Dr. William A. Ritter
Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Interfaith Thanksgiving Service - November 21, 2004
The following remarks were shared at a Thanksgiving service which combined congregants from Temple Beth El, St. Hugo of the Hills Roman Catholic Church, and Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church. They were offered in response to a tribute bestowed upon Dr. Ritter commemorating forty years in ministry and twelve years of pastoral leadership in the greater Birmingham/Bloomfield community.
Rabbi Syme, Dr. Pritchard and Monsignor Tocco, let me thank you for your wonderful tribute. Coming from anybody, such words would be welcome. But coming from colleagues I respect and admire, such words are wonderful. And if there be any justification in the singling out of one, given the worthiness of many, I am glad it happened tonight in the midst of a worshiping congregation that is so clearly and communally interfaith.
I am the grandson of a German Lutheran and Slovenian Catholic. I am married to a woman with multiple Jewish ancestors and an uncle in the priesthood. And just six weeks ago, my daughter married, of all things, a Presbyterian (whose father sings in a United Church of Christ chorale). I was bred to be a bridge. I was wed to be a bridge. And I have been led through forty years of ministry, trying to rebuild bridges that some of my colleagues are presently burning.
For it occurs to me, as I look upon my tradition, that an inordinate amount of time and passion is spent parsing the house rather than enlarging the house. Far too many of my colleagues are worrying about, even obsessing over, who’s right and who’s wrong…who’s right and who’s left….who’s in and who’s out…. who’s welcome and who’s not.
All things considered, this is not terribly neighborly. Every four years, it seems that some politician or another asks me if I am better off than I was four years ago. Which is a rather selfish way to look at things. For, as a man of faith, I should be asking if my neighbor is better off than he was four years ago….especially when the neighbor is (in the words of the Founder of my Firm) “numbered among the least of these.”
I can’t let go of that wonderful image from the prophetic tradition of Israel that describes all those people streaming up the mountain….too many to count….too centered to divide….and altogether too wondrous to credit to anyone other than God.
I know there are as many different ideas of the journey’s end as there are people in this room. And as to whether your particular concept of “going home” includes some kind of post-arrival accounting, I do not know. But in the event that I am met by Maker, Master, Mediator or High Priest and asked to account for my ministry, I expect my interrogator will begin by noting the toiling I have done in my little corner of the vineyard….row 53, to be specific….row 53 (the Methodist row at the corner of Maple and Pleasant). But if there is a question of accountability to follow, I do not expect to be asked how it went with row 53. Rather, I expect to be asked: “So Bill, how did the vineyard do?”
