Proclaim120824
Guest minister Rev. Art McDonald
Ministry of Presence in Turbulent Times – Gloucester UU
Over 50 years ago I entered divinity school at Catholic U. in Washington, DC, to prepare for ministry in the Catholic Church and not long after beginning my studies I met two priests, who as much as anyone or anything since, helped shape my ideas of what it meant to be a minister and what it was to build a community we call church. Their names were Jack and Regis. They were serving as campus ministers at SUNY in Albany, NY. They were like Felix and Oscar; you remember the odd couple? Jack was tall, thin, handsome, disciplined, driven, a bit aloof, focused, efficient and somewhat impatient. Regis was somewhat rotund, dreamy, poetic, charming, scattered, warm and jovial. Before Jack went to bed every night he read and prayed, flossed and brushed his teeth. Before Regis went to bed he wanted to talk or watch tv, have a snack, often potato chips, allowing the crumbs to fall into the sheets. Jack thought Regis was a slob; Regis thought Jack a prophet.
Concerning ministry, I learned from Jack how to be a social activist: analyze and critique, develop projects, organize, take care of details, speak to controversial issues and make sharp pronouncements and judgments about social injustices, like the prophets in the Jewish scriptures. From Jack I learned not to expect praise or affirmation, only criticism and advice as to how to do things better. Later during seminary days, one day while painting a house getting it ready for ex-prison inmates to live in in Nashville, Tenn., a project Jack began, I was on a ladder for approximately 10 hours with hardly a break. When Jack returned from his other endless activities his only words to me were: you spilled some paint on the driveway. In a flush of anger, I threw the paintbrush at him. He thought I was too sensitive. Around Jack you could never relax, get comfortable. He was always throwing out the next challenge; there was so much injustice in the world and so much to change.
From Regis I learned the importance of relationship, of care, of nurture, of listening, of PRESENCE – of building community. I learned about encouragement and affirmation. Regis appreciated each person’s gifts. He always had time to listen; he loved to dialogue and share ideas. From Regis I learned perspective, self-effacing humor, to take myself lightly – he was a reminder of the words of English author, GK Chesterton, who once proclaimed that the reason angels can fly is they take themselves lightly.
When I reflect upon all my years of ministry, both Catholic and UU, I am so acutely aware of these two very different, yet essential and complimentary dimensions of what it is we are trying to do as UUs to build religious community taught to me by these mentors, Regis and Jack. Though, in many ways I have admired and followed the Jack model and have tried to shape ministry and church building around such emphases, because I believe the religious community is a primary force in society to speak to social injustice and to be in the forefront of transformation of society, nevertheless, maybe because of the aging process, I am thinking more and more of the Regis model and how just as essential it is to religious community. Revolutions are needed; injustice is massive. Yet, people matter, religious community is called to be concerned about both.
Jack thought of himself as a prophet, less so a priest. He often said the church should ordain prophets. Regis thought of his ministry as a ministry of presence, by which he meant either being with folks in solidarity as they struggle for justice and equality and human rights, but also being with them in the struggle to maintain dignity and hopefulness in a time of illness, depression, aging, and, ultimately, death, i.e., being a presence with folks in pain, emotional and physical, to simply be with, hang out to listen, to encourage, to empathize, to console, to laugh, to cry. He was good at that. He was a healer. He embraced his priesthood.

These dual callings represented by Jack and Regis, the prophetic and the priestly, were highlighted in this morning’s reading from UU theologian, James Luther Adams. Adams reminds us that in our UU tradition ministry is not just for those who head off to seminary to gain special training but it is a call for all members to be prophets and priests, as Adams writes, the priesthood and prophethood of all believers. This notion comes from what religious historians call the left wing of the Protestant Reformation, which, among other things, was a sharp rebuke of clericalism and clerical corruption and argued for the democratization of the religious community, or what Adams called the “laicization” of the church and congregational polity, i.e., power is in the hands of the members in cooperation with ministerial leaders. Hence, each of us is called to be a prophet and an advocate of justice, as well as deep involvement in pastoral care, nurturing, listening and healing, being a PRESENCE for members in crisis, illness and death, that is, as Adams says, caring for souls.
In the adult ed. program that many UU churches have undertaken this year, including Gloucester and Essex, called Soul Matters, this month’s theme, as many of you know, is on the notion of Living Love through the Practice of PRESENCE, the PRACTICE of PRESENCE. So, just how do we understand presence? What does it mean?
Irish theologian and spiritual writer, John O’Donohue, gives us some hints. He says it is “the mystery of thereness that we call presence”– (repeat). “Presence,” he goes on, “is alive. You sense and feel presence; it comes towards you and engages you…Presence is the whole atmosphere of a person or thing….an atmosphere of spirit…Presence is something you sense and know, but cannot grasp. It engages us, but we can never capture its core; it remains somehow elusive…nature has a presence, music has a presence, poetry has a presence [but] human presence is different from everything else in the world…it is the nature of humans to be present in a way that impinges on and engages others…Human presence is never neutral. It always has an effect. Human Presence strikes a resonance…there are people,” writes O’Donohue, “ …whose presence is encouraging. One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own. There are times of great uncertainty in every life. Left alone at such a time, you feel dishevelment and confusion like gravity. When a friend comes with words of encouragement, a light and lightness visit you and you begin to find the stairs and the door out of the dark. The sense of encouragement you feel from the friend is not simply her words or gestures; it is rather her whole PRESENCE enfolding you and helping you find the concealed door. The encouraging PRESENCE manages to understand you and put herself in your shoes.” (REPEAT THAT!)
Another great theologian/spiritual writer, John Dunne, takes this insight a step further when he writes in reflecting on the idea of PRESENCE: “We are sources of life to one another because when we are together something becomes present among us, a richness of human life, what I would call the human essence… the presence in all of us together, though, begins to be felt only when we begin to PASS OVER and to enter into one another’s lives … when we begin to enter into one another’s lives, we begin to come into a kind of fullness of life. It is then that the human essence begins to shine forth among us.”
I love that notion of passing over into another’s life story. Really listening, empathizing, exploring and, possibly, being changed/transformed oneself by the experience of deep presence with another!
As O’Donohue mentioned, Presence is a notion sometimes hard to grasp. Let me try to concretize it.
Each year in seminary, after two semesters of assiduous study (hah!), we needed to find summer ministry placements. I mentioned my work with a prison project in Nashville one summer. Another summer I worked as a nurse’s aid in a hospital for chronic disease. My superiors wanted me to be a chaplain. But I wanted to experience more closely illness and death, so I got a job as an aid. One of my patients, named Peter, was dying of respiratory illness, COPD, I suppose. I spent a few hours each day with him, developing relationship, bathing him, playing checkers, humoring him, simply being present. One day the nurse came in to administer an injection of vitamin B. He didn’t like her; they had little relationship. She wasn’t able to be present to him because of her workload. He said no when she attempted to inject him and pointed to me and said let him do it! I said, Peter that would be a very bad idea. So I just held his hand and said it’s ok. The nurse is great at what she does. A few weeks later, he died peacefully. I was there when he breathed his last breath. What an experience. I transported him to the morgue. Somehow, I had a Presence with Peter and it was a comfort. I listened, I tried to comfort, even passed over into his experience, as if I died with him? We bonded. (The mystery of thereness, of PRESENCE)

Communities can have a PRESENCE too, a vital, essential PRESENCE. Years later (around 1994) while pastoring a UU church in Pittsburgh, I received a call one day from a fellow named Fred. He had a question. Would he and his male partner Ed be welcomed in our church? He went on to tell me that ours was the 5th church he called and all the other 4 pastors said the same thing: it would be ok with him/her but it might not work for the congregation. They might not be fully accepted. I responded: why not give us a try and see what you think. We’re a pretty open group. Ok, he said, see you Sunday. Fred and Ed came to church the next Sunday. Fred weighed barely 100 pounds; he was dying from AIDS and wanted a church to belong to so he could have a memorial service and be buried through a church. The community was a PRESENCE for FRED, a consoling, comforting presence as he slowly weakened and died within about 6 months. His partner Ed later became president of the congregation because it had a PRESENCE in a difficult time for him. He was grateful and wanted to give back.

Since the presidential election, I am hearing lots of concern, even fear as to what lies ahead with the new administration. It’s a turbulent time. What awaits us? How will we respond? I suggest we respond with PRESENCE, loving, compassionate, engaged PRESENCE. The wider community will need our PRESENCE. In particular, but not only, I am thinking of two communities who will need a PRESENCE going forward: LGBTQ folks, most especially transgender folks, and the immigrant community, not only the undocumented, but especially them. Already in the boisterous rhetoric coming from the President-elect and some of his nominees for significant offices, we are hearing about potential policy proposals directly impacting these two communities. There is great fear in both of these communities. They will need community support. We all will be called to step up.

In the Essex Church, we have had a PFLAG chapter for the past 15 or so years. In the early years parents came over concern about a gay child. But in more recent years almost all the concern is about transgender children and young adults. Every month there is a PRESENCE of a few church members and community activists to listen to parent stories and support them in how to accompany their loved ones through major changes in their lives. It is an important community ministry. When I was in Pittsburgh, we had a transgender person in the congregation. During the work week he was Wade, a cashier at a major grocery chain. On Sundays she was Sarah-Wade, as she integrated into the congregation. One day, at Joys and Concerns, she proclaimed that for the first time in her life she was able to be herself and be fully embraced. The congregation’s PRESENCE made that possible.

As for the threats by the incoming administration of mass deportations, many local governments and state governors have declared they will not cooperate with ICE and the new immigration policies. They will resist. There are a number of declared sanctuary cities across the U.S., cities that have declared they will not cooperate with federal officials who attempt to separate families. Many are called Sanctuary cities. My city, Salem, is one. Sanctuary also has a long history in the churches in this country. They cooperated with Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad during slave days. The movement was revived in the 1980s, as another attempt at mass deportations ensued as Central Americans were fleeing wars. Many churches declared themselves sanctuaries. Immigrants will look to us for a PRESENCE, a loving, compassionate, active presence, as we work with community groups like ECCO to be in solidarity with our immigrant families. The times may be turbulent. Our faith will be challenged.

Although it is a sermon for another day, the words we read from the poet Wordsworth, speak of another kind of Presence, an all- encompassing presence:
“And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts,
A sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
A motion and a spirit, that impels,
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”

Theologian and friend, Thomas O’Meara, says that “The primary revelation of God is not Being but Presence. Presence surrounds me, my culture, my age, my world. Presence is more intimately present to me than I am to myself, pervading realms of my psyche of which I hardly know the existence.”
And spiritual writer John Dunne suggests that “my life is a journey in time with God as my companion” – a companion, a presence, another way to imagine the divine.

I have been blessed to have known and been mentored by so many in my life and by my earliest models, Jack and Regis. Sadly, both died prematurely; Jack from stomach cancer at the age of 52 and Regis from MS at 59. While visiting him in a Fall River hospital where he died, Jack said he couldn’t figure out why God would let him die when there were so many projects left undone. He was distraught. I couldn’t console him; I could only thank him for his mentoring and tell him I loved him. One of the gifts I gave to Jack was humor; I made him laugh. On that last visit, as he suffered with stomach cancer, he asked me not to make him laugh. As for Regis, when I last saw him, shortly before his death, he was paralyzed from waist down and bedridden with MS. He still liked eating potato chips in bed. He was grateful for his life and ministry and couldn’t wait for the adventure that was awaiting him – he even hoped to see his deceased parents. For me they were both giants and I drew strength from their huge presence in my life. They modeled for me what I have learned from JL ADAMs and others as to the role and call of the religious community: to be both a thorn in society’s side, demanding justice and human rights, making us all uneasy about social ills and human suffering (thank you Jack, the prophet). But the church is also called to be warm and fuzzy, fully present, always re-assuring, encouraging and affirming people as we all struggle with life’s bumps; we are called to offer a listening ear and comforting presence, that is, caring for souls. (thank you Regis, the priest). May this community and all our communities, in these turbulent times, exercise as best we are able this dual calling, the priesthood and prophethood of all believers. So be it. Amen.