Reflection for March 6

The Rev. Dr. Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, died Monday. A few remembrances, collected at Episcopal Café: “He was the first black minister of Memorial Church and the first pastor of that church to participate in a US president’s inauguration. The Rev. Gomes also was the only gay, black, Republican, Baptist preacher most people would ever meet” (Boston Globe). “The turning point for me was a shocking sermon he preached in 1991, ‘The Courage to Remember,’ where an African-American minister from Harvard railed against Harvard’s Memorial Hall because it only commemorated Union dead from the Civil War, not the Confederates. ‘Humanity transcends the sides and there are no victors ultimately; there are only those to be commended to God’” (Allegra Jordan at Faith and Leadership).