Three days after I got the keys to the church, I started to move into my office. I brought books that I’d had in my office as an intern, and they look a little…well…inadequate to the task. Sort of the way I’m feeling right now.
I park in the spot in the parking lot that says “Reserved for Minister.”
Oh My God, this is real. I mean like Real. REALLY REAL.
This isn’t seminary anymore. Ministry isn’t some far off, theoretical thing that happens in East Overshoe, with a congregant called Mabel who is a busy body, and also the glue that holds a church together.
This isn’t my two years of field education, and it’s not my one year internship.
It’s quiet now, on Sunday afternoon. I can hear the occasional car drive by on the country highway that runs along the front of the church, and that’s about all. It’s very peaceful here, and I appreciate it deeply.
I’ve been going through the drawers of “my” new desk, and I find the things left for me by the minister who preceded me. Pens, hand-sanitizer, random paper clips. But it’s the scissors that strike me the most.
They are silver. Solid silver metal, “kleen cut,” patent filed, and they look as though they’ve been well-used. There are scratches along the blades, and a little bit of rust where the two pieces come together. There is goo on the blades, and the very tip of one of them is broken off.
I wonder what Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes would make of a pair of scissors like this?
As for me, they are a symbol of ministry.
They were here before me. I’ll be sure they get to my successor in 18 months.
These scissors belong to a congregation, not to its minister. They are mine, temporarily, to use for the benefit of my work, the work of the congregation and to better the world. But, they are not mine to keep.
Sermon:
Our time together is drawing to a close.
Over the past several weeks, we have done a fair bit of saying good-bye to each other, and before I offer you my last sermon, I wanted to thank you for the adventure of being your minister.
On the cover of your order of service you can see an image, a photograph that I made. On the left there are many, many keys. On the right there is one key.
When I arrived in January 15, 2012, I was given the keys on the left, and today, I hand you back this one key. In some ways these keys represent my ministry with you.
We have spent a lot of time together getting this spiritual home in order. When I got here, there was this giant key ring, and some of the keys went to locks that were no longer on campus, and now, a person needs to carry only one key.
I wrote that piece about the scissors when I first arrived in Modesto. It seems like both so very long ago, and only yesterday. I have learned so much from you, and I hope that you have learned from me, too.
One of the things that I learned while I was here is that some of the best learning for me comes in response to people asking me questions. It doesn't always come from books, though I’ve read plenty of them, and will continue to do so. The greatest lessons come from human interaction, and they might be informed by the training and reading that a minister does, but for me, it’s the connection from one soul to another.
As I looked back over the sermons I’ve given here, I think there are two very strong themes. One is Unitarian Universalism has a deep, rich history of which we can be proud, and the other is that this congregation is full of loving and very human people.
And now we’ve come to this, my last chance to tell you something important.
I want to encourage you to focus on joy.
So much of our culture is focused on what we don’t have, what’s missing, how things used to be. Let’s not be those people.
For a long time, on my desk pad, I have a quote that I study on while I’m in the office. “Find the good and celebrate it.” It was written by a man who changed my life. Alex Haley’s Roots came on television when I was a 9 year-old boy. By then I was already interested in history and my parents allowed me to stay up passed my normal bedtime to watch it.
Roots of course traces the story of Haley’s ancestors from Africa through slavery in the United States and into Freedom after the Civil War. It’s a story of deep oppression. But in that story, also there were moments of joy. I remember them both.
Find the good and celebrate it, serves as shorthand for me. It reminds me that suffering exists, but also there is joy.
When I first arrived here, and found those scissors that Bill just told you about. When I found those scissors, I wasn’t sure what was in store for me as I served my first parish.
I was very much more nervous and worried than I was joyful, I can tell you.
And there have been times and moments here that I wish had gone differently. As I helped you move from one ministry to the next, there have been painful moments. When difficult decisions had to be made, sometimes feelings were hurt.
Including mine.
But that’s not what I’m taking with me.
Instead, I’m taking the joy I found here with me. The joy will live on well longer.
Sometimes joy gets a bad rap as being frivolous, that it’s not a very solid spiritual practice, but I’m going to tell that it isn’t true.
Keep joy in your heart as much as possible. Keep joy in your mind as much as possible.
We have friends here who believe in magic. Not just the David Copperfield kind, but in a force that flows through the universe. And one of the most amazing things about a place like our churches is that these folks can sing hymns right along side people who believe only in what they can experience through their own five senses.
For a moment, though, I’d like you to imagine that you do believe in magic.
Often, people create a talisman. An object they charge with an intention.
A key for example. There’s a talisman we all have.
When you reach for your key, and you put it in your door, you are charging that key with you emotions and your intention through your fingers, as you slip it into the lock and turn it.
A little key holds a lot of emotional energy. It could be an energy of exhaustion, or anticipation.
Either way, it looks like a perfectly ordinary thing, but it can be your talisman of joy.
Please close your eyes for a moment. I’m going to ask you to imagine that you’re pulling up to your home. It can be an apartment, or a house you’ve lived in for many years. In your mind, really look at your home. Notice, are there any flowers or bushes you can see? How many windows, and how many doors?
What heartbreak have you suffered there?
And what joys have been yours there?
Who or what is waiting in there that brings you happiness? Who relies on you, or who can you rely one? Are there pets, or books or favorite memories with which you can just sit and relax?
Please open your eyes.
Your house key has been witness to it all.
Part of the role of a talisman is to bring something to the person who carries it. Now I don’t how exactly this works. Perhaps it is magic, perhaps it is not.
If I charge a rock with some intention… if I focus on a question as I hold the rock in my hand, asking the rock to hold the energy of this question for me… I don’t know if the rock actually does anything, or if it’s the weight of the rock in my pocket that triggers my subconscious to look for that which I am asking. Either way, I don’t mind.
Our Muslim friends have a practice, a goal, of keeping Allah in their minds at all times. One of the aspects of their religious practice is that they are supposed to keep Allah in every thought. Imagine for a moment the kind of discipline that might require.
I’m not going to ask you do to the same, don’t worry.
But I am going to ask you to, every time you hold your house key, to think about joy.
Opportunities for joy surround us.
In the sudden whiff of almond blossoms. In an unexpected peel of child’s laughter. In a cool breeze in June.
When these things happen, I encourage to you stop what you’re doing, notice this gift, and embrace the joy of being alive for it.
These can be, and most often are, quiet, simple moments.
Just this spring I realized that if you take a leaf off of the orange tree and bend it, it smells like an orange.
If you make joy your focus, your life will be deeper, richer and happier.
I’m not saying that sorrow won’t come. That frustration won’t be in your life anymore, that there will always be enough time, money and love to go around.
When you lay down to sleep, spend just two minutes every night remembering the joys you had that day, even if they were small. You might even want to write them down, so that later you can re-read them and see just how abundant your life can be.
If you take on the spiritual practice of focusing on joy, your life will have a better balance.
Fill your life’s journey with as much joy as you can.
May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen.
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