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SEMINARY EPIPHANIES
Kent J. Ulery, President

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Inaugural Address       January 27, 2009
Psalm 46 and Genesis 45:25-46:7

Interfaith guests and ecumenical partners; representatives of institutions of higher education, secular and sacred; local church lay leaders and ordained clergy; special, M.A., M.Div., and D.Min. students; fulltime professors, adjunct faculty, and other members of the academy; trustees, staff, and alumni; friends, family, and the curious who wondered in off the streets; and, of course, our donors (may your numbers multiply!): may God’s grace and God’s peace be with you all, now and forevermore.

I rejoice in your presence and am encouraged by your ministries. I feel uplifted by your prayers and strengthened by your support. I am touched by your care and honored by your call. Please know I consider your trust a sacred gift, to be cherished and nurtured through the building of relationships, as we lead this beloved school into its future.

With the re-accreditation visit, several personnel searches, and the stock market tumble, it has been a full first six months. People, places, programs, policies, practices, pitfalls, possibilities, plans, problems, history, finances, and fund-raising combine to create steep learning curves and wicked curve balls.

Throughout you have been patient with my humanness and willing to accept my guidance. I want to acknowledge with particular thanks to God our Board Chair Ken Brookes who added a year to his tenure on the trustees, as well as our Academic Dean Glenn Miller who delayed his sabbatical leave, so that I might be mentored by their experience.

Much of this past week was spent in San Antonio attending the Association of Theological School’s New Presidents Seminar. Thirty-two new Presidents of theological schools across Canada and the United States were present, taking notes from seasoned Presidents regarding how to be effective in this work. So much information was shared and so many voice-of-experience insights given that it was like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant.

But I return with good news. They taught us the secret to becoming successful seminary Presidents. In session after session on leadership, resources, fund development, governance, faculty relationships, professional standards, strategic planning, and so forth, every presenter except one explicitly stated or strongly implied that as new Presidents we should devote a minimum of 50% of our time to every area! The last session’s presenter said at least 60% is required for that area. Here I the secret: all I need to do is clone myself 3.6 times! Perhaps a bit more since we have two campuses.

On the airplane coming home I made an executive decision. While my tenure will be informed by the seminar’s content, with respect to my approach to this office, I’ve decided to heed the advice of the Psalmist rather than my new colleagues. 

In the midst of multiple voices clamoring to be heard, I’ve believe it’s best to “be still” and remember who is God and who is not. Confronted with numerous areas demanding attention, the preferred course of action is to turn to the One who is “our refuge and our strength, a very present help in times of trouble.”  With more than sufficient worries and anxieties for any given day or night, we “will not fear.”

The names and dates of service of the nine Presidents preceding me are inscribed on this medallion. In my study are their portraits, looking down from above, as if asking: “What are you doing to my school now?” Whenever I look up from my desk, I am reminded of the long, faithful, resilient journey of this seminary community. For a season, by God’s grace, now it is my privilege to join you in your journey.

Joyfully I report that the quality of classroom teaching and mentored practice is high. The spirit is energetic and devoted. The trustees are engaged and prudent. With respect to the seminary’s mission, values, and ethos, to borrow a phrase from the African-American church, this seminary isn’t content to just “talk the talk.”  It seeks to “walks the walk” of faith.

But I also need to say the needs of the churches of northern England are great; that this corner of the country remains the most secular in the nation; and that the justice and mercy of the realm of God are yet to be established throughout the world.

As I told the alumni last night, too many so-called religious leaders are not only unlearned, but very unlearned; and, therefore, the work God entrusted to this school is not complete. Not by a long shot.

Please hear the urgency in my voice. We are the only accredited seminary in northern New England. There is no other accredited seminary in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. When it comes to graduate level theological education, God has placed that burden upon our hearts, that responsibility upon our shoulders, and that challenge upon our souls. It is up to us.

Under the leadership of President Imes, difficult and painful, yet necessary and crucial decisions were made to maintain this beloved institution’s viability and survival. During the years of my tenure we need to turn from issues of viability to issues of vitality, from survival to service, from maintaining what we have to rebuilding the school for greater mission.

Because the school’s financial, technological, and staffing capacities are strained to the limit, we need to rebuild our basic resources. Partnerships with Husson University, educational institutions in the Portland area, various ecumenical bodies, foundations, and – hear this clearly – individual donors need developing.

We need to embrace the present reality that today’s church is asking for help in educating lay leaders, that ordained clergy are hungering for continuing education opportunities beyond this once-a-year convocation, and that the small towns of northern New England will be strengthened if a variety of M.A. programs are developed to address the needs of individual seekers and community professionals alike.

We must rebuild our capacity during my tenure, so that when I turn the privilege of leading over to your Eleventh President, Bangor Theological Seminary will be in a much stronger position entering its third century of educating leaders theologically. We must do it. We simply must. The mission of God in the world, particularly in this part of the world, requires it.

Let me tell you why.

We gather today during the season of the church year known as Epiphany. At its root, the word “epiphany” has to do with revealing moments, illuminating discoveries, sudden perceptions of the essence or the reality or the meaning. In moments of epiphany it is not uncommon to hear folks speak of finally “getting it” or “the light coming on” or “seeing the light.”

In religious terms, “epiphany” has to do with recognizing the presence of God’s glory, the implications of God’s word, and the claim of God’s will. When capitalized, it refers to January 6^th when we hear once more the ancient prophesy of Isaiah 60: 

Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you…

 Nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

… and then we listen once more to the Matthew 2 story of those mysterious figures from the east  who followed a star.

This is why seminary education is so important: because it was not kings who followed that star. Kings don’t to come to the light. Emperors don’t come to the light. Presidents don’t come to the light. Sovereigns don’t want to come to the light which reveals what Isaiah saw -- that what God requires of nations and their leaders is the establishment of justice and righteousness throughout the land, and an end to oppression and violence everywhere on earth. It was not kings in the Biblical story of epiphany. Those who followed the star were students and scholars.

T.S. Eliot narrates the story of the magi in a manner quite unlike our cute bathrobed children’s pageant versions, but much closer to the Biblical narrative, writing both of their journey and of his own:[1]

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.  
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
 I should be glad of another death.

That, my friends, is a real epiphany.

Theological education is important, the mission of Bangor Theological Seminary is critical, we must rebuild the capacity of this school because the epiphanies which occur in our classrooms train leaders to see God in ways that leave them “no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods.”

Seminary epiphanies change those who come to the light, so that they, in turn, can help transform this world into something much more closely resembling the realm of God.

The lectionary texts for the Sundays of the Epiphany season move from stories of God making a claim on people’s lives, to God calling individuals by name into service, to their resisting and running away from God’s call, to their finally finding a prophetic voice to speak up with authority on behalf of God.

For those who are claimed, called, resist, but then go on to speak out as church and community leaders, the epiphany journey is the seminary journey. It is the old old journey of students and scholars searching for the meaning of God’s light.

And it is all for a purpose.

Consider the Genesis passage assigned for this particular Tuesday in Epiphany, where we find Jacob longing to see his long lost child Joseph. I know what how much Meg and I miss not being able to see our children in Chicago and in Atlanta for months on end.

How much more must have been Jacob’s longing to see Joseph, when it was discovered the child he thought was dead, the one for whom he had mourned so long, had been found alive. “I must go and see him,” Jacob exclaims. “I must go and see him for I die.”

I want you to feel, taste, experience that longing in Jacob’s soul…for it is akin to the hunger permeating our world for an epiphany of God’s light before we die...the hunger for peace and justice, the thirst for compassion and mercy, which contrasts with the agendas of kings for power, pride, and possession – the trinitarian gods of the old dispensation.

Why do we need seminaries?  Why do we need this particular seminary? Because God needs and the world needs seminary-trained lay and clergy leaders to show God light to those who long to see before they die, and to open the eyes of those who are so at ease that they don’t even know they are dying in the old dispensations.

God’s light shines through many faith traditions.

If we have learned anything at this Convocation on “The Scripture We Share,” we have learned that truth. For those of the Christian tradition, nowhere does it shine more brightly than at the communion table, where our eyes are open and we see God again in the breaking of bread. So I invite you to join me at the communion table now… 

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