"The Church of Our Fathers:
Roots of Northwest"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
September 22, 2002

Meditation: From an Easter Order of service 1951 in Haverhill MA. One might have heard this if one were attending First Church Detroit (then called The Church of Our Father).

We love the things of earth, the things that come and go and leave us gladness
But we do not want to be as these things are, for they pass away and die.
We love the flowers that greet us as the thoughts of God;
But we do not want to be as they for they wither and fade.
To merge our reveries with the clouds that float across the sky;
But we do not want to be as they, for they are soon no more
We thrill to dawns and sunsets;
But night comes and day fades into darkness. We want to endure through all the nights and days.
These things of the earth we cherish;
But we seek immortal things, the things that change not; the things that defy the shocks and shifts of time and place.
We seek to create and preserve in ourselves the things that make us everlasting, the things that endure forever.
Then we can go on unafraid of change and death.
(J.W. Hudson, Adapted)

Sermon: The Church of Our Father: The Roots of this Congregation

This congregation is 50 years old this year. In 1952 a group of about 40 families left the downtown Unitarian church to form a new Unitarian Universalist Congregation. To have reached the age of 50 in these turbulent times is a tribute to the spirit of those that formed this community and those that are here to sustain it today. I hope you are proud of yourselves and your church. I am. 

Researching for this sermon has inspired me. I have found fun things like the calendar book of the first minister – from 1954. And you know what, 50 years later, the Unitarian Universalist ministers meetings are still held on the third Wednesday of the month. I found national and local newsletters and correspondences. I found old files of readings and services. It has been great. But I have only just begun. So let this sermon be the beginning of a series that I will do every so often. Maybe once a year I will do a sermon on one part of the history of this congregation. Today I will not be able to give details about so many of the pieces of the history – lets just say it’s a survey course this morning – history 101. We’ll tackle the more advanced courses in coming years.

However, remembering history is not always fun or inspiring. It can be sad and renew old angers. A couple of years ago at General Assembly, the national gathering of Unitarian Universalists held each June, the planners decided to have a Thomas Jefferson Ball. They wanted to honor a famous Unitarian and have a good time. The invitation encouraged attendees to dress in period costumes. At first blush this might seem like a great idea but only if you are a European American. What were the African Americans supposed to wear – chains? It was a painful time at that GA as histories were retold from a more inclusive perspective. It was a healing time as real listening took place. Retelling history isn’t always inclusive, retelling history can be painful. But I learned that retelling history with a desire to understand how we got here could be a healing experience.

So let us travel back in time to the 1950s. We travel back knowing that only parts of the stories will be told. We travel back with a desire to preserve the things that make us everlasting, the things that endure forever. We travel back with a desire to understand how we got here. We travel back that we might leave some of the pain there, bringing forward the healing, so we might go on, unafraid of change.

Already this morning we have heard some of the hymns from that time. You can hear the Christian language, the male images for god and the use of man as universal for humankind. Unitarians and Universalists were just beginning to struggle with many of these issues. The influence of humanism was just beginning to be felt. Twenty years before the Humanist Manifesto had been written and signed with Unitarians being among the original signers, but its progress into worship was still difficult. The reading I did earlier had had an additional last line; “climbing beyond death to the immortal heights.” The person who had filed it all those years ago had crossed out that last line. I think indicating the influence of humanism and the desire to create worship that spoke to those beliefs. At first it was a matter of leaving out pieces of the picture but in time it became a faith statement that was more than just “not Christian.” There were many articles written, speeches given and debates held on the issues of theology within our faith.

One of my favorite finds in my digging thus far is one of Rev. Frank Gentile, the first minister’s, columns written in 1954. He is quoting several of his predecessors and colleagues on the question of the strength and weakness of our faith at that time. One person he quotes from 1828 suggests that we might be better off if we followed the Rules of Christian Charity – i.e.,  not judging others lest we be judged etc. Then he quotes Richard Henry the then minister of our Knoxville church “If all of us could monitor our pronouncements by these (Christian) principles we might go a long way toward avoiding what many people consider our greatest weaknesses: our Hall-of-Fame mentality and our minority group self-consciousness.” Then Rev. Gentile closed his column with this rabbinical apologue taken from that 1828 sermon. “As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, there came unto him a wayfaring man; and Abraham offered him water and set bread before him. And Abraham said unto him, ‘Let us now worship the Lord our God before we eat of this bread.’ And the wayfaring man said unto Abraham,’ I will not worship the Lord thy God, for thy God is not my God, but I will worship my God, even the God of my fathers.’ But Abraham was exceedingly wroth, and he rose to put the wayfaring man forth from the door of his tent. And the voice of the Lord was heard in the tent ‘Abraham! Abraham! have I borne with this man for three score and ten years, and canst thou not bear with him for one hour?’”

Some of the things that most endure are our struggles. We are open to new ideas and that means we often struggle. We believe in the democratic process and hearing each other out. Thus, we are good at disagreeing with one another. We even had an adult education curriculum in the early 70s called, Disagreements that Unite Us. The conflicts in our movement between various theological and religious viewpoints continue today. I would suspect it was a hot topic in this congregation in the 1950s and remains so to this day. It is in most congregations I know.

I will do many sermons on the issues that face our association as we continue to work with our diversity including our theological diversity. We endure as a faith tradition in spite of our differences and I believe we endure because of them as well.

When this church began the Unitarians and Universalists were separate religions. They didn’t become one until 1961. It is believed that this church was the first Unitarian Universalist church. This is a spot for another sermon on the merger. What brought it about? Where did the faiths come from originally and how they were different or the same? For this morning let it be sufficient it to say, “The Universalists thought God was too good to damn them and the Unitarians thought they were too good to be damned” and eventually they saw the wisdom in putting those two philosophies together.

We endure in part because we are willing to join forces. We are accepting of other faiths and ways of viewing reality; there are Jewish Unitarian Universalists, Buddhist UUs, Humanist UUs, Christian UUs and many shades in between. We endure because we became Unitarian Universalists and this church was the first.

There were 2 million people in Detroit in 1955[1]. It was a very crowded city. There was only one freeway and it was difficult to get around. Peg Monnier tells of it taking an hour and a half just to get to church each Sunday. First Church, still located on Cass and Forest across from Wayne State, was then The Church of Our Father. Gerry Gunther describes it as a very crowded church. She told me that it was packed even into the balcony and you had to get there early if you wanted a seat. It is a huge church. It seats somewhere upwards of 300. Can you imagine; 300 Unitarians in Detroit?

Our country was welcoming home its war veterans from the Korean War and those who had survived WWII were still adjusting to life at home. Women were mostly in the home though some of that image is a myth. Women on the farms and in families of lesser means have always worked and the 50s were no different. Roberta Gail Cooper, a Free Press Columnist, writes of growing up on the west side of Detroit, on West Grand Avenue between Wildemere and Dexter. “It was a time when no one had a den, let alone a family room or a great room; it was not a crying shame to share one bathroom or one telephone. Black-and-white TV was the norm. Sam, the fruit man; Barney, the Twin Pines milkman, and the Good Humor man were welcome fixtures in my neighborhood.”[2] Milkey, the Twin Pines Dairy clown, was the entertainment at Family Dinner night for Northwest on March 4, 1954. The favorite pastime in that era was drive in theaters. The largest in the country was the Troy Theater in Detroit that held 3,000 cars. MAD magazine was first published in 1952. WDET started in 1952. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunts began in 1950 and by 1954 he was censured by the Senate. Unitarian Universalists regularly stood up for those whose civil liberties were jeopardized by McCarthy. We endure because we stand up for what we believe.

And here I would like to insert a much longer series of sermons on the issues of racism. Racism played a huge part in the development of Detroit. It continues to play a large and damaging part in our city and religious tradition. There is much to be learned and I believe that we will only endure as a faith if we come to terms with our racism. I will give many sermons in the months and years to come on this issue, but there is one story of when this church community took one stand that must be mentioned today.

During the late fifties and early sixties this church, along with other religious communities, took a particular stand for fair housing. Fair housing meaning anyone had a right to live in any neighborhood. On one occasion Jane Fonda, who had been refused other venues to speak on fair housing, spoke at Northwest. Later that night the plate glass window at the entrance to the building was broken. It was replaced; then broken again and replaced. Finally after a third time the insurance company refused to replace it again. The perseverance and ingenuity of the people came to the rescue and the stained glass window was born. Leonard and Gina Ferrar drove to West Virginia to get the beautiful glass, broke it into pieces in the basement of their home. And then each family in the congregation created a square that was then assembled into the beautiful window that graces the building today. It is an example of what Unitarian Universalists are all about. Taking a stand for justice and then persevering.  Many people seek out our churches to have a place to do social action in community. We endure because of our commitment to social action. We endure because we don’t give up. We endure because we make beautiful windows from hateful actions.

Those that started this congregation didn’t give up; it wasn’t easy to leave that big church with its famous preacher, Rev. Dr. Tracy Pullman. But they believed in Unitarian Universalism and they wanted to spread the word.  One person from the group of 40 families that left that big church writes about it this way: “We would miss Tracy’s good leadership. Still it was a heady idea, that through us, a new Unitarian Universalist church would arise in the Detroit area.”[3] You see, in the 50s there was just First Church, Grosse Pointe and a little Universalist church in the woods of Farmington. In October of 1953 just one year into the venture we had an average adult attendance of 68 but there were 90 kids. Two years into the enterprise they installed their first minister. Rev. Frank Gentile, that first minister, writes about it in this way:

“Two years ago the idea of setting up a center for a Unitarian Universalist youth and religious education program in the northwest area was explored. The ideas was accepted, worked out and the result is that on Sunday evening the Northwest Unitarian Universalist church will formally install its first minister. This is possible because of the hard, skilled work and dedication of those committed to the development of Northwest. Innumerable hours of meetings and telephoning, of miles traveled, of cakes baked and uncounted gallons of coffee poured have gone into the birth of this new church, to mention little of the concern and strain of separation involved in a breaking with the established friends and institutional ties.”

We endure in part simply because we work at it. This church would not be what it is today except for the sweat and dedication of its people; all its people. It is a collective that works. That is something to be proud of.

A sermon about history is also a sermon about change. It’s about looking back and looking forward. It’s about wanting some changes and not wanting others. It’s about remembering some things and forgetting others. It’s about the wishes we had, the changes that have come and the ones that haven’t.

I started my career in ministry working for the Quakers. I was the Religious Education Director for a Quaker meetinghouse that was just down the block from the seminary in Chicago. Each Sunday I would worship in silence with the Quakers, help coordinate the school for their children and during the week attend meetings with them. This is quite a famous meetinghouse. During the 60s they were very active in support of Conscientious Objectors. They opposed the war and organized many demonstrations. The place was always hopping with people coming and going. They were really in the thick of it. In 1980, when I worked with them, they were nostalgic for that time. They missed all the comings and goings. There was no “one rallying issue” to bring them all together. They were smaller and quieter. The saddest part for me was to see their quiet strength be eroded by a wishing for the past. They didn’t remember all the struggles and disagreements of that time. They didn’t remember the pain and difficult relationships of that time – except where grudges still existed. They were truly a shadow of their former selves mostly because that’s all they could remember. They couldn’t enjoy what had endured.

Looking back into history is not about wanting to relive it. Although we may be wistful for the good times most of us wouldn’t choose to go back if we could. Looking back into history is about finding those things that we seek to preserve in ourselves and in our communities; those the things that make us everlasting, the things that endure forever. This community endures because we are willing to struggle together. This community endures because we are willing to join forces with like-minded people. We endure because we stand up for what we believe. We endure because we are inclusive, open and democratic. We endure because of our commitment to social action. This community endures because we are hard workers who don’t give up. Those are the things that make us everlasting, the things that endure forever. Let us hold on to these things that endure, and go on unafraid of change.

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Note/Story: Several people asked that we include the following story which Kimi told during today's service.
I want to tell you a story. A true story. It’s a story about ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing. You might know these people. It’s about two little girls who lived in Detroit in 1964, a long time ago. Their names were Carol and Nancy. They were both in elementary school when the story takes place. I have a picture of their mom right here. She was just a mom like your moms. Her name was Georgia Neubrecht. Georgia was living with her family in Detroit.
 
At that time in Detroit there were no people whose families came from Africa to America living in their neighborhood, every house for many blocks had only people who had come from Europe, people whose skin looked like mine. It was a strange time when some places had only one kind of person living in an area - you still see some areas like that today.

Then one day a family of African Americans moved into a house two blocks down the street.  They were the first. Well, this scared some of the people who lived there - they had never lived with people whose skin was brown. They put their houses up for sale, they were so scared. They had a meeting and said mean things about people they hadn’t even met. Sometimes when people are scared or they don’t understand they get mean.

Carol and Nancy’s mom and dad - he is sitting right over there - went to the meeting. They listened to all the angry, scared and mean people. At the end of the meeting their dad stood up and said, “You are wrong. We don’t need to move or do hateful things. We need to get together and welcome all kinds of people to our neighborhood. It will be a better neighborhood if we do.” That night some mean people burned some wood in the shape of a cross on Nancy and Carol’s lawn. Nancy and Carol were scared because they knew it meant people were mad at their dad.

That morning their mom told them not to worry. She would make things better (moms are like that). She got on the phone and called all the ministers, people like me who work for churches. She talked to her friends and the people in the church. They all got together and had another meeting -- a meeting that was supportive of all kinds of people living together in the same neighborhood. 260 or more people came. Together they talked about how wonderful a neighborhood would be that had lots of different kinds of people living in it. They planned parties and other ways to get to know new families so that they could be friends. They called it the Barton/McFarlin Neighborhood Organization. Many people still moved away, but those that stayed became friends forever. Today that neighborhood organization still exists. It still helps people get along and be friends. Carol and Nancy are grown now and they have families of their own. They were lucky to have a mom and dad who were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.