse of our shared ministries. Be sure to
share yours with them today and in the weeks and months to come.
Share your dreams and your accomplishments; share our dreams and
our own accomplishments. Take faith and hope for the long haul and
together we will participate in the creation of a transforming love,
love enough to hold each one of us, love enough to hold the whole
world of our aspirations.
|
