by James Kubal-Komoto, Intern Minister

October 4, 1998

First Unitarian Church of Portland

Opening Words:

 "What is the ideal aim of life? To learn, to teach, to serve, to enjoy!" - - Julia Ward Howe

My wife and I drove through nine states coming from Illinois to Oregon. She drove some, I drove some. We drove at least eight hours a day, and it took us five days. That’s a long time to spend in a truck cab with a 75-pound Labrador retriever and two parakeets. Hiromi and I talked part of the way. We listened to tapes part of the way and found out the parakeets really like Janet Jackson. Just looking at those birds, you wouldn’t think they could dance. We listened to the radio part of the way, but you know, there’s a lot of spots along Interstate 90 where you can’t pick up an NPR station, and there’s only so much country music and religious broadcasting that I can take at a stretch. So I had a lot of time to just look out the window and think.

I spent a lot of time thinking, "Why am I doing this? Why have I packed nearly everything my wife and I own into 83 cardboard boxes, loaded them into the back of a Budget rental truck, and decided to drive more than halfway across the country to spend a year of my life in a city where it seems like the three things people like most are strong coffee, micro-brewed beer, and rain? What’s my purpose in coming here?"

By the time I finish my formal preparation for the Unitarian Universalist ministry, if all goes well, I will have spent three years of academic study at Meadville/Lombard Theological School and the University of Chicago, one summer working as a student chaplain in a hospital, and about a year serving as intern minister at this church.

Meadville/Lombard and the University of Chicago are wonderful places. There are many learned men and women who are brilliant and passionate about what they teach. But in reflecting on this academic preparation for the ministry, I remember the words of Diane Miller, the director of the U.U.A. Department of Ministry. "We all know that [this type of learning] doesn’t prepare ministers for parish life any more than childbirth classes really prepare mothers for the shock of labor." I’m going to have to take Diane at her word on this, but to tell the truth, what she said makes me wonder how well prepared I am for ministry after even two years of study and just a little anxious about what I’m supposed to experience in the parish.

Yet I know that there is truth in Miller’s words that I have heard before. The great Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, an 1836 graduate of Harvard Divinity School, was very critical of theological education in his day. At that time, preparation for the Unitarian ministry usually meant four straight years of academic study at Harvard. Thinking of this, Parker said, "It took 70 days for Egyptians to make a mummy out of a dead man, and it now takes four years for Unitarians to make a mummy out of a live one." Parker’s colleague and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chided those about to enter the Unitarian ministry to be careful of too much book learning: "The man who aims to speak as books enable...babbles. Let him hush." The early Universalists were aware of similar problems. They often discouraged those who aspired to ministry from any kind of formal academic preparation, believing such preparation confused the gifts of the mind with the gifts of the spirit.

With these thoughts in mind as I made the long drive from Chicago to Portland, I realized that my purpose in coming to Portland was clear. I’ve come here to learn, but to learn in a way that’s not possible at Meadville/Lombard or the University of Chicago. It’s to learn that which can’t be learned from books or even from another person. It’s the kind of learning, as Emerson said, that "cannot be received second hand." It’s the kind of learning that happens when you turn yourself over fully to the experience of life.

All of you have been kind enough to let me do this learning here at this church with you. Of course, it is not only with me you have done this. This church has a tradition of being a teaching church, offering itself as a place where women and men can prepare for the Unitarian Universalist ministry, and since 1975, 19 other women and men have come to this church to do so.

Since coming here on September 1, I’ve already done a great deal of learning. If any of you were in the Main Street Sanctuary two weeks ago, you may have heard a loud thud as you were exiting the building during the fire drill. That’s because one of the things I learned that morning is that one absolutely must not ever even attempt to run or even walk quickly up stairs while wearing a ministerial robe. Talk about the Fall of Man! This was an important piece of learning, and one that I’ll remember for a long time, but it’s not really the kind of learning that I believe I’m called to do here.

The kind of learning I’m called to do isn’t about putting into practice skills that I learned at theological school or even more important skills like learning to walk around in this robe. The kind of learning I’m called to do is, in part, about exploring more deeply my call to ministry. "To find our Calling," Frederick Buechner said, "is to find the intersection between our own deep gladness and the world’s deepest hunger, that point which allows for our fullest expression even as it provides an avenue for our greatest service," and "The only real tool we have for doing ministry," another minister once told me, "is our selves."

So the learning I am called to do this year is about finding that which is deepest and most important and most real within me and learning where it connects with that which is deepest and most important and most real within you. It is, in part, a discovery of self.

But my purpose here today is not to give you a lecture on ministerial education, or bore you to tears by making you listen to the stories of inner struggle and turmoil that an intern minister faces in preparation for Unitarian Universalist ministry. That’s the intern committee’s job.

The reason I even share some of these thoughts with you today is because I believe that the kind of learning that I am called to do this year is not unique to my role as intern minister. I believe it is a kind of learning that each of us is called to do throughout our entire lives. I have an explicit agreement with this church that states part of my purpose in being here is to learn, but...so do each of you. In the mission statement of this church, we have covenanted together to foster lifelong spiritual growth, to answer with one another questions such as, "Who am I? What do I believe? How shall I live this one life that I have been given?"

We are called to lifelong learning both by our covenant and by the liberal religious tradition in which we stand. A tenet of the liberal religious tradition is "unfinishedness." The story that Lynn told this morning is a good example of this. The story she read differs from the creation story found in the Book of Genesis. The second chapter of Genesis reads, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done." Yet in the story Lynn told this morning, even at the end of the story, creation was unfinished.

Religious liberals tend to see both creation and revelation as unfinished. In this way we are strikingly different from some other religious groups. Some religious groups see the bible as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and so it is their ultimate authority. The reason that we as religious liberals do not use the bible as our ultimate authority is not because we believe it is untrue - - though our understanding of it tends to be more metaphorical than literal - - but because we do not believe the bible or any other sacred scripture is the last word. We are open to new understandings of life and of the world throughout human history and throughout our own lives, even if they are contradictory to our previous understandings. As Emerson said, we need to know, "God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake."

To be open to this life of learning, we need to turn ourselves fully over to the experience of life, but even though we have covenanted to do this as a church and are called to do so by the tradition in which we stand, I think this is very difficult for many of us. It’s difficult for many of us to say, "I’m still learning." I know it’s difficult for me.

Many of us have already come up with answers to some of life’s most difficult questions, and some of these answers haven’t come to us easily. They’ve only come to us after some pretty painful experiences. We’ve built our own lives and the lives of our families around these answers. We’ve built our identities around these answers, and maybe we’ve reached the point where we can say, "I’m happy with who I am. Enough learning about life already." It’s hard for me to acknowledge that some of the answers I’ve worked hard at coming up with might just be provisional.

I think it’s easier for children to be open to the kind of learning I talking about. I mean when you’re six or seven years old, you’re used to having you’re whole understanding of the world pretty regularly shaken up or stood on its head. A little girl was recently in this church for the first time and she was pointing at me. She asked her mother, "Is this his house?" The mother replied, "No, this is God’s house." "Oh," the girl said looking around at some other people, "which one of them is God?"

We expect children not to have everything figured out yet, but by the time we’re 20 or 40 or 60 or 80, we would like to think that we have at least a few important things figured out. But if we are going to be open to a life of learning, I think we need, as we sang in our opening hymn this morning, to seek the spirit of a child. No matter what our age, we need to be ready to have our whole understanding of the world shaken up or stood on its head. Otherwise we close ourselves off to what new learning might bring. "Truly I tell you," Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, "unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Yet how can we do this, knowing that being open to what life still might teach us means risking the lives we’ve built around the answers we’ve already found? How can we admit that we didn’t learn everything we really needed to know in kindergarten? How can we learn to say, "I’m still learning"?

Have you seen the movie Dead Poets Society? The movie is about an English teacher, played by Robin Williams, who tries to teach his young, male, boarding school students to appreciate poetry. In one scene, the Robin Williams character takes one student, puts his hands over the student’s eyes, and begins to twirl him around, and as the student twirls he begins to utter the words that are deepest within him. For this to have happened, the student had to trust the teacher. The student needed to trust the teacher enough to twirl him around, not knowing what would happen. What would happen if we trusted Life to be our teacher? What if we trusted Life enough to twirl us around and make us off balance, without necessarily knowing what would happen next?

Is this a trust in God? For me it is a trust in that something deep within us, that some might call God, that is creative and compassionate and that has the ability to take the pieces of our new experience - - even the sharp, jagged pieces - - and craft them into a new mosaic, a new understanding of life, that is both stronger and more meaningful that what was there before.

It is this trust that allows me to risk loving another person. It is this trust that allows me to turn myself fully over to the experiences that I will face this year as an intern minister at this church. It is this trust that sustains me when I am afraid of what might happen next.

Even with this trust, though, turning ourselves fully over to the experience of life is difficult to do by ourselves. As in the story that Lynn told this morning, we need partners. Our Principles and Purposes call us to be partners by accepting one another and encouraging one another to spiritual growth. This too takes trust, though a different kind. It is trust in one another. We need to trust one another enough to be able to say to one another, "I’m still learning," and know that this is okay.

A few weeks ago, I attended Wednesday night choir practice as a visitor. It was the first choir practice of the year, and the choir was practicing some of the music for the first time. When the choir had trouble with a particular section of music, Mark stopped them and then they tried it again. But that was okay. That was a rehearsal. They were still learning.

Of course, when the choir comes here on Sunday mornings, each member wants everything to be perfect, and as best I can tell, it usually is. The choir’s a very competent group, and after I’ve attended board meetings and other committee meetings at this church, I’ve had similar thoughts. "There are a lot of really competent people at this church."

I am thankful for the many skills and gifts that each of you brings to this church. This church should be a place where we can share the gifts that each us has with one another, and because of so many of you who do so many things well, this church is a wonderful place to be, but this church should also be like that Wednesday night choir practice, a place where we can say to one another, "I’m still learning."

We each need to find places in this church where it is okay for us to do this, and there are many places where we can. It could be in a conversation with a minister or a lay minister. It might be in a committee meeting or in one of the many adult religious education classes that the church offers. These small groups are not just about doing things and learning things. They are places where we can be together as people, share our lives with one another, and say, "I’m still learning."

Of course, we have to be careful.

There is the story about a rabbi who, in a frenzy of religious passion, rushed before the ark, fell to his knees, and started beating his breast, crying, "I’m nobody!" "I’m nobody!" The cantor of the synagogue, impressed by this example of spiritual humility, joined the rabbi on his knees. "I’m nobody!" "I’m nobody!" he said. The custodian of the synagogue, watching from the corner, couldn’t restrain himself either. He joined the other two on his knees, calling out. "I’m nobody! I’m nobody!" At this point, the rabbi, nudging the cantor with his elbow, pointed at the custodian and said, "Look who thinks he’s nobody!"

If we say to one another, "I’m still learning," we should really mean it. But if we do learn to say this honestly, we have the chance to deepen the community that we already share. To say to another person, "I am still learning," is to invite that person to respond similarly, knowing that he or she will not be judged for being less than perfect, for not having everything figured out. And in this sharing, from the oldest member of this congregation to the youngest, we will learn to look at ourselves and one another in a new way, knowing that each one of us is still learning, and knowing that this is how it should be.

So may it be.

Prayer:

Will you pray with me?

Spirit of Life,

Within each of us and amongst us all,

May we have patience to live in the middle of questions,

Courage to let go of old answers,

Trust in life to be open to new experiences,

And trust in one another so we may be good partners in the life we share.

Amen.

Benediction:

 May we live each day

Being open to new learning

That deepens our appreciation of our own lives, the lives of those we love, and the world in which we live.

Amen.

Copyright © 2000, James Kubal-Komoto. All rights reserved.