THE CARE AND FEEDING OF A NEW MINISTER – Tony Filipovitch

Reading:  Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince.  Selections from Ch. XXI

Intro

• Reminded of the story told about Ben Franklin, leaving Independence Hall in Philadelphia just after the Convention adopted the new Constitution. A bystander asked, “What did you give us?”  “A democracy,” Franklin growled, “if you can keep it.”  I am here to speak on behalf of the Search Committee—Jane Schostag, Penny Herickhoff, Ted Downey, MaryAnn Nelson, and John Knox—to tell you that we are bringing you a settled, full-time minister—if we can keep her.
• The Process: Find the minister candidate who best meets our needs.  When the Board put it to the congregation last Fall, that was the proposition, with the caveat that we would most likely have to increase our resources to keep the minister we have called (as they say up North, “If you catch it, you have to clean it!”)  As a committee, we did not presume a bottomless purse—we passed on several candidates whose compensation package would have been beyond anything we could reasonably expect to raise.  But within that parameter, our focus was on who would be the best partner for us as we grow still further in nourishing our spirits, broadening our minds, nurturing the earth, and building our community.
• Discovery & Discernment:
  • In the eyes of the candidates, we are a pretty attractive place—our finances are in order, we have very little debt (only $100k in a long-term mortgage), our staffing is good for our size (and our staff are excellent!), our building has space for growth while not feeling vacant, our sanctuary and other spaces are attractive, our policies and governance are well organized, our committees are active and we are making real impacts both within the congregation and in the community.  And these were their words, not ours!
  • We come across as a warm and welcoming community, transparent in our dealings and with (relatively) little drama. We enjoy each other’s company and like to laugh together.  They liked what they read, and when then met us they found we lived up to our hype.
  • I also realized we are not as well connected to the other UUs in the region as we might want to be. In addition to Hanska in our area, there is Rochester, Northfield, Bloomington, Wayzata, Burnsville, Minneapolis, Paul, Arden Hills, Fridley, and Willmar.  We learned a lot about ourselves by seeing how it was done elsewhere.  And there are opportunities for mutual support, shared activities, and perhaps even some mutual pulpit-swapping.  Having a settled minister may help us become better networked.
  • I even discovered some… curious… broken or missing links in our own backyard. In preparing to review application files, I realized that should we have any African-American applicants, I did not know if there were any African-American ministers or priests in our region, or even which churches here have many African-American members.  I had known about the Mankato Islamic Center and Abdie Sabrie’s relation to it, but not the name of their imam—nor the fact that we have two other mosques (well, one mosque and a regular meeting place at MSU).
  • Almost every candidate’s file talked about “spiritual direction”—not as a noun, but as verb—directing the spirit. We do not use that term very much here.  I am familiar with the term—when I was in the Seminary I had a spiritual director and we met weekly.  Being Catholic at the time, it was mostly to discuss my sins, which really doesn’t work in a Universalist context.  And many of these files were written by ministers who identified themselves as atheists!  Even if the minister were not personally an atheist, they all acknowledged that they would be ministering to congregants who are.  That got me thinking.  What is “spiritual directing”—“pointing straight to the breath”—for a humanist or an atheist?  What would that look like for a congregation like ours?
• So… It’s already been a long journey.  It has been almost nine months since we decided together that we were ready, that we had been promising ourselves long enough that some day, some future, distant day, we would get a full-time minister.  The Search Committee has worked hard to find the best possible minister, and now you are about to meet the pick of the litter.  There will still be one more step—you still have to agree that, yes, this is The One (as everyone called Neo in The Matrix), and after she has met almost all of you she will have one last chance to decide whether we are as good as our hype.  And by the way, it would help if a super-majority of us showed up for the Congregational Meeting on April 29 to vote to call her as our minister—a show of excitement and confidence from us would make her more confident in her decision.  But, after we hold our Congregational Meeting and vote to call her as our minister (“IF” we vote…), and she agrees to accept our call (“IF” she agrees), we are not done.  As they say up North, our work is just beginning—we have to care for and feed our new minister.  I’ve done some prowling on the Web, and the advice on these things seems to fall into three categories—“The Stranger,” “The Partner,” and “The Laborer.”

The Stranger

• In Deuteronomy 10:19 (for you cradle UUs out there, that is a book in the Hebrew Bible) it is written: “Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The same advice is repeated, in Exodus 22:21 and 23:9 and in Leviticus 19:34.  Yahweh really meant them to hear it. This is an ancient and widespread custom.  Many times in The Odyssey, shipwrecked Odysseus drags himself to the door of some local king who welcomes him into his villa, has the servants bathe and clothe him, throws a banquet in his honor, and then tells him, “Rest, stranger, and find some peace.  Tomorrow you can tell me your story.”  The Dakota people, who used to live here, often began their celebrations with the prayer, Mitakuye oyasin –“Oh, my friends and relations!” And we sing a version of the African-American spiritual, “Sit at the Welcome Table,” expressing both our hope for ourselves and a reminder that not everyone was always welcome at that table.
• But of course we will welcome our new minister! Don’t we repeat every Sunday that we are a “welcoming people”?  And haven’t we been waiting a long, long time for just this event?  Well, yes, of course we will, in our way.  But we are also Out-State Minnesotans.  Have you ever noticed—maybe even at coffee down in the Fellowship Hall—how a group will form in a loose circle, shoulder to shoulder?  A newcomer is “welcome” to find a chink in the circle, shove into the group, and pick up the thread of conversation wherever it is at.  I’ve lived here 40 years now, more than half my life—I might shove my way in, and each person might even nod at me as they keep talking—but it took a long time for me to learn to screw up my courage to do that.  There are welcomes, and then there are WELCOMEs!  As Tancredi says in Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
• So, how can we offer her a banquet and some rest before we ask her story? What can we do to open our circle before she has to muscle her way in?
  • Introductions—Wear your nametags. And even then, introduce yourself—often!  Even if she’s a giant at memorization, she’s going to be meeting a lot of us in a very short time, and then lots of other people to boot.  Don’t make her ask, tell her your name.  If she’s anything like me, it’ll take months to get it all right.
  • House hunting—She’s going to need a place to live, and affordable housing can be tight in this town. Many places are rented or sold by word of mouth before they even make it to the open market.  Keep your ears open, feed her opportunities (but don’t be pushy about it).
  • Moving in—She’s going to need help unloading, and probably some picnic lunches for a few days would be welcome! Introduce her to “hotdish” (if she’s going to live here, she’s got to learn sometime….)
  • Settling in—If you are a member of a civic club or other organization, invite her along and introduce her around. Invite her to your favorite coffee house or show her some of our unique little shops.  Or….
  • Finding her way—If you share similarities with her—age, stage in family life cycle, life experiences, etc.—invite her for a quiet dinner. Take the initiative, but also give her some space.  Even if her dance card is full at the moment, she will appreciate that you made the offer and at least a connection has been made.

The Partner

• In The Little Prince (a secular sacred text, for some of us), the fox says “One only understands the things that one tames.” Later the Prince reflects on his time with the fox: “He was only a fox like a hundred other foxes.  But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”  He goes on, “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”  This lesson, too, is repeated in the story of the rose.  “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”  We are entering into a partnership, one in which an ordinary congregation and an ordinary minister, much like a hundred other congregations and ministers, will tame each other and be responsible, forever, to each other.  In the process, we will come to see in each other what was not apparent—what is invisible, as the Little Prince calls it—and that is what is really important.
• Of course, there are good times coming. There is an excitement and a pleasure (along with some trepidation and maybe even terror) in bringing new people into one’s life.  And we are going to do great things together!  I feel it in my bones, and so do you. A bit like new parents, we have wanted this and waited for this for so long, and now she is here!  We see the reflection of so many dreams and possibilities in each other’s faces.  As the song says, “Let it be a dance we do.”
• When Kathy & I were engaged to be married, some friends from the parish invited us over for dinner. He took me outside for a walk in the backyard, Kathy stayed inside with his wife.  It was a small yard, so it was a short walk, but in that little time he told me, “Tony, always remember that it is the fire that tempers iron and turns it into steel.  Never walk away from a fight in your marriage.”  One of the best pieces of advice anyone ever gave me—and not just for marriages.  In any close partnership, we will fight over little things—like which way the toilet paper roll goes on the hanger.  And we will fall short of each other’s expectations.  That is why we remind ourselves, every time we repeat our covenant to each other, that “we will forgive ourselves, each other and begin again in love.”
• Did you know that the English word “sin” is used as the translation for Hebrew and Greek words which mean “falling short of the mark”—no guilt there, just not meeting expectations. Even the Little Prince became annoyed with his rose.  But he forgave her, and they both grew from it.  It is through our differences and shortcomings—and forgiveness and beginning again—that we grow more deeply connected.  To continue to draw parallels with marriage, when we fall in love first we explore what we share in common; and then we get to the really interesting work of growing into our differences.  We get to love beyond our first impressions.  As the Little Prince reminds us, it is what is not at first visible that is important.
• So, our new minister is likely not going to meet all of each of our expectations. No one can.  And we are not going to always live up to hers.  No one can.  But as we grow together in partnership, as we care for each other and hold each other close, those shortcomings are not betrayals or sins, or fatal flaws; they are opportunities for us to grow into the space between us, to go somewhere we would never have gone alone, opportunities for us to forgive ourselves and each other (for, as my Dad used to remind me, “no coin has only one side”), and to begin again in love and trust each other other’s commitment to this Fellowship.

The Laborer

• In the Gospel of St. Luke 10:7, Jesus tells his disciples “And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they have; for the laborer is worthy of his hire.” Matthew 10:10 has a similar version, and St. Paul puts it a little differently in his letter to the Romans 4:4, “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.”  Not only are the laborers worthy of their wages, we are obliged to pay them.  By the way, this goes back to the Hebrews again—“You shall not muzzle the ox when it thrashes out the grain” (Deuteronomy 25:4). The ox gets to eat! I always liked that image—they had such an earthy way of putting things.
• So… We have called her by name. And now, as we tame each other, we are creating a mutual responsibility to each other—and one of those responsibilities is to provide the wages she is earning.  Yes, I’m talking about money.  Don’t you find it curious that money is the last taboo?  We Americans would rather talk about our sex lives than talk about money. (Don’t believe me?  Turn on daytime TV.)  It is no secret that we are challenging ourselves with this hire.  We have built a budget reserve that will buy us some time, but in the next 5 years or so we will have to increase our operating revenues by about a third, roughly $50,000.  I am not asking any of you to increase your pledges by that amount, at least not right now.  First, I’m not the Stewardship Committee; second, we don’t need to come up with all the money right away; and, third, this is a congregational responsibility, not an individual one.  Which doesn’t get any of you off the hook—we are all in this together, and we are all responsible for what we have tamed.
• Now that I’ve raised the temperature in this sanctuary, let me cool things down a bit. We can do this, in any one of many ways—and we will need each other’s support (and the Stewardship Committee particularly will need each of your support) as we work through the possibilities:
  • Over the last few years, our operating pledges have grown at about 5% annually. A 7-8% annual growth rate will get us to where we need to be in 5 years.
    • That growth could come if each of those who are already pledging increase their pledge by 7% each year.
    • Our average pledge is about $2150/year. Four new pledges each year would keep us on track.
    • Roughly two-thirds of our members pledge. If half of that remaining third could increase their pledge from 0 to an average of $500/year ($10/week), that would keep us on track.
  • And there are other strategies that we could pursue to supplement our income from operating pledges:
    • We could pursue grant funding for some of our projects, especially the social action projects.
    • We could pursue another capital campaign to retire our remaining mortgage debt, which would free up almost $12,000/year for operations.
    • Not that I, personally, would want to see this, but we could initiate some sort of sliding fee for the Children’s Faith Development classes, to offset some of the costs of a CFD Director.
  • The point is, there are many ways to set our Welcome Table, and while our potlucks have been remarkably nutritious and satisfying to this point, we need to do some menu planning this time.
  • And another point—calling a minister, building this Beloved Community, is not a market transaction, it is a celebration of faith. Don’t think of your pledge only as “What do I get out of this deal?”  Think of it as “What does it mean to me and to Mankato that liberal religious beliefs have a home here?”  We are not just investing in ourselves; like John & Jane Foster 75 years ago, we are building something for our children and our children’s children and our neighbors’ children to the seventh generation.
  • Finally, we don’t just support our minister with money. Whether you can pledge or not, now is a good time to think about which gifts you can bring to help her succeed in her ministry.  All of us lead busy, full lives.  She does, too.  The less she has to “do everything around here,” the more psychic space she’ll have to do what we really need her to do for us.  So, yes, volunteer to serve on a committee or special action group—please, do!  Many hands make work light.  And don’t forget to volunteer for those many little tasks that keep things running—serving as Greeter on Sunday, taking care of coffee and treats once in a while, helping Building & Grounds with Spring and Fall clean-up and occasional maintenance, volunteering to teach in the CFD program….  I could go on, and I’d probably still forget a half dozen things that need doing.  What are you good at, what do you enjoy doing?  Talk to a Board Member or one of our staff—we’ll help you find a way to put your talents to use.

Closing

• I’ve said enough. Remember, welcome the stranger, embrace our partner, and care for the laborer.
• But I want to close by reminding you of something that Curt Schulz said from this pulpit last month. Like an Olympic skier, don’t overcontrol (or overthink or over-worry).  Go with the flow.  Have some fun with your life.
• Or, as Rick put it at the end of Casablanca, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em4baAqGLBs&t=1286s