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AN HONOR ANDA TASKMeadville/Lombard Theological SchoolCommencement AddressRev. Roberta M. NelsonSunday, June 2, 1996 A couple of months ago, I confessed to the Committee on Ministry that although I was going to
be giving the commencement address today, I did not have a title. A good friend on the
committee suggested "Midnight in the Seminary of Good and Better" or "Midnight in the Ministry
of Good and Evil." I took them under advisement but as you know I am not using them - perhaps
next year when I need a sermon title and it's the night before deadline...
For some the call to ministry is clear and focused; for others it is a growing awareness nurtured by
the church community. For others it may come dramatically from a power beyond themselves.
For me it was grace, an unexpected gift, an invitation from a mentor/teacher who simply asked
"have you ever thought of ministry?" The answer came to me in these words of Denise Levertov:
A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day's blow rang out metallic--or was it I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can. An honor and a task.
I come today as one who has spent her whole career in ministry, and one who knows from first
hand experience that the journey to ministry is long and the road occasionally rugged. I am also
one who chose to be a minister of religious education. Today my challenge to you, regardless of
your call--parish, community or religious education--is that you transcend the boundaries, real
or imagined, that set you apart from education and the children in our churches. In 1959 Sophia
Lyon Fahs wrote in her ordination sermon, "I join my voice with yours in pleading that we put the
children into the very midst of us believing that as we lose our lives in theirs, we shall find our
own."
We are first and foremost a worshiping community. The worshiping community cannot exist in a
vacuum. It requires depth and understanding of our religious history and heritage. In most, if not
all, of our communities, the majority of people we attract come without any religious up bringing,
wounded or broken by their past religious traditions, or seeking a new spiritual life. Therefore at
the heart of our community must be an education program that invites persons of all ages to
engage in a process of transformation. May Sarton writes, "Return to the deep sources, nothing
less will teach the stiff hands a new way to serve..."
We must go down into the dungeons of the heart, to the dark places where modern mind
imprisons all that is not defined. We must let out the terrible creative visions.
The task of education in a religious community is different from schooling and most education as
we know it. Education is a life long process that involves reshaping who we are and who we
hope to become.
In his book, The Way of Faithfulness, Padraic O'Hare explores, as a teacher and theologian, the
complex patterns of relationships between persons and within communities of persons through
which we strive to be faithful, to learn faithfulness from others and to instill faithfulness in others
especially those for whom we care. It is also about communities of people, which, for all their
frailty, share some vision of the mystery of existence and of a way of life.
This is a call for religious education that is rooted in Thomas Groome's idea that "education that
is religious is clearly a transcendent activity." The ultimate goal is to liberate persons to fulfill
their potentialities for authenticity and creativity. It is guided by a vision that urges people to
interpret their lives, to relate to others and to engage with the world in ways that they perceive to
be ultimate.
The Latin word for faith is often translated "I believe." Actually it means "to give one's heart."
We need to ask ourselves what really moves the heart and what needs to be at the heart of the
religious community.
When contemplating religious education as the role and responsibility of the whole community, I
am reminded of the ancient map makers who, when they came to an unknown land, would
inscribe the legend on their maps, "Here be dragons." Their inscription meant that here was the
unknown and no one knew for sure what it would hold. We need to challenge ourselves to sail
into the unknown, to explore this new terrain and to create ways that help people articulate and
define their own purpose and meaning. Remember that transcendence is the process of moving
over, going beyond, across or through real or imagined limits, "down into the dungeons of the
heart to the dark places where modern mind imprisons all that is not defined." (Sarton) We must
let out the terrible creative visions.
In the safety of community we have a chance to reshape ourselves. "To accept life in a
community is implicitly an affirmation of life itself. It is a recognition that this people, that I call
my people is an embodiment of the universal human community.... Every religious community is a
protest against or resistance to some face of death or destruction," writes Gabriel Moran.
As the heart is at the center of the human body, so it is at the center of all educational endeavors,
continuously giving and receiving. Mary Elizabeth Moore in her book Teaching from the Heart
writes, "...teaching from the heart is the extent to which the lives of students and societies are
nourished and transformed."
The sacred task of the Rabbi is often neglected or put aside by those who choose to minister.
And yet everything you do, everything you say, everything you choose not to do is part of your
role as teacher. My challenge to you today is to put "teaching from the heart" at the center of
your ministry. I urge you to heed Maria Harris's words "that students and teachers are
sacraments to one another; they are co-creators whose relationship is marked by a repudiation of
manipulation." Like O'Hare, Harris puts contemplation as the necessary foundation for a life of
faithfulness. Harris says that good teaching is steadfastly, but gently and graciously, attentive to
what is there; it begins in stillness, an attitude of silence and reverence. Sisters, brothers, take
your time. Go slowly, listen deep inside yourself. Simple things are holy.
Good teachers invite a diving in and wrestling with all that is available to us. It is a liberating
experience and one where more than our own creativity is operating. Teaching creates an
environment where students are handed over to themselves. In To Know as We Are Known,
Parker Palmer writes, "When a teacher is continually exploring alien, uncharted territory, humility
and openness to grace are cultivated...the resultant openness of mind creates a space in which
both students and subjects can speak a fresh truth."
Teaching is by nature religious; it calls forth reverence - reverence for life, reverence to the spirit.
Teaching from the heart is revering others in their wholeness and brokenness, in their joys and
sorrows, in their contemplation and action. Thomas Groome calls it a passion for people, "a deep
passion and caring for the well being of those we would presume to educate." To revere is to
recognize the sacredness of the educational process. Teaching at its best is a rich, honest
transforming relationship. It almost defies description.
Frederick May Eliot, when president of the American Unitarian Association, wrote,
Only kindled souls can really do religious education, for they must lead children, youth and adults to the threshold of those great experiences which bring a feeling of the overpowering beauty, the majesty, the awfulness of the world in which they are living. Only they can teach who have first beheld; and only they can teach, who having beheld, find their souls under great compulsion to share what they have seen.
The challenge I have outlined today will not be met quickly or easily. We must first be committed
to the task, and we must honor the long slow process of change. I have been immersed in this
work for thirty-six years. It has been a journey beyond anything I could have imagined. It has
required great discipline not to try to do the work that others must do for themselves. It has
demanded that I "be" with people, that I respect the process of be-coming, that I remain
committed to teaching as an act of faith--a gift of the heart.
A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. Denise Levertov |
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
Church |
