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Sermons by Rev. Don W. Vaughn-Foerster

To Do or To Be: a Perspective on Ministry
Rev. Don W. Vaughn -Foerster
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
February 25, 2007

Some years back an article in the Houston Post religion and ethics page reported that the corner druggist ranked higher than the minister in polls of "most respected occupations." At the time that was a sharp drop over past years - perhaps because of the increasing secularization of our society. People then may just have preferred hard drugs to "opiates of the spirit." I am not sure the minister rates any higher today.

The article went on to refer to the "sordid sagas" of fallen preachers (such as the Jim Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggarts of the day - to which we may add the recent likes of Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado fame, who had to admit publicly to sexual immorality). And don't forget the charges of sexual harassment that were being brought against increasing numbers of parish ministers (including the accusations of child molestation by Roman Catholic priests) that have played a large part in "the slide of the clergy" in public estimation. The writer complained that this slide is not just because of an inherent desire on the part of laity that the clergy be pulled down from their pedestal. It is also because many of the clergy have stepped down willingly and happily - to demonstrate that they, too, are human. But, said the writer, we can rise above the brute side of our nature through reason and self-control and the clergy is supposed to set the example of how this is done. In fact, ministers are hired to be this way - to be special, to be better than the rest of us are likely to be. "Reverend," he said, "get back on your pedestal!"

This article brings to mind a story told at one of my own installations. It's about a fellow who didn't want to get out of bed one fine Sunday Morning. "Come on, George," said his mother. "It's time for church." "I don't want to go," said George, pulling up the covers. "Why not?" asked his mother. "I don't like church," came the reply. "What don't you like?" "I don't like the hymns. I don't like the sermons; they're boring. And I don't like the people; they're not friendly. They don't like me and I don't like them." "Well, George," said the mother, "I can't argue with you. Sometimes the hymns aren't very good. The sermons are sometimes boring. And the people sometimes aren't very friendly. And it's clear - some of them don't like you and you don't like them. But you are going to have to get up, get dressed, and go to church anyhow." "Oh, why?" complained George. "Because," said the mother, "you're forty years old; they expect you to be there; they pay your salary; and you are their minister."

I have to admit that reading such articles as the one I mentioned earlier, sometimes, makes me want to pull the covers over my head. Over the years, when it seemed that other people's expectations of me as a minister were more rigorous than their expectations of themselves as persons, this whole enterprise took on an air of unreality and impossibility. The writer of the article to the contrary not withstanding, unless a minister is truly grounded in his or her own sense of humanity, ministry is not an authentic enterprise. Rather, I have no doubt that it becomes a self-righteous ploy to mislead people into thinking that the minister really does have a special access to the divine that they do not have. Gross moral misconduct is not to be accepted in ministers, of course; but neither is it to be accepted in teachers or engineers or politicians or day laborers - or average church-goers. In such an approach to ministers and ministry as that of the writer of that article, the true importance of ministry as a collective enterprise between the minister and the congregation is lost.

Today I want to consider what ministry is in our UU religious setting. I say in our setting because what we aim for in religion is not the same as that for which most of the larger society aims. Possibly, Roman Catholic and fundamentalist clergy should aim for some kind of "priestly edge" over the average believer - "priests" being persons thought to have the power to mediate between human beings and God because of the special-ness of their ordination or the saved-ness of their souls. But this is not so with UUs. We approach the matter from a down-to-earth and more cooperative stance. We believe that ministry is a human, not a divine, enterprise. The reality, however, is that we much too easily allow some of our old learned attitudes toward church and clergy to insinuate themselves into our thinking and behavior and a little bit of magic often gets inserted where authenticity should reside.

That is why we need, from time to time, to take a serious look at what we really are trying to accomplish together. Certainly, during a period of transition between settled ministers it is useful. For, you see, when we talk of ministers and ministry we are also talking about the primary reasons we gather as a religious organization. We are talking about the purposes and functions of the congregations that call ministers. We are talking about individual purposes and individual goals of the members of those congregations.

I assume that most other ministers are like me. I went into the ministry to pursue certain goals of my own goals that can only be accomplished in conjunction with a congregation I serve. And so it is likely to be for the other ministers whom you may call after my interim period is over. That means that your goals and their goals must overlap significantly. These goals cannot be identical because that would mean ministers and members would have to conform to each other at the risk of compromising their own minds and consciences. But much must be shared in order to do anything significant. There must be an appropriate covenantal relationship between minister and congregation, i.e. a relationship in which both parties are formally committed to be mutually supportive in matters of identified common concern. There needs to be a sense of standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity of purpose if not in personal desire. "Rank by rank", as the hymn says.

Actually, this usually occurs at least informally when the congregation is healthy and growing and the minister feels supported. But this is a relationship that must be cultivated and kept clear, or else the goals of congregation and minister can diverge too significantly for mutual comfort and cooperation. Both parties need to be in basic agreement about what the elements of ministry are - and who is to do them.

There are several elements usually taken to be part of ministry. In our liberal religious context all of these elements are aspects of the members' (of our congregation) responsibility to one another. But, usually these elements become specific areas of activity assigned mostly (if not only) to professional clergy. The usual words used to symbolize these areas of activity are preacher, prophet, priest, and pastor. When I was in theology school the term administrator was added. We know these labels because professionals have made their living doing what they stand for: the preacher, as the advocate of ideas and courses of action; the prophet, as the person either foretelling some event or (and I like this better) calling the community to creative moral responsibility; the priest, as mediator between the community and the divine or as purveyor of the holy; the pastor, as a spiritual and emotional overseer in members' lives ("pastor" by the way, is Latin for "herdsman"); and the administrator, as the day-to-day manager of the church or parish.

In our setting, lay people among us sometimes assert themselves as practitioners of one or more of them. In this way, any one of us can deliver a sermon, call the rest of us to a morally responsible cause, light candles (or in some other way) point to the special-ness of spiritual reality, or take on administrative and policy-making responsibilities, as well as interpersonal caring and concern for the rest of us. In our democratic congregational system, the congregation can extend either its formal or tacit support to those who take on these functions. These are not the exclusive province of any professional minister in any of our congregations. In fact, the ability of lay persons to function in these capacities is why the Fellowship movement succeeded so well for so long - especially here in Florida. The principle that we are all ministers to one another is fundamental in our system.

But the reason Fellowships tend to become churches is because there is more depth to every one of these functions than most lay persons have the time or the energy to master. It may not look like that through the usual lay person's eyes. I can attest to that. I was a deeply involved lay leader in a UU fellowship myself for eight years before I entered a school of theology. It seemed to me that I was as competent in all these ministerial categories as many of the UU ministers I met in those days. That is, I felt that way until I found myself in graduate school reexamining everything I thought I knew from a deeper, more systematic religious perspective. Theology school did not make me a superior person, but it did make me more critical of what I thought I knew and more humble about what I didn't know. It did confirm the importance to any congregation of the presence of professionally educated leadership that has been exposed to the full range of issues - religious and ethical, personal and organizational - that confront a congregation every day.

The role of preacher, prophet, priest, pastor, and administrator describe what generally is expected of our professional UU clergy - with some strong qualifications on the "priestly" business. The "priestly" role is, for most UUs, symbolic, although an increase of literalism in this role seems to have accompanied the rise of recent movements within our ranks, such as Druid-like nature religions. But, as I said, these areas of activity describe what UU ministers (like ministers of many other denominations) are assigned to do. Actually, they are only implied in the letter of agreement that I signed upon being engaged by the Board of Trustees to be your Interim Minister. That agreement basically is "To carry out the normal responsibilities of congregational ministry" and "to serve as congregational consultant during the interim period.." As a specially trained and experienced professional clergyperson, I take these responsibilities seriously. They are certainly adequate to my short time here as interim.

However, the wording tells me nothing about what this congregation expects the role of a minister to be in pursuing these "normal responsibilities of congregational ministry." This is something your next minister will surely want to know. Ordinarily, a congregation's bylaws identify how the minister is to relate to other congregational leadership. Especially, in our congregational system (where laity ultimately is king) this is important to identify. If the minister is not to be CEO in charge of virtually everything or figurehead in charge of nothing, bylaws usually state that the minister is "spiritual head" of the congregation and the Board of Trustees is in charge of the material welfare of the congregation - its finance and policy. The bylaws here only say that the minister, beyond having a free pulpit, is "responsible for leading the congregation toward fulfillment of our Covenant and Mission". Further special duties are to be spelled out in an employment contract. It sounds to me like a minister is being hired to follow orders, which is what you would expect, of course, when hiring anybody, but which is somewhat spiritually limiting.

This, however, is a perfectly justifiable thing to expect, if a minister feels he or she is only here to fulfill some job description. And if that's what is meant, that's the kind of minister you should get. However, some of us ministers feel we are not here only to do a "job"; we feel that we are persons for whom ministry is our life. If we are here only to do a job, the Sunday morning is likely to come when we simply pull the covers over our head and not show up. If, on the other hand, we feel ministry is our life, we truly aim for creative outcomes that only drawing a paycheck does not encourage. Rather, we aim for creative outcomes to advance the common good because desire for the common good is what makes us tick. Perhaps this is something to be kept in mind as you choose your next minister. Do you want someone who does the work of ministry or someone who is a minister? Do you want contracted leadership or do you want religious, spiritual leadership?

After having said all this about professional clergy, let me go back to my belief that ministry is a function of all UUs, lay and professional alike. And, let me make this as a personal statement that, I hope, will stimulate you to think more deeply on what you perceive UU ministry to be.

I, personally, chose the ministry as a calling because religion has always been of deep concern to me. I chose the UU ministry because it is the one religious profession free enough of dogmatic strictures truly to permit honest dealing with persons in all aspects of their lives. I see the UU ministry - and the ministry of this congregation - as having a unique mandate and a strenuous challenge. The mandate is to use all of the skills I have as minister and you have as practicing UUs to help make concrete a thoughtful, hopeful, and mature response to the profound issues of human existence. We have a religious mandate to draw on the full range of humanity's past experience and present wisdom to underscore the whole of existence as worthy of reverence, deserving of justice, and in need of love. Our challenge is for neither laity nor clergy to lapse into superficial enthusiasms or professionalisms but to be persons who can express the human values they venerate. After all, to be authentic is not to be on a pedestal; it is to be human. Our challenge is to create a mutual ministry, one in which the training and skills - and existential commitment - of the professional clergy are used not just to "do" that which individuals should do for themselves but to facilitate their doing for themselves more fully. We are, after all, a people who both rule ourselves and help one another.

This is our ministry. The church is the mechanism for implementing this ministry. I see our collective religious body to be a place where human values can openly thrive in the contexts of reason, toleration, and freedom. And I see it to be a means of expressing these values in the world outside these doors. We, as a religious body, are two things: a sanctuary and a springboard. As a sanctuary, here is where the preciousness of people and of all life is affirmed, deepened, and protected and where a repository of valued experience is maintained. Here is a sanctuary in which we are reminded that existence is rooted in what our hearts may call holy and where we are inspired to be our genuine selves. As a springboard this church propels us into the world with the energy and the will to stick by our conscience and our beliefs. It adds a dynamism to the sanctuary which makes it into an active fellowship of reason and faith, of conscience and caring, and of freedom and responsibility. It is where the "streams" of our lives merge before flowing into a larger sea of life.

I take the ideal of our religious community to be for us as individuals to confront one another in our differences and yet accept and support one another in our uniqueness, thereby creating a community of persons who share a larger intent. It is a setting that can so acquaint us with our own personal truths that we become able to perceive other types of truths. As sanctuary, our religious community helps us within it to discern and deepen our true beliefs; as a springboard, it energizes us to do what we believe. It is my view that, when we collectively pursue ministry with the full humanity of persons as our goal and when we truly seek to be both sanctuary and springboard, without lapsing into hardened doctrines or petty disagreements, we serve religion's central function. The function, for me, is to enable us to become friends and comrades in the effort to come to grips with as much reality as we can perceive and then, together, to share, test, celebrate, and implement the deepened sense of validity in our lives that this effort inspires. The "open road" of such ministry stretches before us to travel as we individually are -- but together. That, I believe, is why UU ministers and UU congregations exist for each other. That, I believe, ultimately, is why we come together.