A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on December 2, 2007
At Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Community in Southlake, Texas
Wait and see, wait and see, what a world there can be if we share, if we care, you and me.
Ehud Manor
Reading before the sermon: A humorous drama about a potential ministerial candidate
(Display Main Sermon Slide)
Today begins the Christian season of Advent – the period of waiting and preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ. For Christians, this period of expectancy is a reminder of the original nativity which brought the messiah and thus salvation. It is also a reminder of the waiting that continues for the second coming that will bring with it a judgment.
Among Unitarian Universalists, literal understandings of the first and second coming as that of savior and then judge are less common. I thought that as we enter this important time in the Christian calendar, it could be interesting to see just what views of Jesus are held in the Pathways community.
I went to the results of the survey recently undertaken by the Ministerial Search Committee. One question asked people to indicate what they thought of Jesus. Here, shown graphically, are the results.
(Display Slide – “Chart Jesus”)
(The chart shows the following data in graphical form)
Do you think that Jesus: (Check one) Responses %
a. Legend (Not Real) 3 4%
b. Fully Human 15 21%
c. Model for Living Ethical & Caring Life 31 44%
d. Unique Relationship with God 12 17%
e. Divine 2 3%
It really won’t be my practice to use lots of charts and graphs during sermons – but I thought this one was worth it.
I do not have a similar chart of all Unitarian Universalists, however, I can say that, based on my experience, this is not an uncommon shape for the responses of UUs.
The largest number of respondents, 31, shown in the middle, considers Jesus a model for living an ethical and caring life.
Looking one slot left and one slot to the right, we see that about ½ as many fall into each of these categories. To the left – 15 think Jesus was simply a person. To the right – 12 think that he was a person with a unique relationship with God.
Moving out further, several people feel that Jesus is a legend... about the same number feels that he was divine.
An interesting bell curve. A UU bell curve.
This is not the result you would see if you asked the question in a Conservative Christian Church.
It is not the result you would get if you asked the question in a Synagogue.
But what really shows the UU nature of the Pathways results is what you don’t see… The 6th possible answer that was listed on the survey… “Other.” Let’s see that now.
(Display Slide – “Chart Jesus – Other”)
(The chart shows the following data in graphical form)
Do you think that Jesus: (Check one) Responses %
a. Legend (Not Real) 3 4%
b. Fully Human 15 21%
c. Model for Living Ethical & Caring Life 31 44%
d. Unique Relationship with God 12 17%
e. Divine 2 3%
f. OTHER 8 11%
8 people, or over 10% of the respondents, chose “Other.” How very UUish to not fit in a box.
And inquiring minds do want to know… what sort of box might they have been able to check? Maybe sometime those people will choose to tell us.
So what is a UU minister to do… with Advent?
(Display Main Sermon Slide)
I like the idea of waiting. Waiting for something important. Waiting for what?
Waiting for more light and love to enter our world.
Waiting for more truth and hope to emerge in our lives.
When and how will that happen?
It will happen when we make it happen. When we make it real.
When there is more light and love, more truth and hope, in our lives.
It is sometimes said that, as group, UUs tend to be more Christmas people, than Easter people.
That is, we are less focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus and more focused on his birth, his humanness and his lessons. To incarnate is to embody, and we try to incarnate those values we care most about.
This is how we find salvation… when the anticipation we live with is this … that always it is possible to bring more light and love into the world.
This is how we would be judged… that this is the expectation before us… that there is no end to our desire to bring forth more truth and hope in our lives.
This can be the lesson of Advent for us. That how we wait is important. How we approach the future matters.
This community is in a time of waiting, of anticipation, of expectation.
It is not a passive waiting. You are certainly not sitting on a spiritual couch eating bonbons.
For example, your Search Committee has been hard at work creating the materials with which it will share Pathways Church with perspective ministers. You have had a chance to give input and to see the results. Now your Search Committee has begun receiving information about those perspective candidates. At this point, confidentiality must prevail, and it will be some time before your Search Committee can give you an update of any substance.
So, you are waiting.
Yet, while the Search Committee has been working hard so have you. In the short time that I have been here I have been amazed at what goes on. There are classes and activities in which people of all ages can connect with each other and deepen their spiritual lives. There are various types of fun and fellowship. There is outreach to the wider community. There are all the people who help create worship. There are committees and people who make things happen, caring for this facility, managing finances, handling communication, and more. So many ways to change lives – starting with your own.
This is not a passive waiting. It is a time of preparation.
As I considered the journey that a congregation takes as it prepares for a new minister, I envisioned two paths intersecting, merging really. One is the path that the congregation is on. The other is the path that your future minister is on.
Two seemingly different paths, coming together. Out there, somewhere, on a journey, is the minister that will someday be your minister. Perhaps that minister wonders from time to time about the journey being taken by the congregation that will someday be her, or his, congregation.
Back in 1993, I decided to begin the process of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister. I was just finishing up serving as chair of my congregation’s ministerial search committee.
I talked to our interim minister about how to begin. Looking back on that time now, I realize that, even though I had just been intimately involved in finding our new minister, I really did not know what went into becoming one.
So I thought that this morning, I would tell you a little bit about the likely journey of the person you are waiting for, the person who is waiting for you.
The Unitarian Universalist Association has a credentialing body known as the Ministerial Fellowship Committee – often referred to as the MFC. A ministerial candidate that has met the requirements of the MFC is considered to be “in Fellowship.”
I want to note here, that, because we belong to the Free Church tradition, each Unitarian Universalist congregation is free to call and ordain anyone it wants. Most congregations, however, choose to pay attention to the qualification suggested by the MFC. I sometimes think of it like that UL rating on electronics. It is one important way of knowing that certain standards have been met – and decreasing the chances that the product I buy will explode, burn down the house, or otherwise do damage.
I’m not sure some of my colleagues would appreciate being compared to consumer electronics, so while I could extend the metaphor, I should probably stop there.
Here is just part of how the Ministerial Fellowship Committee describes the general qualifications for becoming a UU minister.
…All applicants … must have strong motivation and good potential for our ministry; and must have a balanced and healthy personality, a capacity for self-understanding, a concern for others, intellectual ability and the kind of ministerial leadership ability expected by our societies…
That’s the general description. Here’s what it looks like in more tangible terms.
(Display ‘Slide - Requirements for UU Ministry’ – Show ‘Career Assessment’ only)
There are 8 basic requirements or task in preparation for Unitarian Universalist (UU) ministry.
Your future minister needed a career assessment. This is recommended for early in the process of preparation.
To prepare for the extensive two-day assessment, a person fills out mountains of paperwork == taking something like 40 hours. During the assessment, there is an interview by a psychologist. The assessment, done by a trained counselor, is an opportunity for extensive evaluation of personal strengths, motivation, areas of needed growth, and potential for success in the ministry.
(Progress Slide to show “Regional Sub-Committees on Candidacy”)
The second requirement your future minister likely undertook was a visit to a Regional Sub-Committees on Candidacy (RSCC). This is the newest of the steps, having been put in place just after I went through the process. A panel of UU clergy and lay people provide those considering the ministry early feedback on the advisability to pursuing this goal. When the panel considers a person to be ready to move forward, they confer on them the status of “Candidate.”
(Progress Slide to show “Sponsorship by a UU Congregation”)
The third requirement is sponsorship by a UU congregation.
Once your future minister became a candidate, she or he needed to request sponsorship from their congregation. “At the most basic level, … (this) indicates confidence in the person's potential and suitability for UU ministry… By sponsoring someone, a congregation is not indicating that the person is presently ready for ministry; rather the congregation is saying that with further education he or she has a good chance of developing the traits necessary for successful ministry.” (from UUA website)
While all this was going on, your future minister, now a candidate, had probably begun seminary in pursuit of the fourth requirement…
(Progress Slide to show “Master of Divinity (M. Div.)”)
… a Master of Divinity degree or M.Div. This degree can be earned at one of our UU theological schools or various other schools. In general, it involves a course of study that will take 3 years as a full-time student. Depending on the school, students will study UU history, UU polity, UU theology and depending on their availably, other UU specific courses. They will study the Bible and other scripture, Christian Church history, world religions, theology, and ethics. And they will study worship and preaching, faith development and education, administration and communication, psychology and pastoral care, and more.
(Progress Slide to show “Internship”)
Your future minister will have served an approved internship in a congregation. These are either one-year full-time positions or 2-year part-time positions.
I was thinking that, if your future minister had begun seminary, at the very same time that Pathways began worshipping together, and if that person had been doing this all full time, then they would now be a recent graduate and currently serving their internship.
Of course, your future minister may have been have been in the ministry for a while, or may have gone to school part-time while continuing a previous career. Many of our ministers are, like me, pursuing a second career. Some of these people bring a great many transferable skills as well as significant life experience to their ministries.
Your future minister will also have completed a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE.
(Progress Slide to show “Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)”)
During CPE, a person is a chaplain full-time for a summer, or part-time for an extended period. The most common setting is a hospital. In my case, I split my time between an emergency room, an ICU, and a geriatric psychiatry ward. There are other options, including prisons, hospice programs, and community service agencies. During CPE, half of one’s time is spent with patients or clients. The rest is spent in reflection and supervision. Because, in addition to providing the care giving experience, the programs aim to help future ministers become aware of, and address, their own issues so that they will not carry them into their ministries.
Hopefully, early in this process, your future minister began reading the materials on the MFC’s reading list.
(Progress Slide to show “Reading List”)
This extensive list of books covers a variety of subjects including UU Institutional Policy, Professional Resources, Unitarian and Universalist History, and UU Theologies. And Religious Education for children, youth, and adults, Issues in Social Ministry, as well as Biographies of influential people in our history. They tell us we don’t need to remember everything we read. But we do need to know where to go to find the information when we need it in the future.
Lastly, your future minister had an appointment with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee.
(Progress Slide to show “Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC)”)
In preparation for the meeting, she or he submitted paperwork and evaluations for all the steps in this process for the committee to review. For many, this is one of the most anxiety provoking days of preparation. The meeting began with your minister preaching a short sermon and then being questioned extensively regarding his or her preparation. In some cases, at the end of the interview, candidates are sent away to do more preparation before returning months later for another interview. But sometimes, preparation is declared complete, and the candidate is granted Fellowship.
Of course every path is different. These are only the basic requirements. UU ministers, like UU lay people, have trouble fitting into boxes, so we cannot yet know the whole path that your future minister is traveling on the way to ministry among you. Whatever that path is, I assure you it is interesting and full of twists and turns. Just like yours.
Like you, your future minister is preparing well for that day when your paths will join.
(Display Main Sermon Slide)
The most important thing that you are doing to prepare is continuing to build this amazing spiritual community that changes lives.
You are also engaging in the interim process. As an interim pastor, my task is quite different than of your new settled minister. With your board of trustees and other groups, I have been reviewing the tasks that are important for congregations in transition. We are looking at structural questions and questions of communication, looking for improvement. We are talking about the past and looking into the future. We still have lots to do and fortunately a good amount of time as well.
One of the things that your lay leaders are addressing is the long term financial health of this congregation. Blessed with investments on which you can draw, you made an intentional decision to operate, for now, with a deficit budget, in order to promote growth. At the same time, there is a plan that will move you toward a sustainable balanced budget down the road.
Unfortunately, the cost of the ministerial transition threatens to put a wrinkle in that plan. It would draw down the investments more quickly than expected. This would reduce the time that is available to achieve the desired growth and establish that balanced budget.
In an attempt to lessen the effect of the ministerial transition, your leaders decided to come to you to help reduce the impact. They hope that you will agree with them, that this community is worth that extra effort. As a group, your Board and Ministerial Search Committee have already given generously to this effort, because they believe in this community.
I, too, believe in this community and in the path you are on. That is why, shortly after we arrived, Charlie and I made a pledge to Pathways for this year of 5% of our income, an amount sometimes known as a liberal tithe.
Once your path joins with that of your future minister, I will no longer be part of the Pathways community. But I will be part of its cheering section. I believe in the path you are on and I will be watching from afar. So, in a few minutes, when the baskets are passed, I will be adding an additional $800 check from Charlie and me in support of this morning’s fund raiser. I believe in the path you are on. I hope you do, too.
I honor the commitment you have shown to creating this spiritual community that changes lives.
I honor the gifts and the passions that each of you brings and the unfolding possibilities still before you.
May your journey together be enriching and rewarding and may your days together many and good.