"By What Authority?"

In matters of religion, the issue of authority is foundational; basic. By what authority, one rightly asks, can I stand here week after week allegedly celebrating Unitarian Universalist values, urging of others their best, making moral claims, holding up something and asking, out loud, if this is worthy of our love? This morning I’m asking that question—by what authority?—and I’ll try to answer it. I choose today because next Sunday and the week following you’ll be engaged in an ancient and sacred practice—a spiritual practice, actually, in our movement— culminating in the decision to call a minister. So it’s worth thinking about…By what authority?

In the Gospel of Mark—the oldest and closest-to-the-source of the New Testament accounts—we read that shortly after his baptism Jesus “went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who has authority, and not as the scribes.”[1:21-22]

In the ancient Near East the word “authority” meant “official power.” To speak with authority was to speak by virtue of the property one owned or one’s office. For an unofficial rabbi to speak with that kind of power was remarkable…and compelling.

Those of us in the business of delivering sermons are sensitive to this question of authority—it’s necessary for finding one’s voice. And re-finding it on a regular basis.

My intern supervisor back at the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco in the mid-‘70s was David Rankin. In our tutorial, he outlined five sources of the minister’s public authority.

First: the academic authority conveyed by education.

- In the protestant Reformation, reformers rejected the brocade robes of Catholicism for simple black academic gowns—the Geneva Robe.
- Unitarian Universalism embraces what’s called “the learned ministry.” You can’t go to Bible College for a year and become licensed. You need a four year college degree and a three year seminary degree. Studies include the New Testament, ethics, theology, the Jewish scriptures, church history and much more.
- For most, this is a serious financial expenditure.

Second, there’s denominational authority conveyed by acknowledged fellowship with other Unitarian Universalist ministers. Having a seminary education is only one of many requirements before one can be fellowshipped. Fellowship is in addition to earning a seminary degree, pursued simultaneously and requiring that you

- Be active in a Unitarian Universalist congregation;
- Read about 100 books on Unitarian Universalism (including one written by my dear colleague Mark Morrison-Reed who will be leading a wonderful presentation this Wednesday here in our sanctuary);
- Intern for a year at one of our congregations;
- Take a semester of Clinical Pastoral Education—a chaplain internship—at a hospital, mental hospital, or prison.
- Submit psychological test results, numerous essays, transcripts, and internship evaluations to two committees, interview with them and get their imprimatur.

Dave Rankin also refers to the authority of tradition conveyed in many ways by the pulpit itself and its place in the ongoing worship life of the church. This is partly what I talked about with the children.

- That the minister is invited to sit on the chancel—a few steps up—and regularly address the membership conveys authority;
- That she is traditionally given complete control over the design and leadership of Sunday services—the central activity of congregational life—carries authority.
- The minister, as I mentioned to the children, gets to play with all the bells and candles—we’re ritual masters, and there’s some arcane authority in that as well.
- The flaming chalice, banners celebrating the world’s religions, a magnificent piano, lovely organ, masterful pianist and great choir: these things, too, constitute tradition. They add resonance. And resonance confers authority, too.

Then there’s the authority of the community conveyed in the rite of ordination and in the call and installation of the minister by a congregation. This is close to the heart of it: being “called.” I read the statistics regarding the Wars of Religion because I wanted you all to stop and think about what you’re about to do two weeks form today, voting whether or not to call the Reverend Rebecca Bijur. In our day and age it’s easy to forget: thousands upon thousands of people died in defense of this right to choose our own religious leaders.

- King James Version – 1611
- ¼ of England’s 2 million households owned a Bible—the most influential indictment of Pharisees, courtiers, and tyrants ever printed.
- Reading the Bible was very popular; the readers were amazed at how much was in there that the Anglican bishops—all appointed by the Crown—never talked about.
- Meanwhile, while the English and Scotts and Irish were all killing each other, thousands were leaving the British Isles and setting up non-conforming, separatist, Puritan congregations in New England. Many of those churches are Unitarian today.

The authority conveyed in ordination is hard, probably, for someone who hasn’t worked for it to understand, especially for someone like me—or like Rebecca Bijur, another history major—who is aware how hard-fought the right to choose our own religious leaders has been. I heard one of our church members here in Santa Monica mumble something about what’s the point of voting on May 9 since the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Well, there was a time when it was anything but.

A fifth source of the minister’s public authority is the authority of his or her personal faith as exemplified in their sense of vocation. This, of course, is the hardest to get a feel for over the course of eight or nine days. Especially hard because it takes time for most of us in the ministry to find our voice, which sharing our faith requires. The Universalist poet and patron saint of the Beats Charles Olson writes about finding “the middle voice”: an experience akin, I think, to what athletes describe as being “in the zone” when they feel totally on and connected to Source such that they can barely do anything wrong. “To find the middle voice,” writes Olson “is to be in business.”

- The business of telling the truth;
- of being thoroughly honest;
- more real than role;
- a vessel, almost, that the Self, the Atman that is Brahman, the still small voice may come through.

I’ve listed five sources of ministerial authority as though each was neatly differentiated from the rest, but actually they’re all connected. Inner authority—the middle voice—has to be confirmed by responses out in the community; you’ve got to have confirmation. If people don’t agree to give you a chance at finding your voice and then support you through the sometimes bumpy efforts all ministers make to find and nurture it, hearing one’s still small voice becomes all the harder and finding inner authority less and less secure. Every minister is different, of course, but I attended UU ministers’ meetings only after I was ordained—somehow the “outer” confirmation made it all much more real and gave me the chutzpa necessary to keep plumbing the depths and risking to say out loud what I knew in my heart of hearts was true.

Over the decades this congregation has established a wonderful tradition of nurturing young ministers like Reverend Bijur and enabling them to find their voice. Ernie Pipes and Judith Meyer both responded very creatively to this gesture, and I suspect Reverend Bijur will, too, if given the chance. In the final analysis, a call to take up the ministry in a congregation is a call to enter into a very intimate dialogue with a community,

- reflecting back their loves and fears, their dreams and illusions;
- loving them as individuals as best you can; and
- modeling what it means to be a person of hope, good will, and thoughtful inquiry—and do this all while being yourself.

It’s always helped me to have a spiritual practice—something to keep me aware and in touch with the larger cycles and rhythms of nature, in touch on a regular basis with the soul.
In the days of the Early Church, the first ministers were chosen from among the church’s members. But these early churches were, for the most part, ecstatic congregations. The Protestant Reformers of the 17th century tried to recreate the zeal and sense of community they believed animated the Early Church, but things were more formalized; those who felt a knack for ministry first pursued an education & then sought a call. As Reverend Paul Sawyer reminded us last week, one is wise throughout all this to keep sourcing the Spirit. Otherwise you get clobbered emotionally; you dry up. And some ministers some get clobbered anyway. Everybody, in fact, gets clobbered at some stops along the way, but you stay stick with it in spite of all that. That’s what it means to feel “called.”

I heard our Wednesday night speaker, Mark Morrison-Reed, at the district Minister’s meeting day before yesterday. What clobbered him was the years of repressed, unexpressed grief that comes with the ministry: people you love moving away, people you love dying, having to move from town to town and saying yet another good-bye: it all added up until Mark finally left the ministry overwhelmed with sadness. A lot of self-care (sourcing the Spirit) and he came back into his strength, but it was hard.

Parish ministry is hard. I recall being newly ordained at age 29; one of the things that clobbered me in those days was how, despite my eagerness, no one took me all that seriously. Some did: Lillian Moorhead, Grace Brick, David Lyon; and I’ll be forever grateful for their kindness in treating me as a minister by asking me to address with them their pastoral concerns. Gray hair or not (for years I wished I had some), I was their minister and they reached out to me in just that way. Recently I re-read the first four sermons I gave back in 1976. And I was more impressed than I thought I was going to be; those sermons weren’t that bad. Too long, maybe; too left-lobed, but pretty good. Probably not all that unlike Ernie Pipes’s at the same age. Or Judith Meyer’s.

Try keeping all this in mind when you consider your vote to call a minister two weeks from today. Ask yourself: does this Candidate have the capacity to grow into the job? Do I think we can grow together? Vote your conscience—what you really feel, affirming the Unitarian value of freedom of conscience—but add some Universalism to your calculus by voting your hope, too. For these, ultimately, constitute the authority out of which we ministers speak and about which our movement is centered: our consciences and our hope. So may it be. Amen. Namaste.