WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
A Sermon by Rev. Robert M. Eddy delivered at the
Unitarian Universallist Church of Pensacola Florida
9 JUNE 2002

    It  seems nearly all of you want a settled, professional, Unitarian Universalist minister - and, miracle of Miracles you want me. I accept.  and thank the 63 members who voted last Sunday the 61 who voted yes  and especially  the two persons who voted, “no.”  I thank them eslpecially  for saving us from unanimity - or at least the appearance of unanimity.   Why? Because  I’m convinced that the way we practice “democracy” is the final test of how “good” a UU congregation we are.  I’ll have more to say about that in September in a Sermon I’ve tentatively titled “The Sanctity of Democracy.
Last Sunday, In Valparaiso, I used the same title you see printed in your order of service, but I preached there a completely different sermon than I’ll preach today.    
Last week I  assured the congregation  in Valparaiso  that I was not abandoning them.   You see, when I came back to what some call the Redneck Riviera, I came  under the same contract as  Phillips had, except  that the option of annual renewal was left open. So I was an unsettled/contract minister but I was not an interim minister when I arrived.  I was never their “interim” minister as I was your interim minister from September 1999 to May 2000.   
Last September, after only a few weeks on the job, the Valparaiso Congregation  asked me to  stay for at least one more year.  I declined. Why?  Not because I liked them as individuals any less than I like you all,
but  because I realized that  I, and probably no minister could could serve these two congregations adequately.  To try would be to short change both.  I felt they needed a settled professional minister.   I realized that my staying, in addition to frustrating me, would delay the process.  They came to the same conclusion and have now entered the process and hope to have a settled minister by  August of 2003.  In the meantime, Nels Oas, whom many of you know, will come as a their short term contract minister from November 1st to April 1st.   
Now, what’s the difference between a settled minister and a  contract  minister?  For one thing the settled minister is a member of the congregation.  While I was your interim minister and contract minister I did
not sign the book.  I remained a member of the Denver Church as I had been for 26 years.  But now .... Barbara, Ann, (membership committee)  may I sign the book? 
 
IN all UU congregations,  the minister, whether contract or called, the minister proposes and the congregation disposes.  You didn’t give me any additional authority when you voted to call me as your settled minister.  I am just one among equals, as I was before the vote because all members of
this congregation are ministers.  
   Unitarian Universalist Congregations don’t have popes who appoint  bishops  who appoint  priests who appoint  deacons and alter servers etc.   In no sense is ours a top down organization.   We are all ministers.  It’s just that one of us gets paid to be good and the rest, as I’ve said too many times, can be good for nothing.  I am “the”  minister  I have some responsibilities the rest of you don’t have.  You have, by a democratic election chosen me to undertake those responsibilities.
 We UU’s are not united by common belief.  Most of us agree with the “principles” of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations of which Association this congregation is a member. But it is not belief in those principles that unites us.  We are united in this congregation by the covenant we recite every Sunday.  We are all committed to:  dwelling together in peace  - it’s not always easy - seeking the truth in love - ditto and helping each other, that’s the easy part.   The professional minister shares those three covenant    commitments with  every other minister/member.  But there are at least  three other ommitments the Professional minister makes.   I outlined those in a sermon titled,  Professional Ministers: Necessity,
Luxury or Snare    In that sermon I suggested additional three special , additional roles for the  professional minister.   They were PREACHER/PASTOR ...SPEAkER FOR THE DEAD ALPHA baboon
I told the Valparaiso congregation that I was a baboon  in Pensacola but I tried to behave like a gentleman  in Valparaiso, Niceville, Destin and Ft. Walton Beach. 
What I meant by “alpha baboon” function was to hold up possibilities for the  congregation’s consideration, to suggest priorities to  facilitate decision making,  to help the congregation  come to consensus so that we  can move on even when some members disagree.  No especially when some members disagree.  
It’s also my special responsibility as “the” minister to comfort the  minority in the congregation because every one of you will,  at one point or another, be in a minority as we democratically decide on what we will do as a congregation.   If we really celebrate diversity, we need to learn to cherish  the minority in our midst, not just persecuted minorities in the larger community and as your professional minister I need to model that behavior. 
To be specific,  I need to be minister to the professional military person as well as to  the pacifist. I need to be minister to the person who is part of “the establishment”  as well as the person who is working to disestablish the establishment.   I need to be minister to the Republican as well as to the Democrat.     I’d better, because I expect there will be times when I will be in a minority,  If so, Good.   I can model then what it means to be a  “loyal opposition” Perhaps I’ll even get a chance to model how to be a  constructive  minority of one,  While I will be passionate about causes I support, I hope I will never denigrate those who sincerely march to a different drummer.   I expect you to chide me if I am disrespectful of those who disagree with me.  As I will chide those who disrespect me.  All we minister-mimbers covenant to  “seek
the truth in love.”  
Every settled UU minister is a member of the congregation. When a UU minister says, “we”  he really means it - or should.  “The” UU Minister is not high and mighty by virtue of his role.  He is not sanctified.
  He is given special responsibilities and special privileges to fulfill  those responsibilities  
    I hope you all heard the words I sang to the kids earlier. Let me read  them to you:  “Daddy started out in San Francisco, tootin' on his trumpet loud and mean,  suddenly a voice said, go forth daddy, spread the picture on a wider screen and the voice said daddy there’s a million pigeons, waiting to be hooked on new religions. Go forth daddy, leave your common law wife. spread the religion of the rhythm of life.”  Hit the deck and crawl to daddy.     Take a dive and swim to daddy     Spread your wings and fly to daddy.”
Those were the original words.  “Rhythm of life was written as a parody of “new religions” back in the 1960’s. Now has set  new words were  to it.  We’ll sing them in the fall and with as much gusto as you sang “and we believe in Life” in the first Hymn of the morning.
  I sang the original  words because I want you to know that I understand that it   is not my function to be “big daddy”   I can’t  offer you “The way the truth and the life”   I can’t say, come, follow me.  Instead I can  open many doors.     I will not attempt to be your guru.   I’ll not try to remake you in my image. Instead I will support you, that’s singular, you not y’all. I will support each of you your own quest for the good, the true and
the beautiful.   We UU’s draw inspiration from many sources.   Look at the back of your program for the major ones but don’t think the  list is exhaustive. .  The sources of love and wisdom and creative energy are uncountable and ubiquitous.
  Even Paul of Tarsus acknowledged that     I want this Church to be a portal into many traditions . Even to some that seem weird by conventional criteria or even to my own eyes. We certainly won’t find  all the “new sources” to our taste. I also want us to respect and appreciate older traditions.  Yes, even Evangelical Christianity.  The new is not necessarily profound but  and the old  is not necessarily shallow. I look with equanimity at all claims to wisdom and I say, “by their fruits shall ye judge them.” 
  The one thing that makes us Unitarians Universalists unique is that we strive to maintain maximum diversity within a small community of seekers. We celebrate diversity.    We also celebrate life.  And forgive me if I sing once more,  “I love life ....
  I want to celebrate life - and I want you to celebrate   with me.   I was cursed with youthful looks so I have to remind people, including myself  sometimes just how old I am, but I  usually I try hard to not to “act my age.”  I believe that exuberance is entirely proper  in the old  and that solemnity often hides superficiality.   On the other hand euphoric babbling often fills up the “void of sense with sound” as Alexander Pope pointed out a couple centuries ago.  I don’t want to simply mouth politically correct blather.   I want to avoid both extremes. 
And I’ll try to “think globally and  act   locally.”  The phrase has become  trite but it’s still true.   Now that we don’t have to vote every year on whether to “extend the ministers’ contract”, now that the default condition
is “he stays” I feel I can at last be involved in the life of Pensacola.  When I was your interim minister, there was no point.  I knew I’d soon be, “out of here.” Responsibilities East of Eden made it virtually impossible
for me to be an activist last year.  But now that I’m “settled” I can, and intend,  to be very much an activist on the local level.  
 
And even  when we decide, as I anticipate we will   in a few years,  that this congregation needs a younger “full time” minister, even then I hope to have many more years in retirement in this wonderful ancient/modern city, this combination of  New Orleans and Montgomery - of Louisiana and Alabama  with the best features of both. This is a wonderful place to live.  I’m thrilled that you indicated in your long range plan that you wanted your minister to be active in the community.
It was, In fact,  the invitation to participate in the Greater Pensacola  Interfaith service just after the trauma of 9/11 that made me realize how important it is that I be “out there” to be - not the spokesman - not to speak for the congregation but that I be  a model in greater Pensacola of a UU citizen, one who is interested in deeds not creeds, applications not theories. 
   But which causes should I become involved in as your settled minister?   The long range plan, which  you developed in a series of cottage gatherings and board meetings in the year before I came,  calls  for a Minister who will be involved in the community, with the clergy association mentioned especially.  So despite time constraints I  attended many of the Interfaith Clergy gatherings in Pensacola this year and will continue to do so. The liberal Christian Clergy  assure the Rabbi and I that want the Association to
be a truly inter faith organization and I intend to hold them to their word.  I will be a respectable member of the Clergy Association, even if the only non Christian there.   I can’t be your spokesman - no one can - but I can interpret “our peculiar way of being religious” to any who are willing to listen and that I intend to do. 
    There is no shortage of other good causes your minister can become involved in.  In fact they seem to be banging on the doors.  On Thursday I found myself sitting with the director of the Youth Detention Facility for
Escambia and Santa Rosa County with several other people who are trying to organize an advisory board and support group.  Should I be part of that? After all my criticisms of the criminally unjust system of juvenile law, shouldn’t I be part of the solution?    Many UU ministers are on the boards of the local A.C.L.U.  Last week was the first time I was able to attend an A. C. L. U. meeting in Pensacola. I’ve been a card carrying  member for nearly 40 years. Should I, if invited, become more active in A. C. L. U?   As  the parent of a lesbian, I am very interested in P.F.L.A.G. the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organization. There’s a great deal of work needed in greater  Pensacola to battle homophobia and the disinformation
certain religious groups are disseminating.   Should I be publicly involved  in that cause? And of course I am a “peacenik.”  Should I demonstrate against the war we seem to be planning against Iraq.  Should I be more active in the Pro choice movement?    Maybe I should run for the school board  -  because it’s a bully pulpit-  not because I might have a chance of winning - thought hat would be an acceptable risk.
    These are all good causes.  I don’t intend to give anyone a veto over my conscience, but I do   I think  decisions on community involvement should not be mine alone.   I hope our Social Action, Responsibility, Service committee will help me in this process and that each of you will share with them what you feel should be your settled minister’s public witness.  And share with them  what, if anything, you think should be our public witness and social service projects as a congregation - beyond what we do as individual UU’s.
    Important as these community functions are, I still believe think my most important function as your settled minister is  “to comfort the afflicted.”  The “afflicted” includes not only members who are ill or home bound, or  hospitalized, or bereaved, or despondent or destitute but also the one affliction I think we all can fall victim to these days, post 9/11: Ennui, Despair, Discouragement
    My very first sermon here, in September 1999 was titled, “Chicken Little Was Wrong.”  When I returned to Pensacola/Valparaiso in August of 2001 my first Sermon was “Good news” and the second, “More Good News.”   Then September 11th arrived and it seemed that maybe Chicken Little was right after all.  I believe I have a special mission to preach good news.  Not “pie in the sky by and by” good news but good news about the possibilities for joy and fulfillment and progress right here on mother earth and in our own times
and in our own back yard.  I will continue to  to accentuate the positive.
     The world did not change on September 11th, 2001.   America’s perception changed.  Before September 11th we lived in a fool’s paradise.  We thought all but a few discontents loved us and that, in any case,  we were immune from attack by those who hated us.  Now we know better but we may be just as
foolish in our reaction to that painful dis-illusionment as we were in our  state of illusion.    Because we now know that attacks like 911 are possible we are at risk as a nation of becoming clinically paranoid and in preparing for a worst case scenario we may act in a way that destroys the possibility of keeping all that was good in America, and modeling that good for other nations.  More than anything else, it is fear itself that we most need fear. 
We, the member ministers of this congregation must inoculate ourselves against that disabling fear and nurture ourselves with enabling love.   If we don’t as a congregation, we, as a nation, we may find ourselves living in a police state and as individuals becoming impotent. Yes, a police state could happen here.  But I do not claim it will  happen here.  I claim quite the contrary.   I have preached and will preach over and over the necessity of believing that good things can happen for I believe that  faith  in a possible, wonderful  future is essential.  Of course, such faith is not sufficient to insure a  wonderful future; it is not a sufficient condition but it is a necessary condition.  I will do my best to convince you that faith in the possibility of a wonderful future is not foolish.  
 
.  With the 19th century Universalist Minister, Olympia Brown, I have faith that we can change the world!
 
    Certainly we can’t change the whole planet in our lifetime.  But we can change this nation.  Floridians, of all people, should  know how little it takes to change the U.S. of A. in one lifetime. Reflecting on what happened in Florida in November 1990,  I can't help but see how a few people in each of a few precincts in Florida could have decided who would be the President of the United States.  What a different world this would be if Al Gore were president today. Even the republican majority agrees with that. They think it
would be worse but I think it would be much much better.  But either way  we  now know it IS possible to change America in one lifetime!
 
    And this too I know:  even locally the chances are very good that in a short period of time we,  collectively can make a difference.   The hard decision is where to apply "the stubborn ounces of our weight."  
    We don't know how long it will take for any action you and I take, individually or as part of this congregation, to "change the world.  But we must have faith that we can make a difference. And If I harp on anything it will be this:    The future is not predetermined either by some Creator God or by inflexible laws; the future is what we make it.     That's what faith means to me:  the assurance that good things CAN happen.  And it's that faith that I will to share with you from this pulpit when I return in August. 
Meanwhile, my fellow member ministers of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Farmington,
“keep the faith.”  
 
Copyright © 1998 Unitarian Universalist Church of Pensacola
Last modified: May 07, 2003