When I began my ministry at the First Parish in Norwell on April 1, 1969 I never
dreamed I would still be preaching from this pulpit some 30 years later. At the time I was
32 years old and had been in the active ministry for only four and a half years. The
Norwell Pulpit Committee had narrowed the list down to two remaining possible candidates,
an older experienced minister, the Rev. Zoltan Nagy, a Hungarian American, from Stow,
Mass., and yours truly, the Rev. Richard Fewkes, a young and relatively inexperienced
minister from the First Unitarian Society in Middleboro.
After having heard each of us preach twice, once in a neutral pulpit and once in our home
pulpit, the Committee gambled and took a chance on the younger inexperienced minister, who
arrived in Norwell with his family, and stayed and stayed and stayed. As it turned out my
competitor for the Norwell pulpit, Zoltan Nagy, died unexpectedly about a year and a half
later, so the parish would have had to bear the grief of losing their recently called
minister (something they'd already been through about five years earlier with Charles
Engvall) and then begun the search process all over again. By calling the younger
candidate they spared themselves a great deal of frustration and anguish.
I think back to the time of my pre-candidating for the Norwell pulpit. I remember the day
well. I was preaching in Brockton and the Norwell Pulpit Committee was scheduled to come
and hear me. I had labored mightily on my sermon and so wanted to impress. It had a catchy
title, "Don't Be Silly, Sir Thomas", based on a scene from a film about Sir
Thomas More, which I applied to the problem of racism in America. Well, the service
started at 10:00 and there was no pulpit committee in the congregation. Maybe they were a
little late getting started. I went on to the readings and the prayer. Still no committee.
Then the sermon and the benediction. Still no committee.
Finally, they showed up at the coffee hour. They misunderstood the time of service. They
thought it started at 11:00. I was embarrassed. They were embarrassed. I thought, well,
I've blown it for sure. They think I mislead them. Then I suggested we adjourn into the
sanctuary and I would offer a prayer and give the sermon again just for the committee.
They were impressed that I would do this. And so we did just that. And here we are 30
years later. I am simply astonished that it has all come to pass. Where did the years go?
Tell me if you can.
My first Sunday service in 1969 was on Easter, April the 6th. I had two Christenings that
day, one before the service for Stephanie Clark, and one during the service for Jefferson
Detwiler. I had two other Christenings for parishioners' children that year, Jonathan Hall
and David Bailey. God knows how many I've had since. Or how many weddings and funerals.
They all flood the memory and remind me that the greatest privilege of the ministry is to
be able to share the heights and depths of life with people in those rites of passage that
mark our journeys from birth to marriage to death.
No doubt about it, they are the most important tasks of personal ministry that ministers
are called upon to perform--they touch lives, bind hearts and minds together, and create
bonds of affection and support that last a lifetime. This church has been important to my
family in some rites of passage of our own. Our daughter, Jennifer, was Dedicated here on
May 30, 1971, by then Student Minister, Terry Sweetser, and our Minister of Religious
Education, K.B. Inglee. Three of our four children were married here and I had the
pleasure of Christening our grandchildren on five different occasions.
One of my fondest memories in 1971 was bringing Jennifer, who was in her first year of
life, across the street to the Foggs, to be held by Helen Fogg's mother, Isabella Fogg,
who was in her 94th year of life. Mrs. Fogg's face lit up like a Christmas tree when she
saw baby Jennifer's face. It was, as the kids say, an awesome sight to behold--the
beginning and ending of life greeting one another in a human embrace of hello/goodbye
across the arch of a time. We see through a glass darkly and then face to face.
I was officially installed as minister here in May 1969. Professor James Luther Adams,
renowned Unitarian theologian from Harvard and Andover Newton, gave the installation
sermon on the topic "Fishers of Men" based on a text from the Gospel of Matthew
and a piece from the writings of Chaucher on "The Parson." The Minister Emeritus
of First Parish, the Rev. Alfred "Jimmy" Wilson, who was age 88 at the time,
came down from Sprucehead, Maine to participate in the service. He had just returned to
Maine from vacationing in Florida (drove the whole way) and then turned around and made
the trek back to Norwell. He was chipper and full of delight and greeted me warmly and won
everyone over with his humor and crisp British accent.
Jimmy was slated to give the Right Hand of Fellowship. He told me and the congregation
that he didn't drive all the way down from Sprucehead, Maine just to shake my hand. He had
a few things he wanted to say. He said that the church had had too many ministers since he
retired in 1947, (I was the sixth), and he didn't want to come back for any more
installations. I would do him a favor, he said, if I'd stay awhile. Well, Jimmy Wilson had
been minister in Norwell for 26 years! I didn't know what he had in mind when he suggested
I stay awhile. Jimmy, let me ask you, is 30 years long enough? I was the last minister of
the First Parish in Norwell to have the pleasure of Jimmy Wilson at his installation
service. The following September he died. We held a memorial service for him. Dana McLean
Greeley, President of the UUA, came down for the service and offered some moving words of
tribute. This was my most important memorial service that year and I have had many more
since.
There are, of course, those times when a minister must speak his conscience, and speak as
a prophet to the moral conditions of the times. I remember I once published a poem in the
Newsletter from a sermon I'd written protesting the Christmas bombing of Hanoi by
President Nixon. "And bombs fell/ And our hearts fell/ As the children cried/ From
the fires of hell." A few days later I received an angry letter from Persis Coons who
was offended that I'd criticize the President for his actions when I'd failed to also
protest the Viet Cong massacre of innocent civilians in the City of Hue earlier in the
war. I went to visit her and Quentin, told them that though we had different views I very
much respected their feelings and welcomed their comments. We became good friends after
that. Quentin had been the son of a Universalist minister and knew what a tight rope
ministers must sometimes walk when trying to be both pastor and prophet to the people he
serves.
Every ministry has its embarrassing moments. I remember when funeral director Spike
Wadsworth escorted a grieving family out of the front pew during the musical interlude of
a memorial service. He thought it was over and I had yet to offer the eulogy. I had to run
down the aisle to the back of the church to ask him to please bring the family back for
the rest of the service. Then there was the time I performed the marriage for Ray Hansen's
daughter, Jerry, and during the recitation of the vows I misread her name and called her
Mary or something else, and didn't even know I messed it up. Maybe that's why her marriage
didn't last. I married the wrong people.
Without question the most embarrassing moment in my ministry was when I discovered, just
before I was to preach, that my sermon on Geo. Orwell's "1984" had vanished from
the lectern. A minister's worst nightmare come to pass. I sent our Ministerial Intern,
Jose Ballester, back to the parsonage to see if I left it on my desk, while I ducked into
the office to see if it was there. By the time I found it under a pile of papers I had
left in the secretary's office the congregation had begun a Special Parish Meeting (which
was scheduled after the service) to act on a proposal for a Ministerial Sabbatical. The
meeting ran over to 11:30 and the kids were out of church school, so I never got to preach
it that morning. After much debate the parish voted to give the minister a three month
sabbatical in the spring of 1984. They probably figured I needed one after losing my
sermon. Next I might lose my mind.
I have had two additional sabbaticals since and have managed in the interim not to lose
anymore sermons. Except last summer when I arrived in Plymouth as the pulpit guest sans
sermon. My dear wife came to the rescue and drove all the way back to Norwell, grabbed my
sermon off the desk, returned to Plymouth, dashed up the aisle, just as we were singing
the last verse of the hymn before the sermon. The congregation applauded. That's what I
call cutting it close! Time for another sabbatical. Or maybe I should announce my
retirement and become a lame duck minister. Or did I do that already?
In the course of my ministry I have seen the creation and growth of some important
committees which have given birth to some productive programs over the years. The Music
and Worship Committees were created during my ministry as was the Social Concerns now the
Service Committee, and recently the Welcoming Congregation Committee. Because of them we
have had concerts, chancel dramas, lectures and forums, workshops and discussions, and
community outreach to aid people in need.
It was also at the urging of some members of the parish that I helped organize a Psi
Symposium Chapter. I had a personal interest in parapsychology and spirituality, but I was
reluctant to impose this interest on others. But some members asked for it, and so a
chapter was created. A number of new members have come into the church through this group.
I am pleased that some people have found Psi Symposium programs to be interesting and
helpful and that the rest of the parish has been at least willing to tolerate them, even
if they think they're a little weird. But since a lot of people think UUs are a little
weird to begin with we're in good company.
I have some very fond and happy memories of my 30 years of ministry at First Parish. I
remember:
...the assembling of our harpsichord in Dexter Robinson's cellar and back yard at their
old Hanover home;
...the hanging of the beautiful brass chandelier from the ceiling of the church, given by
Helen Fogg in loving memory of her mother;
...the Christening of adopted kids like Alex and Joy Weber and Benjamin and Emily Flynn
and the pleasant surprise of pregnancies following adoptions by the Hockmans, Flynns and
Robinsons;
...the dozen plus two student ministers and interns who have added variety and spice of
life to our shared spiritual ventures, including the ordinations of John Marsh, Peter
Lanzillotta, Jose Ballester, Henry Simoni, and Judy Campbell;
...the grand celebration of the sesquicentennial of our church meeting house in 1980,
followed by a wine and cheese party at the Webster's (Sam'l Deane's old parsonage);
...the Night on Broadway musical productions involving young people and adults which
instilled spirit and enthusiasm into a growing church;
...the renovation of the church meeting house and the construction of our new addition
including office space, parlor, class rooms, etc., we built it and they came;
...the 350th anniversary of the parish in 1992 with two services, one in February and one
in October, with UUA President Bill Schulz;
...my trips to Transylvania which established a Partner Church relationship with our
Unitarian friends in Kadacs, Romania;
...the Lame Duck Pot Luck Supper which demonstrated once again that we know how to have
fun and a good time with one another.
It is the performance of Last Rites, funerals and memorial services, that are the most
difficult, and also the most meaningful thing that ministers are asked to do. There have
been some difficult deaths in this parish in my 30 years here. One of the most difficult
in my memory was the death of John Meyer at age 13, son of Ernst and Harriet Meyer, Pulpit
Committee Chair and Parish Committee Chair respectively, who was struck by a car as a
pedestrian not far from his home. The car was driven by an elderly member of the parish in
his 80's, Earl Newton. A double tragedy. I was only in my second year of ministry. It was
a painful loss to bear for all.
Then I remember, of course, Helen Fogg's sudden passing at age 80 in 1984 when she was
doing research on her memoirs. I was visiting the Meyers who had moved to Virginia at the
time, during my sabbatical, and our Ministerial Intern, Jose Ballester called me on the
phone with the sad news. Twenty-four hours later he called me again with the news that
another parishioner, Clarke Atwater, had also passed away. I remember Clarke's beautiful
tenor voice which he shared with our church choir until old age and shingles ended his
ability to sing and perform. So I came home from my sabbatical visit in Washington to
prepare two funerals, only a day or two apart. It was not exactly my idea of what a
sabbatical should be. But in the ministry you learn to expect the unexpected.
I shall never forget Pascal Webster's untimely death at age 44, from a brain tumor, such a
bright wit and intelligence and a good friend and neighbor, and a wife and seven wonderful
children bereft of a husband and father. It broke all our hearts--the church, the family,
the community. There must have been four hundred people in the meeting house for the
memorial service. I felt the pain of Allen Lester's death by his own hand at age 81
because he could no longer bear the loneliness and depression following his wife's passing
a few years before. Like so many of you I was stunned by the heroic death of Charlie
Vieira who was electrocuted in a balloon accident when he tried to prevent that very thing
from happening to others. And who of us who were here can forget the tragic suicidal death
of young Ben Kimball at age 15. The memorial sundial in his memory sits outside the window
of my office, a loving tribute to a talented young man, just across from the Japanese red
maple planted by the parish in memory of my father, Maxwell Fewkes, who died in 1990.
Very few deaths are easy, most are hard to bear no matter when they happen, but some touch
to the quick and stick in the mind and heart forever after. These are the trials and
challenges of the ministry. To bring a measure of comfort to people in the difficult
passages of their lives is what the ministry is finally all about. If I have been able to
do so then I am thankful. Whatever else I may do or fail to accomplish my ministry has not
been in vain. I remember so many good people who are no longer with us who touched my
ministry and made their imprint upon the life of this parish--there are so many--I can't
even begin to name them--but all have helped to make my ministry worthwhile. I am grateful
beyond words.
I consider myself fortunate indeed to have been chosen by the Norwell Pulpit Committee in
1969. This church has helped me in countless ways to grow as a person and as a minister,
and we have grown together, both in terms of numbers and the quality of our spiritual
life. It hasn't always been smooth. There have been a few disagreements along the way, but
the communication between minister and congregation has always been open. We've been able
to laugh at our mistakes and to forgive one another for our failures and shortcomings. If
I had it to do over again I would do it in a minute, with no regrets. I have been richly
blessed by my ministry in Norwell. To paraphrase the great medieval mystic, Julian of
Norwich, "And all things shall be well, all manner of things shall be well in
Norwell, and all who walk through the doors of this ancient meeting house shall be
blessed." It has been so for me and my family for 30 years. May it be doubly so for
this congregation for the next 30 years.
Gracious giver of Life, we thank you for the opportunity to love and to serve, to be
ministers to and for one another, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those
who weep, and to know one another as friends who care and share what they have and who
they are. We are especially thankful this day for the extended spiritual family of this
free church, tolerant of our beliefs, supportive of our persons, demanding of our best
thought and moral conscience, and asking only that we love truth, do justice, practice
mercy and compassion, and serve the Most High. Amen.