BUCKSPORT – If Sen. Barack Obama hadn’t decided to run for president, the Rev. Linda Smith’s sermon Sunday at Elm Street Congregational Church would have focused on the Trinity.

Instead, she talked to her white congregation about racism.

It was part of an effort by her denomination, the United Church of Christ, to quell the firestorm of criticism unleashed earlier this year when snippets of sermons made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright were made public.

Wright is pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago church that Obama and his family attend.

“We all know that strides have been made in how we treat and respect our brothers and sisters of color,” Smith said, “but we still have a very long way to go. For many who have been and who still are victims of racism, wounds are deep and memories of oppression are well ingrained.

“We are still a society that operates on racial oppression,” she said. “Even looking at our own congregation, we are mostly a privileged segment of that society, and how we deal with unlearning our racism is a question for us not only to ponder but to discuss and wrestle with.”

This year, May 18 was designated Trinity Sunday. Held the first Sunday after Pentecost – the day the Holy Spirit descended on Christ’s disciples – Trinity Sunday is the Sabbath set aside for Christians to focus on the doctrine that God, the Son and the Holy Spirit together make up one Godhead.

For UCCs around the country, this Trinity Sunday turned into the day an initiative called “Sacred Conversations on Racism” began. The need for the program was outlined in a pastoral letter issued last month from the denomination’s headquarters in Cleveland that did not mention Wright by name.

The recent controversy around the content of his sermons, however, spurred the denomination’s 90-member Executive Council of General Synod of the UCC to adopt on April 14 a resolution supporting the Chicago congregation, its founding pastor and its more than 50 ministries.

The resolution also called for all churches in the denomination to “conduct a sacred conversation about race.” The national office provided materials for ministers and lay people.

Smith used some of them, including the denomination’s 1991 Pastoral Letter on Racism and the Role of the Church, to craft her sermon.

“The letter calls all Christians to ‘renew their commitment to be a people grounded in love and justice embodied in Jesus Christ and the beloved community that Martin Luther King envisioned,'” she said Sunday. “That charge has become clouded these past months as issues of race and gender have once again bubbled to the surface during the prolonged presidential caucuses and primaries to choose the Democratic nominee who will face John McCain in November.”

Karen Harrison, 61, of Verona Island said after the service that she agreed with Smith’s point that the Democratic race for president has shown that there are still divisions of race and gender in the country.

“I thought she put her heart and soul into it,” Harrison said of the pastor’s sermon. “I was impressed at how she pulled together the Gospel lesson [Matthew 28: 16-20] and racism.”

The biblical passage is referred to as the Great Commission, when Jesus sent his disciples into the world to preach the Gospel.

Ann McCann, 74, of Bucksport has been a member of the Elm Street church since she was 12. McCann said she has made a conscious effort over the years to leave behind the bigotry and racism her parents and other relatives expressed.

“I spend the winter in Florida and it is very diverse there,” she said. “I treat everyone the same but I grew up in a family that wasn’t like that. I changed and left that [attitude] behind.”

Smith said that with summer fast approaching she was not sure the congregation would want to begin small group study and conversations about racism. The minister hoped that a group would be able to begin meeting in the fall.

As she concluded her sermon, Smith turned to Christ’s words in the Gospel lesson:

“‘I am with you.’ That is the promise, that is the hope,” she said. “Jesus is telling the disciples and us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ and that it is our responsibility to reach out to all people following his example as we model what it means to live in relationship with one another and with all creation, living a way that involves mutual respect, responsibility, and accountability toward each other regardless of race, gender, age, socioeconomic standing or orientation.

“We are disciples to all nations not just to those of our own choosing,” she said, “and it is through open, honest and respectful conversation that we can work together to make our families, our communities, our workplaces, our churches and our nation what it is called to be – one body in Christ.”

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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Fast facts

The United Church of Christ

Members: 1.4 million in U.S.

Churches : 5,700 in U.S.; 165 in Maine

Sacraments: Baptism, Communion

Founded: 1957 (after merger of two denominations

Sources: www.ucc.org; www.maineucc.org