by Bruce Davis, Summer Minister

A sermon given August 29, 2004

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

The work of those who labor has been rewarded: They have sown and reaped, planted and gathered.

How rich and beautiful is the bounty gathered: The golden grain and clustered corn, the grapes of purple and green,

The crimson apples and yellow pears, and all the colors of orchard and garden, vineyard and field.

Season follows after season, after winter the spring, after summer the harvest-laden autumn.

From bud to blossom, from flower to fruit, from seed to bud again, the beauty of earth unfolds.

From the harvest of the soil we are given occasion to garner a harvest of the heart and mind:

A harvest of resolve to be careful stewards of all life’s gifts and opportunities.

A harvest of reverence for the wondrous power and life at work in things that grow, and in the soul.

A harvest of gratitude for every good which we enjoy, and of fellowship for all who are sustained by earth’s beauty.

Readings:  by Jane Hirshfield

1.         “Spell to Be Said upon Departure”

What was come here to do

having finished,

shelves of the water lie flat.

Copper the leaves of the doorsill,

yellow and falling.

Scarlet the bird that is singing.

Vanished the labor, here walls are.

Completed the asking.

Loosing the birds there is water.

Having eaten the pears.

Having eaten

the black figs, the white figs. Eaten the apples.

Table be strewn.

Table be strewn with stems,

Table with peelings of grapefruit and pleasure.

Table be strewn with pleasure,

what was here to be done having finished.

2.         “Three Times My Life Has Opened”

Three times my life has opened.

Once, into darkness and rain.

Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts

to remember each time it enters the act of love.

Once, to the fire that holds all.

These three were not different.

You will recognize what I am saying or you will not.

But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves

like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks.

Neither are we different in what we know.

There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light

stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor,

or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.

Sermon:

Saying goodbye to you this morning is sweet sorrow for me. When we find relationships that matter in our lives, connections that make our lives worth living, whether with a dear life-partner, or with a best friend, or with a beloved community, saying goodbye pulls at the heartstrings. In the same instant we feel the joy of togetherness and the sorrow of separation. Sweetness and sorrow merge into one deep, rich, poignant moment.

I’ve had a lot of practice saying hello and goodbye in this commuting year between the Rose City and my home in Seattle. My partner, Mary, and I would spend a couple of delightful days together, re-connecting after a week away. Such joy I felt each time we came back together! Such peace I felt when we would talk, or walk, or just meditate together! When it was time to say goodbye, again and again through the year, I could feel the longing to stay. But even as I drove down I-5, feeling the heartstrings stretching like rubber bands, I could also feel that a gift of her person, always new, always renewing, was coming with me. I still sensed the touch of her hand in mine. I still felt the brightness of her spirit with me, as if she sat invisible in the passenger seat.

It’s like Jane Hirschfield says in her poem this morning:

“There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light

stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor,

or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.”

Whenever we really get in touch with another person, or a beloved community of persons, some bit of light, some bright color, is exchanged forever.

The sweetness of goodbye comes in the gifts given and received in the loving connection. Flavoring the sweet-and-sour of goodbye is gratitude, as we notice patches of light and red maple leaves that are with us now, that weren’t there before. If our togetherness has been deep, we are forever changed by the abundant gifts that have passed between us. In memory, at least, part of us never says “goodbye” completely.

So my “goodbye” to you this morning is mixed with thank you. Yes, I will be sad not to continue to grow my relationship with you, each and all. Part of me would be just as happy to continue my work with you, if we could find a way of getting Seattle and Portland a lot closer together. I can imagine, in some future congregational life, hopefully as minister of a UU church somewhere, I will allow myself to pine after you for a moment: “I sure wish this church was more like my folks at First Unitarian.” 

Here at the end of summer, gardens and fruit trees are filled with an abundant harvest. Now, as summer readies for its turn to fall, our lives are richly blessed by a natural affluence of good things. In my leave taking with you this morning, I want to acknowledge the rich harvest that I am taking from my year with you. I want to thank you for the gifts that you have given me during this short/long, big, beautiful, intense year as your intern and summer minister.

There are so many things to be thankful for. The many new relationships that have grown this year. The laughter we’ve shared. The learning that we’ve done together. In pastoral conversations, in classes, in workshops, in the Men’s Retreat and the Soul Retreat, in worship services, weddings, and memorial celebrations—there’s so much you’ve given me.

The essence of my gratitude is this. You’ve called me into the ministering. By your openness, your generosity, your trust in me, and your willingness to use me as your minister, that’s what I have become.

Many years back, Mary and I were visiting Byron, an elderly friend we knew in Honolulu. Late one evening he and I were sitting on his lanai, overlooking the ocean, having imbibed a few Vodka Collins. I was complaining about how overwhelming my life as a physician was.

“So many people need so much,” I lamented. “They need more technical knowledge than I can keep up with, and they want me to be there for them personally, as well. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming. Sometimes I just don’t have enough in me to give.”

Byron sat for a while without saying anything. I wondered what he was thinking and feeling as tears came to his eyes. He’d been a salesman all his life, trying to convince people that they needed his company’s products. His wife had died some years before. Finally he said, “You just don’t know how lucky you are. Being needed for who you are and what you do. That’s when life is at its very best.”

“Being needed for who I am and what I do.” That’s how you’ve treated me this year. That’s how you’ve called me into ministry. In seminary we talked about how to be a minister. In our fieldwork in congregations we tried out our wings in the work. By the end of our seminary experience, we knew a lot about ministry. But we weren’t ministers. When I graduated from medical school, I knew a lot about the practice of medicine. But I wasn’t a doctor.

It’s been different this year. So consistently have you called me to the work, and depended in good faith on my ability to come through for you, that I now am in the work. In a way that the work is now part of me. It is work that I will be for the balance of my years. I recall the author Kahlil Gibran’s definition of work, that it is “love made visible.” In my ministry with you this year, I begin to understand what Gibran means.

Like this preaching stuff. I’d studied it, of course, but I really didn’t know what it was when I came here. I still have lots to learn, but I am learning. The sermon forms in a mysterious interaction between the words that arise from my heart and the words you receive and assimilate with your open heart. The sermon’s not in here (head) or even in here (heart) but somewhere out here in the interconnections that are happening between us. Becoming the minister I want to be depends on your part in this dance. Talking to an empty room is not ministry, however articulate and clever the words may be. Talking at people is not preaching, no matter how erudite the speaker.

And the pastoral care? You came to me for caring support, calling that quality out of me by your very presence. By your faith that I could be there for you. When you turned to me, I opened to Spirit, and we both came to new awareness. Imagine a pastoral conversation with only one person. Like one hand clapping. Doesn’t happen.

There are a few to whom I owe particular thanks. Without my intern committee, I might not have stayed afloat during the storms of learning and ministerial formation. What they added in the way of guidance and personal support was a critical ingredient in this outstanding year. If ever you are drawn to seek new ways of serving in this beloved community, consider this close working relationship with the ministerial intern.

Second, I thank Marilyn. She invited me to this experience and was right there at every step along the way. Marilyn’s one of those supervisors who doesn’t let you get away with less than you are capable of. Her challenges on behalf of my ministerial growth caused me to reach deeper inside of myself than I ever have and in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Her appreciation for contributions I have made during the year have been heart-felt.

Third, I thank my wife Mary for her patience and her support. If she had not been there as my partner, to help me up when I fell and to celebrate the small accomplishments day to day, I would not be here now. Her commitment to me, making possible my movement from medicine to ministry over the last several years, brings tears to my eyes.

Goodbye isn’t easy for any of us. Why can’t we just stay put? Why are our lives always marked by changes and transformations? When we say or hear the word “goodbye,” we have to remark on the impermanence of our lives and our loves.

Goodbye is mostly about tomorrow. I’ve said goodbye about a hundred times in the last couple of weeks, and you’re not rid of me yet. Goodbye is about a point of time out there in the future somewhere, and when we try to live in the future, we get anxious. Part of goodbye is the anxiety we feel in the transitions. In the last few nights I’ve had anxious dreams, like I’m not ready for the next step. I fear the unknown future because I can’t control it. I dreamt the other night that I was in medical school again. I’d forgotten to read the books and I’d skipped all my classes. It was the end of the quarter, and I wasn’t ready to go on.

I woke knowing that the anxiety is really about this big change I am living into again. The last step is complete. What’s the next step going to hold? Will I be ready? Will I be enough? Will there be a congregation who will call me to their ministry?

It’s taken years, but I’ve begun to learn how to deal with this anxiety I sometimes feel. It’s a spiritual practice really, because any time we try to live ahead of this present moment we can easily become afraid of the unknown. So, many times a day this week, I’ve made as if climbing back into my body, back into my skin, back into the Now. I feel the tightness in my chest and the rapid beating of my heart. I just feel it. For a few minutes. Returning to the Now, back from the future, I settle down.

During times of change I find that this practice shifts me back to a place of peace and simple self-acceptance. It is a place that is beyond both goodbyes and hellos. It is the place of knowing that spirit is always there, however dramatically the world around us is shifting.

Saying goodbye to each other this morning, as we said hello a year ago, let us remember that we share gifts of the heart that will go with us always. Let us notice that essence of life, that connection of heart, that endures in spite of the changes we encounter. Let us know, that having loved, we can never lose each other entirely.

And finally, it’s “farewell,” which means I pray that you and this beloved community thrive. And, it’s “adieu,” which means we will see each other again in the criss-crossing paths of destiny. And, it is “goodbye,” which means God be with you, and God keep you, and God bless you in all your days.

Spirit of Life and Love,

You are the Presence that endures

In spite of all the changes

That comprise our lives.

Dear holy one,

Help us to hold each other in times of transition

With the same loving tenderness

That you hold us in all our days.

And when we are far from those we love,

Help us to notice their light,

Mingled with thy Light,

That dwells with us always

Amen.

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Copyright 2004, Bruce Davis.  All rights reserved.