This Sunday we celebrate Rev. Peter’s final worship service with UUCDC. The congregation will release Rev. Peter from his call to serve us and he will offer a farewell message. Please read Peter’s message (including the Chalice Lighting words) below or watch the complete service here!

Chalice Lighting words:

For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Seasons come and seasons go. Change is inevitable. But through the upheaval of change there are certain constants, touchstones of stability, North Stars to guide us.

Like a dedicated and tremendously talented staff, whom you see before you today.

Like the chalice flame, which burns brightly here in the Sanctuary and in the spirits of all who call our faith “home.”

May this staff be blessed in the work that they do.

May this flame remind us of who we are, the values we cherish, the principles we pursue.

A Fond Farewell

For weeks now, as I’ve considered my farewell remarks, I’ve been tempted to get up here and say “Just love each other” and then to sit down. Because, what else is there to say? Then I thought that leaving you with those 4 words – “Just love each other” – was inadequate. So I turned to the words of the Rev. Forrest Church. He wrote: “Be who you are. Want what you have. Do what you can.” That was a good sermon series, wasn’t it? And those three phrases sum it up pretty well, don’t they? Let me say them again: “Be who you are. Want what you have. Do what you can.” So maybe when you combine that with “Just love each other,” I can sit down and be done with it. But there’s so much more I want to say in my last turn at this pulpit.

So then I turned to our UU hymnals. The titles of our hymns have a lot to say. My life flows on in endless song (108), so just as long as I have breath (6) may nothing evil cross this door (#1). Seek not afar for beauty (77), blessed spirit of my life (86) but Come, ye thankful people (68) and give us pleasure in the flowers today (64). I’ve got peace like a river (100) because there is more love somewhere (95). For all that is our life (128) love will guide us (131) and we’ll build a land (121), building bridges(1023) as we build a new way (1017), because everything’s possible (1019) when our heart is in a holy place (1008) and we are answering the call of love (1014). I could go on, but that all feels like a bit much, doesn’t it?

There’s something of a rule in preaching that says your sermon should make three points – no more and no less. Three is a magic number, and I’d have to agree with that because I know when I go to the supermarket I can only remember up to three items. Give me more and I have to write them down. Three is magic number in the Christian faith, too, so there’s that. But we’re not trinitarians, we’re unitarians, so I don’t feel bound to the magic number. So, instead, I invite you today to be quadratarians, because I want to leave you with four thoughts:

The first is this: Do the hard thing. There are so many ways to avoid doing the hard thing. Short cuts and cutting corners. Life hacks. Procrastination, deflection, distraction, avoidance. Hard things don’t go away. They just get harder. To do the hard thing – whatever that might be – calls us to courage, to purpose, to clarity, to integrity. Don’t shy away from a challenge. Doing the hard thing is where we make a big difference. I know you all can do the hard thing because you’ve been doing a hard thing now for more than two years. Whatever it may be, whenever it might arise, Face the hard thing head on. Figure it out. Fix it. Together, I know that you can do the hard thing.

Number two: Feed the flame. Each week before our service, before most of you arrive here, I pour oil into our little lamp here, to make sure that our chalice stays lit for our hour together. As I do, I’m reminded that this flame doesn’t just burn by some miracle. It has to be fueled. It needs to be fed. Just as our faith needs to be fueled and fed. Every one of you has a gift that can feed the flame of our faith. Whatever it is, this church needs it. Our faith needs it. Keeping the flame fed, keeping it shining brightly for all the world is your personal responsibility. This church and our faith will thrive in the future only if each and every one of you takes ownership of the flame. This is your flame. Ask yourself how you can be the person who pours the oil so that the lamp will stay lit.

Here’s the tough one, especially these days, it seems: Hope like hell. Hope – that ephemeral, undefinable quality of the spirit – is our “secret sauce.” It’s our currency, our stock in trade. It’s the only thing holding us back from the abyss, the deep, dark hole of despair. I know that it’s hard to be hopeful in dark times like this. I feel it too. But we have a choice, and that choice is offered to us every morning when we roll out of bed and our feet hit the floor. We can choose dejection, or we can choose hope. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, may he rest in power, said that “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” I would take it one step further and say that it’s not just being able to see that there is light, but that we are the light, we can be the light of hope. “I’ll give you hope, when hope is hard to find.” That’s what our hymn says and that’s what we need to do for each other. Be the hope. Hope like hell.

And my last point, as you may have guessed, was my first point. Just love each other. Above all else, love each other. The kind of love I’m talking about is not, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “emotional bosh.” It’s a Love that’s strong and demanding. Love waters the arid field. Love feeds the hungry and lifts the oppressed. Love despises inequity and demands justice. Love also demands a lot of us. It draws us in, toward each other, with its powers of consolation and reconciliation. But love also calls us out. Out of our comfortable complacency. It demands that we move out into broader and broader circles, where love confronts forces of hate and destruction. Love transforms us and leads us to transform the world. When I say “Just love each other” I mean that you should love the others that are sitting here, right next to you. That you should build strong bonds of community with those close to you. But you cannot stop there. The “other” in that phrase “Just love each other” includes our neighbors, our friends, the wider community around us, even those who might despise us. This is no easy task, I know. But, as with hope, we must, at every turn, choose to love one another. As our hymn says, “let love be your legacy.”

Do the hard thing. Feed the flame. Hope like hell. Just love each other. That’s what it all comes down to for me. Together, we have done these four things, and I know, long after I’m gone, you will keep doing them. It has been the greatest pleasure and most profound honor to be your minister these many years. You have given me a precious gift that I will cherish forever. You have entrusted me with your heart’s longings and your deepest fears, and I hope I have held them well. Like the names inscribed on this stole, I will carry you with me wherever I go. I thank you. I love you.

This day, and every day, I wish you peace. Amen.