by Cecilia Kingman Miller, Director of Stewardship

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~Ranier Maria Rilke

The first time I saw the photos that Cathy showed you, from the fire in 1965, was the day I accepted the invitation to join your staff as the Director of Stewardship.  They were in Nancy Olson’s (our church administrator’s) office and she showed them to me on her bookcase.  When I saw them, I have to tell you, they made me feel sick.  A church fire is a terrible, terrible thing.  And when I saw the scene, I thought to myself: You know, sometimes this faith of ours is a demanding thing that requires us to live large in the world.  Sometimes it asks of us every ounce of courage and faithfulness we have.

In 1965, after the devastating fire, this congregation asked and answered the question: What does it mean to be faithful?  In a time of urban decay and turmoil, faced with the choice of whether to sell the property and move to the suburbs, or to stay in the urban core, this church felt the call of our history and voted to remain downtown, and to continue to play a part in the social concerns of this city.   

The revered minister of that time, Dr. Steiner, was asked if it was difficult to consider rebuilding, and Steiner’s response was, “You don’t know me, if you think a little thing like a fire is going to stop me!”  That is the spirit of this church. 

The theologian Frederick Buechner writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.”  This intersection is where we find our vocation.  Our gifts match up with the needs of the world, and there is where we find our life’s work.

The people here in 1965, some of you still here today, stepped into that intersection of our faith and the world’s needs, rebuilt the church, and in so doing provided for the future in which we now dwell.  That decision was also faithful to the history of this church.

Here is a snippet of that history, from the time of our first minister, Thomas Lamb Eliot.  In 1867, Eliot was called to this church with his young wife Henrietta.  They left home in St. Louis and traveled with their infant son by ship via the Isthmus of Panama to California and then up the long coast to arrive here in Portland. 

There was an acute need for a liberal Christian presence on the West Coast, and the small congregation here waited eagerly for their arrival.  Eliot had impressed many in his youthful career, and his unflagging commitment and his willingness to serve to the greatest of his abilities made him the right man for this frontier church.  Many hopes were pinned on this young couple.

Indeed, when the family made their stopover in San Francisco to change ships, both of the Eliots made a pronounced impression upon Horatio Stebbins, the minister of the Unitarian Church there. Years later, Stebbins said: “I felt that never did a ship carry more precious freight.  The future of the church was assured.  Such firmness of purpose, such quiet silent fortitude, such clear vision of truth and duty, were a pledge of the truest success.”

It was early morning on Christmas Eve when the Eliots landed here in our port, and it was—no surprise—raining hard.   Imagine the town they saw as they drove to their new home on Fourth Street.  First settled only twenty years before, the entirety of Portland lay between the west bank of the Willamette and what is now Broadway.  There were only 7,000 inhabitants, but a hundred saloons.  The only means of communication with the outside world was by stage or steamer to San Francisco.  

This was a raw frontier town, with all the troubles attached.  Gambling, drunkenness, violence.  There was much corruption, and few voices of restraint or mercy.  The small church was one of seven in the town, and by far the most progressive. 

The congregation of thirty-one members and fifty children had built a chapel on the corner of what is now Yamhill and Broadway.  The Governor’s residence was the only other building on the block, and to attend “any evening meeting, it was necessary to pick one’s way with a lantern through the mud and over logs in order to reach the chapel.”

With the arrival of Eliot, the church grew quickly.  The story of his ministry makes one wonder when the man ever slept.  In the year of 1869 alone, he made nearly 1,000 pastoral visits, preached two sermons every Sunday as well as the children’s worship, and led services at the prisons and the hospital.  He did all this in spite of illness in his own family, nervous strain upon his eyes, a “pinching economy” from his inadequate salary, and no relief preaching from a colleague, as the closest Unitarian minister was Stebbins, in San Francisco. 

A slight and somewhat frail man, Eliot’s health suffered greatly under these demands, and yet, even with all these duties, the minister and his congregation turned their attention to the needs of this city.  Eliot’s faith called him to an abiding concern for social problems, and he considered himself to be the minister to all who had none.  He started numerous institutions through which social problems might be alleviated.  Eliot raised nearly single-handedly the $3,000 necessary to build the first orphanage.  He then served on the board for forty-five years, including eleven as President. 

Eliot helped found the Kindergarten Association, as well as libraries for the asylums and prisons.  He not only raised funds for these causes, he also gave generously of his own small salary.  He was aided in this by Henrietta’s own commitment to a modest lifestyle, as well as her legendary ability to run the household economy on a tight budget.  We might say she was an early model of the voluntary simplicity movement. 

The Eliots knew that through their own frugality, by setting aside some of their own material desires, they found a far greater satisfaction in living as generous people.  They found a greater joy in using their own resources to ease the suffering of others.

The congregation was also active in these civic endeavors.  Eliot and church members helped found of the Humane Society, Eliot serving as the first President; the Boys and Girls Aid Society, and many more.  They raised the funds for the first public drinking fountains, prior to Benson’s effort, as an attempt to stem the use of saloons as thirst-quenching agents.  They formed the Library Association, and were key figures in the formation of our unparalleled park system.  The minister and church were also frequent critics of the corruption and graft that plagued the city and state governments, calling for watchdog agencies.

It’s hard to say which is this church’s chief contribution, but Eliot’s greatest joy was the founding of Reed College.  The Reeds were early members of this church, and even sang in the choir and paid for the first organ.  Mr. Reed had made his money in trains and mining.  He and his wife were generous people, and gave freely to the work of the church and various philanthropies. 

The Reeds asked Eliot to call upon them for any need.  Eliot, for his part, “encouraged them […] to use their ample wealth ‘as stewards of the manifold grace of God.”  In October of 1887, after they had given him a birthday gift, he wrote to the Reeds in thanks and said he would like them to celebrate one of his birthdays at some point by founding a Reed Institute for lectures and art and music.  He ended by saying “It will take [one of your] mines to run it.”

This letter is the moment in which Reed College was born.  Eliot went on to serve many years as the college’s board president, as general trustee, and as chief cheerleader.  The Reeds gave generously to see the realization of this dream: a top-notch liberal college here in the Northwest.

The early members of this church gave their talents and their money because they knew that religion is not something you use once a week.  It must be lived in the world.  They believed, as James Luther Adams said a century later, that love for our fellow creatures must be made concrete if it is to have any worth.

Do not think, however, that these many good works were done easily.  The members of this church had their own desperate struggles with finances, including economic depressions and failures.  Added to these was the opposition, at times quite fierce, from the conservative Christian ministers in Portland, who called Unitarians “partial Christians.” 

Eliot was often snubbed by his ministerial colleagues and this wounded him deeply, though he rarely showed it.  He was not allowed to be a voting member of the newly formed YMCA, the Young Men’s Christian Association.  A special vote was called to approve his membership, but even though he was their lead fundraiser, it failed. 

After the vote, Eliot’s chief opponent approached him, reluctantly extended his hand and said, “Well, I’ll shake hands with the Christian half of you at least.”  Eliot, in a moment of rare wit, held out his own hand and said, “Allow me to reciprocate.”  (Oh, to be so quick on one’s feet!)

Yet, in spite of the disrespect and even defamation of colleagues, Eliot and this church were held in deep regard for the service they showed the community. 

One Unitarian colleague, after visiting Eliot, sent word back east reporting upon the church here.  He wrote that this church was almost the ideal of a Unitarian Christian church, with a “common stock of love and working force…”

He goes on: “And in the community at large, down even in the drinking saloons, and the hotel sitting-rooms, and among the deck-hands of the steamboats—for it is well sometimes to get into such places, and find out how things are looked at—people will rail at all other forms of religion as humbug, and at all other ministers and church-members as hypocrites and fools, [and then] say, ‘Oh, that little Eliot and his [congregation] they are different; if all were like him, religion would mean something.’”

My friends, this is the foundation upon which we stand.  This is the history to which Dr. Steiner and members of this congregation committed themselves after the fire.  Our religion must mean something in the world! The gift of our faith meets the world’s deep need and there is where we find our vocation as a congregation.  We are called to be faithful to our history, and live up to the tasks of our own time. 

Portland may no longer be a frontier town, and yet we have our own ills to address.  The causes of government corruption and prison reform remain, as do the plight of hungry and neglected children.  Unemployment threatens our own members.  The good Rev. Eliot had drunkenness, we have meth labs.  And teenagers—children—sleep on our own doors each night. 

What does it mean to be faithful Unitarian Universalists in our time?  Where is God calling us?  We need look no further than our own history and our own streets to see the answer.

It is a curious thing to go away to seminary only to return home again.  I accepted the invitation to serve you at this time because I believe in the mission of this church.  My vocation is located in the question of stewardship—how we as religious people use our resources, and most particularly our money, to serve the world.  I am passionate about the practice of generosity as a spiritual practice, for I know personally what a life-giving experience it is to be generous.  

I also know that our values cannot live unless we give them form that will outlast us.  James Luther Adams, our own Unitarian Universalist theologian, was right when he said that goodness must be institutionalized if it is to have any affect upon the world.  And the only way to build those institutions is to give our resources—time, energy and money.

At a time when the world seems overrun with hatred and with bad public policy, this church is a voice of sanity and mercy.   We have a particular calling in our city and our denomination. 

As most of you know, in the next few years we will enter the second stage of our building campaign, in which we will construct a community and religious education center from which we will serve our children and our city.  The name of this building?  The Eliot Center, named for our own indefatigable Thomas Lamb Eliot. 

You’ll be hearing more about this project in the next few months.  As we enter this phase, we will be inviting you to join in a process of reflection and spiritual growth.  Like our forbears, we will consider ourselves as stewards.  Together we will ask what it means to be generous and courageous people, and how we can live out our faith in spite of our fears and insecurities.   

My friends, at times like these, the world needs the qualities that Eliot embodied.  But this time, it is our turn.  The world needs our fortitude, our vision, and our firmness of purpose.  Remember what the poet said: We must make big shadows, embody that spirit of love and mercy.  In spite of all that might leap out at us or stand in our way.  We are called to live our love for the world in the most concrete ways, to make manifest the love of God among all people. 

Yet take heart, for we are called to this task not alone, but together.  Look around you, at this gathered assembly.  Look how many of us there are, ready to take our place in the history of this church, this city and this faith.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

May it be so, my friends. Amen.

PRAYER

Holy one, God who is beyond all names, we come before you with hearts often weary with our own concerns and those of the world around us.  We see the lost and the suffering on our city streets, and we long to offer some balm.  We see the tragedy of war and the evils of greed, and we long to offer peace and generosity. 

Help us to see our place in the work of justice and kindness.  Help us to be a force of love in this world.  We ask for courage and fortitude, for strength of vision and clarity of purpose.  And we give thanks this day for the faces of voices of our companions, gathered around us here.  We know that our numbers will be our strength, and our sustenance.

For this church, for this day, and for all things we give thanks. Amen.

Note: The historical references to Eliot and the early church are taken from Earl Morse Wilbur’s biography of TLE, available in the church’s library.

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Copyright 2004, Cecilia Kingman Miller.  All rights reserved.