The Kingston Mullings, authored by our Pastor, Rev. Ed Farrell-Starbuck, are named for our geographic location in Kingston, Rhode Island, USA.
Join us in reading, mulling over, and reflecting on these thoughts put into writing. They are listed in chronological order from his first Kingston Mullings in 2023 to the most recent.
Blessings from Christ United Methodist Church, Kingston, RI
From Rev. Ed Farrell-Starbuck:
For years I sent a weekly email to the people of congregations I served. It was a chance to share some idea, quotation or reflection that had spoken to me. The intent was to be a word of encouragement in the midst of our week’s activities. It also allowed for opportunity to share reminders and news of the congregation.
“Kingston Mullings” is the latest version, created for folks connected with Christ United Methodist Church (Kingston, Rhode Island).
Kingston Mullings December 10, 2024
- Christmas Eve service at 6:00PM December 24 – Lessons, Carols & Candles
Dear friends,
As I write this morning a flock of turkeys parades through our yard, as if they own the place. Turkeys are guided by the survival instinct of finding enough to eat and a safe place to roost. They are usually not in a big hurry, demonstrated by how drivers have to wait while a line of them straggles across the road. They act like they belong any place they find themselves.
After nearly fifty years I’m still trying to understand Jesus’ sense of place. I came across this from the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton: “Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in the world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.”
Merton wrote these words in 1966 in a piece titled “The Time of the End is the Time of No Room.” I don’t know if we’re in what some Christians describe as ‘the end times.’ But I do know I live in a comfortable place I call home. I have a place in the world which is mostly secure and uncontested. So maybe I miss encountering Jesus a lot of times because he’s hanging out in places I don’t normally go, with people whom, because of my privilege, I don’t have to associate with. It’s a challenge to follow Someone who doesn’t have a place.
Advent Blessings, Ed
Kingston Mullings December 5, 2024
Dear friends,
I’m reading Gerald May, MD’s The Dark Night of the Soul, and was struck by this:
“Denial, as some recovering alcoholics say, is more than just a river in Egypt. Psychoanalysts categorize denial as one of the primitive ways we have of defending against stress. If something is too painful or embarrassing, our minds simply refuse to accept it. Such is often the case with attachment. Attachment thrives on denial. Spiritually, denial is a two-headed demon. It keeps our idolatry out of our awareness, allowing us to believe that our capacity for love is full and free. Simultaneously, it buries our true desire for love, convincing us that life consists of willful dedication to achieving our own satisfaction. We all engage in denial of some sort. We do it because it works, and sometimes it works for a very long time.
For all of us there are moments of dawning awareness, little cracks in our armor that reveal glimpses of our deeper longing and our true nature. We generally don’t like what we see there, because it forces us to admit we are fundamentally dissatisfied. We begin to see that the results of our efforts are not quite as perfect as we had hoped for. Perhaps the career we worked so hard to achieve is not as rewarding as we’d expected. Maybe the love relationship we thought would make us complete has become timeworn and frayed. Things that gave us pleasure in the past may now seem empty. Such glimpses occur in unique ways for each person, but they always happen. They happen repeatedly…” (p.63-64)
The familiar Advent text from Isaiah 9:2 announces: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”
As Advent and the rest of our lives unfold, may we learn to trust that Light, trust ourselves to that Light more fully. So be it.
Blessings, Ed (Rev. Ed Farrell-Starbuck)
Kingston Mullings September 10, 2024
Dear friends,
The notion of ‘grace’ has been the central dimension of my Christian walk for over 56 years. It’s the linchpin of my faith experience as well as my theology. I early named ‘grace’ the ultimate reality of the universe—the notion of ‘ultimate reality’ coming from studies of Buddhism. In a sense ‘grace’ is bigger than God inasmuch as ‘grace’ (which comes from God) does not need to name or credit God. It just is—operative in this world whether we recognize and name God or not. Grace
Reuben Job and Marjorie Thompson offer this in their study book Companions in Christ: “God’s grace precedes, follows, surrounds, and sustains us. It is a constant and completely consistent gift. We cannot stop, alter, or change it. We are eternally cradled in God’s abundant and life-giving grace. While the initiative and the invitation to companionship are entirely God’s, response lies with us. God gives us grace to respond to the awakening call of the Holy Spirit, but we can choose to turn away and refuse the invitation. Or we can choose, by the Spirit’s help, to walk in faithfulness and harmony with God. By doing so we claim our true and full inheritance as children of God. Choosing to open ourselves to grace means receiving life’s greatest gift and walking the path of spiritual abundance.” (cited in A Guide to Pryer for All Who Walk with God, p. 324)
As you journey on the way of faith, pay special attention to grace. Make grasping and being grasped by grace central. God’s grace is that big and that important.
Blessings, Ed
Kingston Mullings August 14, 2024
Dear friends,
A spiritual practice which can be very formative is contemplative prayer, a method of praying that involve more silence than words. Not unlike meditation. When we contemplate something we give it our full attention, trying to openly receive/listen rather than impose our thoughts or ideas on the matter. We may sit in silent stillness…open-minded…focusing but not thinking, or at least letting go of thoughts that come rather than holding on to or following them.
I once spent a week practicing ‘Centering Prayer’ with a leader and a small group of seekers. We were deliberately silent, only speaking with one another at designated times, like lunch. We sat for a half hour three times a day, beginning with some words from a psalm and then silence. It was like paying attention to silence. I felt remarkably centered when the week ended.
John Mogabgab, who edited the UM publication Weavings for many years, shared: “Richard Baxter, the seventeenth-century English divine, once described the chief end of ‘contemplation’ as ‘acquaintance and fellowship with God.’ The homely simplicity of Baxter’s definition points to the essential dimensions of contemplative life. It is, in the first place, a life of deepening acquaintance with God, a life of removing the layers of misunderstanding that obscure our relationship with the Holy One. As we strip away the fear, mistrust, anger, or pain that encases our heart, we come to see that our desire for God is in fact an echo of God’s far more encompassing and passionate desire for us. Contemplative awareness confirms that God is closer than we think, that there is no path to God that is not first God’s path to us. Contemplative life explores these paths; it is wholly dedicated to the one thing necessary; it is a life consumed with and by God, and therefore a life committed to ever more unguarded exposure to the love that is at once the source, transformation, and joy of human existence.”
(quoted in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God, 289-290)
There are paths for exploring a relationship with God that we’ve barely experienced. Let’s keep seeking together.
Blessings, Ed
Kingston Mullings May 8, 2024
Dear friends,
Tomorrow, May 9, is when more liturgical churches will celebrate Ascension Day, the moment when the resurrected Jesus was lifted into the sky/heaven. Luke gives two accounts of the Ascension: Luke 24:44-53 (the closing verses of the gospel) and Acts 1:1-11 (the opening verses of Acts). Sunday worship will begin with the Acts passage, but why not read both passages ahead of time.
The Ascension doesn’t get much play in most United Methodist congregations. Its meaning gained depth for me after attending a Catholic Mass across the street from the parsonage in Jackson, CA one Ascension Day in the 80’s. The priest, a friend, served me Holy Communion that morning. No questions asked. Perhaps that in itself was an act of ascending.
Another friend’s reflection in “Unfolding Light” grapples with a human response to such an event:
It was not what we had hoped for,
that this moment of uplifting victory—
Jesus ascending to the throne of heaven—
would drip with grief. But we’d lost him.
In the wake of the swirling glory
we stood on the windswept hill
looking up vacantly into the air
as at a graveside, in silent discomfort,
hollowed out by sorrow at his departure,
heaven’s theft, the cloud’s cruel erasure.
It took angels to nudge us awake,
to begin to think not of what used to be
but what was possible. (5/8/24)
What is the significance of Jesus’ Ascension for you? Allow yourself a few minutes today to ponder this question.
Blessings, Pastor Ed
Kingston Mullings May 4, 2024
Dear friends,
In the grace and peace of Jesus Christ, I bring you important news from the larger Church.
The 2024 General Conference of the United Methodist Church has adjourned. Meeting April 23 through May 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, lay and clergy delegates from the New England Conference joined hundreds of others to participate in the official UMC gathering. An historic change to official United Methodist policy regarding homosexuality, marriage between gay persons, and the ordination of gay persons was the most significant action taken.
In 1972 the General Conference voted to insert sentences into the Social Principles that claimed that “the practice of homosexuality…is incompatible with Christian teaching….” While affirming that all are persons of sacred worth, that policy has been a central cause for debate and disagreement among United Methodists ever since. That sentence and others related to it were eliminated by vote of the Conference on May 2. The vote was 523 to 161.
The same vote affirmed “marriage as a sacred, lifelong covenant that brings two people of faith (adult man and adult woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into a union of one another and into deeper relationship with God and the religious community.” Another related change was to remove the ban on the ordination of clergy who are ‘self-avowed practicing homosexuals, a prohibition that took effect in 1984.
In one sense we are now part of a different UMC. This issue led to an irreparable rift in the greater United Methodist denomination. About a quarter of UM congregations have disaffiliated from the denomination over the last several years. A huge loss, but also a hugely significant gain for many of us who have long prayed and lobbied for just such change. In my opinion we are now a step closer to God’s Kingdom as a Christian denomination. I can now with a fuller heart and clearer mind claim to be a United Methodist Christian. Many more steps to come.
Blessings, Pastor Ed
PS If you wish to discuss this matter, or others, know that I am available to meet together.
Kingston Mullings April 25, 2024
Dear friends,
Beautiful spring afternoon here on Cape Cod—hope it’s the same in RI. Just read something I want to share, a story Kathleen Norris includes in her book, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. It begins with her reflection on Jacob’s overnight dream about the ladder to heaven populated by angels. When he woke up, he exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.”
“One morning this past spring I noticed a young couple with an infant at an airport departure gate. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter whose it was, no matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried-looking he would respond with absolute delight. It was beautiful to see. Our drab departure gate had become the gate of heaven. And as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I felt as awe-struck as Jacob, because I realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation.’
Norris closes by pondering: “And maybe that’s one reason we worship—to respond to grace. We praise God not to celebrate our own faith but to give thanks for the faith God has in us. To let ourselves look at God, and let God look back at us. And to laugh, and sing, and be delighted because God has called us his own.” (150-151)
See you Sunday!
Blessings, Pastor Ed
Kingston Mullings April 3, 2024
Dear friends,
Here’s one of my favorite reflections on Easter. It’s from a sermon, “The Humanity of God”, by Clarence Jordon who is a formative influence on my faith and theological understanding. Jordon co-founded Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia (located five miles down the road from Plains where Jimmy Carter hailed from). Clarence had a BS in agriculture and a Masters in New Testament Greek, the combination of which inspired him to create the Cottonpatch Version of a handful of New Testament books, including the gospels. Jordon’s worldview influenced Millard Fuller to found Habitat for Humanity, its first home site being next to Koinonia Farms.
“On the morning of the resurrection, God put life in the present tense, not in the future. He gave us not a promise but a presence. Not a hope for the future but power for the present. Not so much the assurance that we shall live someday but that he is risen today. Jesus’ resurrection is not to convince the incredulous nor to reassure the fearful, but to enkindle the believers. The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church…These disciples all the way through are saying, ‘He is risen because we’re full. We are the evidence of the resurrection. He is risen not because the dead rise, but because we are alive. And we’re doing the same things that he has taught us to do.”
What do you think? Dare we be a “carried-away church”?
Blessings, Pastor Ed
· This coming Sunday we will welcome Chris Trek as our new pianist/organist. Chris is a piano performance major at URI, commuting from his home in Cranston. He’ll play for us at 10am, then drive to Warwick to play for the 12pm service at an Episcopal church. Please make him welcome.
Kingston Mullings March 28, 2024
Dear Friends,
Greetings on this morning of Maundy Thursday. ‘Maundy’ means commandment, emphasizing Jesus’ command that we love one another. I was moved by the portrayal of Jesus’ Passion acted out last Sunday. The heart-felt reverence of the actors came through. Thanks to each of you who took part. It was a blessing.
In John 13 Jesus modelled the commandment to love one another by taking a bowl and towel and washing his disciples’ feet. When Peter balked as the Master knelt before him, Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” This suggests that if we won’t allow ourselves to be served in love then we can’t be part of what Jesus is doing in the world. Peter relents and cries out his need to be washed completely. In Peter’s heart he wanted more than anything to be ‘all-in” with Jesus.
Gerald Hughes writes, “On the night before his death, Jesus takes a piece of bread, breaks it and say, ‘This is my body given for you. Do this in my memory.’ To do this in his memory is not primarily about repeating a ritual memorial service, but is about allowing his Spirit so to possess us that we see our lives as bread to be broken that others may live. This is to share in God’s life…” (cited in Resources for Preaching and Worship-Year B, p. 110)
How are our daily lives like bread that is broken that others may experience life? A good question to reflect on as Holy Week moves to its conclusion….
Blessings, Rev. Ed
Easter Sunday is a good time to invite a friend to join you as we worship.
Kingston Mullings March 19, 2024
Dear friends,
Happy Spring!! May you be blessed on this Spring Equinox.
Holy Week will begin this Sunday with the waving of palms as we sing together “All glory, laud, and honor, to thee, Redeemer King.” What starts as a celebratory parade, with Jesus riding a young donkey to the crowd’s shouts of “Hosanna!” will end with Jesus hanging on a wooden cross on a hill just outside the city walls. Holy Week ends in disaster…but Sunday’s coming.
Frank Regan shares a reflection: “I wonder, Jesus, what you saw as you rode the donkey into Jerusalem on that day of triumph. Surely you saw the crowd you had wept over as you contemplated its lostness and malaise. It was an anonymous, undifferentiated crowd, fickle and easily led. Very easily could a person lose a sense of self and identity to drown in the crowd’s anonymity. They wanted you to multiply the loaves always, to restore the ancient empire of David and Solomon and to vindicate the religion of Israel surrounded by a hostile culture. You had a different vision, a vision of the Reign of reconciliation, love, holiness and justice. The crowd’s vision was myopic and its desires easily manipulated. The effusive Hosanna hymn became a clamor for blood and crucifixion. Help us to know our deepest desire, the God you are, the God who slakes our thirst and satisfies our hungers. Help us to say our Yes to the deep desire of our hearts to seek only you and your justice.” (Let Justice Roll Down, p. 117)
Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday……they all have to happen before we get to Easter.
Blessed Holy Week, Rev. Ed
· There will be a special presentation by several of the younger ones among us this Sunday. Don’t miss it!
Kingston Mullings March 4, 2024
Dear friends,
It was wonderful to be back worshipping with you all yesterday. The Pick-Up Choir was superb. Want to share a bit about our vacation in Maui. Our son Josh and his wife Bryn live there with two of our three grandchildren, Remy and Lion. Josh is a doctor in private practice and Bryn is a very full-time mom. We don’t get to see them nearly enough.
We stayed in Haiku on the north shore of Maui near some of Maui’s best surfing beaches. Being rainforest, it rains some almost every day there. In Makawah where the kids live and in Wailea where Josh’s office is, sunshine dominates. There are six different climate zones on one island. Amazing!
Highlights of our trip: hanging with the grandkids, enjoying beautiful beaches with secluded spots, watching surfers, windsurfers and kite surfers (Hookipa beach is world famous for kite surfing and ‘Jaws’ with seasonal waves 50’ or higher is a few miles north) , visiting Remy’s pre-school in Kulu, whale watching at peak season (many breaching and travelling in groups), walking on Thompson Road in Kulu with long range views (Oprah uses this one lane road to get to her Maui home), driving to the top of the volcano, Haleakala, at 10,023’ with temps in the low 40’s, Iao Valley above Wailuku, a day trip with Josh to Lanai (one of four islands in Maui County), and good food as the kids eat organic, local grown as much as possible. Flights there and back featured delays and late arrivals, but we made it. We’re planning a longer stay next winter.
I want to personally thank Dan Webster for his piano accompaniment for the last several months. It’s been a joy. His work schedule prevents him from continuing, but we hope he’ll find his way to the piano bench on occasion. Great music ministry, Dan!!!
Our trip was a blessed break, and I’m glad to be back sharing the Lenten journey with you. May blessings flow as we ‘get our steps’ walking with Jesus together for many days ahead.
His Peace be with you, Rev. Ed
· Rev. Ed will meet with any URI students who are free next Saturday at 4pm at Dunkin Donuts at the Emporium.
Kingston Mullings Ash Wednesday February 14, 2024
Dear Friends,
Ash Wednesday is upon us. Lent begins, a forty day season to look inward, reflect, ponder, meditate, be silent, ruminate, pray. None of us will use these days and nights entirely for prayerful spiritual examination. Doing so just some of the time may be enough to turn a corner on our journeys. Yesterday’s snow storm was an early Lenten gift inasmuch as it necessitated our slowing down to look at a beautiful world and to take each step thoughtfully, carefully.
In an article in Christian Century, Celene Ibrahim shared some condensed advice worth considering. Ibrahim is a teacher and chaplain at the Groton School, a preparatory school in central Massachusetts: “My students and I have much more to learn—and likely also to unlearn…I hope that they leave my classroom with provisions to undertake their own journeys of self-discovery through the ethical terrains of life. Lead with empathy. Observe closely to detect both what is depicted and what is omitted. Seek truth even when it is messy and brutal; ask probing questions, even when the answers are inconvenient. Seek relationships across identity lines to cultivate human connection and find trustworthy experts, not ideologues. Be humble, yet persistent, so that learning can lead to wisdom.” (February 2024, p.47)
May we receive unexpected blessings as we listen between the lines to Jesus during this holy season of opportunity and spiritual growth.
Blessings, Pastor Ed
· Coffee and Conversation: I’ll meet with anyone interested this Saturday at 2pm at URI’s Student Union.
Kingston Mullings February 6, 2024
Dear friends,
Time flies! This coming Sunday is named Transfiguration Sunday, the final one in the Christian season of Epiphany. In the Gospel of Mark, the voice of God speaks directly only twice: at Jesus’ baptism and at his transfiguration on Mount Horeb. Each time, God names Jesus God’s Son, the Beloved. On the mountain, God adds a command to what the three frightened disciples hear: “Listen to him!”
If we count ourselves as followers of Jesus, then the command speaks to us: Listen to Jesus, God’s Beloved Son.
February 18 marks the first Sunday in Lent, Lent being a choice season for us to reflect on how we’re doing in listening to Jesus. Such listening involves all dimensions of ourselves: our eyes that read and see what’s happening around us, our ears that listen to Scripture and to the many voices who speak around us, our other senses as we engage in daily life, and our inner selves as we practice prayer, silence and even listen to our nightly dreams.
If you’re like me you need to be reminded that God created people with one mouth and two ears. We may feel we have something to say, but learning to listen (before we speak?!?) is doubly important. One vital way to find our way in this life is to spend some focused effort in learning to listen to Jesus.
May God open not only our outer ears but the ears of our heart as we continue to journey in the grip of God’s grace.
Blessings, Pastor Ed
Kingston Mullings January 17, 2024
Greetings, sisters and brothers in Christ,
In the light of early morning a line from an old hymn came to mind:
“I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice, and it told thy love to me…” (UMH–#419) How has this been true for you? Hearing God’s voice is a good and awesome experience, however you ‘hear’ it. But the awesomeness includes a price. Will it be God’s will and way, or my own.
A devotional I read notes that this struggle can be described as “our resistance to enter into full personhood.” Man, can I relate. The more I age the more I realize my inner resistance to the wholeness I long for. It seems silly, but it’s a stubborn resistance. I pray for complete release from my innate willfulness, but then I get in my own way again. As Christ followers, we live in the paradox of two opposing things being true at the same time. (A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God, p.80)
In Philippines 3 Paul gives witness to this tension in his faith journey. I appreciate his companionship. “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
May God grant us resilience and energy in this new year to press on in our journey to become more and more Jesus’, and so grow closer to full personhood. So be it!
Blessings, Ed
Kingston Mullings December 14, 2023
Greetings, sisters and brothers in Christ,
My friend, Steve Garnaas-Holmes, is a poet/musician/composer/preacher who hails from Montana but has made New England home. For years now he has published a daily piece called “Unfolding Light.” Today’s edition contains several lines that speak to me, particularly the closing one.
As the crushing bombardment of Gaza continues, with the dead now over 18,600, thousands of injured, and much livable infrastructure destroyed, the world community needs an awakening. How can we allow this to continue? God have mercy on us all.
Among you stands one
whom you do not know.
—John 1.26
A flock of birds sits in every branch of a tree,
in the exact shape of the tree.
Beloved, we are the shape of you, unknown.
If only we knew
how deeply you are already here,
whispering in our ears,
slipping wisdom into our hearts
behind our backs,
walking through the days
sopping up the suffering
that would be so much worse
if we weren’t accompanied.
Our healing flows in your veins.
You are our continent.
You haunt us with mercy.
Unknown, you sustain us.
Teach us to trust what we cannot feel.
What we await is not your arrival
but our awakening.
Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122), and act according to the Way of Jesus. Advent blessings, Ed
Kingston Mullings December 6, 2023
We opened Advent worship last Sunday with the theme of ‘hope’.
It seems many of the devotional resources I use are presently focused on ‘hope’. It occurs to me that ‘hope’ might be what we need most in these convoluted times of political divisiveness, war, and a terribly imbalanced economic/wealth landscape.
I’ve used a series of Guides to Prayer edited by Bishop Reuben Job for many years. With the advent of Advent and a new Christian year, I’m beginning Job’s A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God. An entry from Michael Downey spoke to me this morning.
“The reason for the hope of the Christian is that in the Incarnation, Eden has been restored. The gifts of life, fullness, and future, once refused, are offered yet again. We are “fore-given,” given before we would even think to ask. The most appropriate response to this gift is not to grab or to hide but to receive and then live freely from this gift, a gift that can never be repaid. The great call to the spiritual life amounts to little more than learning how to receive what first and finally can only come as gift and then to live freely in and from that gift. Every inch and ounce, every moment of our life is to be lived in the presence of God. In Christ, all has been embraced. All of human life is a precinct of epiphany. But the gift half understood, the hint half guessed, is that it is ours to receive amidst the most mundane of human realities—the daily round of life’s ordinary experiences—and here. Yes, especially here, if we only could see.” (p29)
There’s enough in these words to chew on for a year, let alone for this time when we anticipate Jesus’ birth. They are infused with what I believe is the most powerful force/reality in the universe: grace. May God’s grace empower us in this season of short days and long nights to find our way.
Blessings, Rev. Ed
Kingston Mullings November 30, 2023
For years I sent a weekly email to the people of congregations I served. It was a chance to share some idea, quotation or reflection that had spoken to me. The intent was to be a word of encouragement in the midst of our week’s activities. It also allowed for opportunity to share reminders and news of the congregation.
“Kingston Mullings” is the latest version, created for folks connected with Christ United Methodist Church. Since the season of Advent (2023) begins this Sunday, I want to share from one of my favorite collections of prayers by Samuel H. Miller, published in 1957. Miller’s simple, if dated, eloquence speaks to the heart longing for God.
“Amid the world’s darkness, O God, we seek a star which will give us hope and guide us on our way. Our days are troubled with the portents of despair, and the counsels of the world have increased our anguish. Turn us from ourselves, lift our vision beyond our earthly empires, and let the dayspring from on high visit us. If the pilgrimage be long, sustain us by thy strength until we are made strong in the innocence of Bethlehem’s Child. Amen.
Samuel Miller pastored Old Cambridge Baptist Church for 25 years until he became Dean of Harvard Divinity School. His obituary is included below.
Advent blessings, Rev. Ed
Samuel H. Miller Dead Age 68 March 21, 1968
Samuel H. Miller, dean of the Divinity School, died in his sleep Tuesday night. He was 68 and planned to retire in June.
Krister Stendahl, Frothingham Professor of Biblical Studies, was to succeed Miller on July 1. President Pusey will announce an interim dean this morning.
Miller took over from Dean Douglas Horton in 1959, soon after a successful endowment drive saved the Divinity School from possible elimination. To an increasingly scholarly school centered on preparing doctoral candidates for teaching, Miller brought a new emphasis on study for the parish ministry.
Miller was primarily a churchman. He had just come from 25 years as pastor of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church–with a congregation made up primarily of laborers, social workers, and students. “I love this Church more than anything else in the world,” he once told a friend.
His lifelong concern — particularly while he was at the Divinity School–was a ministry alert to society and to social problems. His aversion to what he once called “ecclesiastical incest” led him to establish a number of new programs at the School.
Forming a new Department of the Church was Miller’s most notable accomplishment. The Department offers courses in the relationship of the church to society and sponsors a field work program–in mental hospitals and prisons–for prospective ministers.
Under Miller, the Divinity School sponsored the first major conference of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars–in the spirit of the second Vatican Council–in 1963. A similar conference of Jewish and Christian scholars was held last year.
The administrative details of a practical ministry never interested him. His photographs of the Maine coast seemed to one colleague a symbol of Miller’s uncluttered life. “He was a free man.”
While at the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, a friend remembered, he was not interested in committees or attendance. When the church’s spire was in danger of being condemned, however, Miller rallied the congregation into raising $45,000 for its renewal and spurred a drive for a new prayer chapel as well.
Miller felt life deeply and was a strongly spiritual man. “The mystery of life–a word he often used–to him was not mystification but … a way of openness and sensitivity,” Stendahl recalled.
Miller expressed his love of life through an appreciation of art and literature. He brought artists to lectures at the Divinity School and sponsored monthly showings. “Always,” G. Ernest Wright, Parkman Professor of Divinity said yesterday, “he asked–what is he saying about society?”
A 1923 graduate of Colgate University with a B.Th., Miller and received honorary doctorates from seven colleges and universities.
Christ United Methodist Church - Kingston, RI 