'Conscience of Harvard' marks 40 years of ministry
PLYMOUTH - A theologian who has been called "the conscience of Harvard" drew hundreds of supporters yesterday to his home church, where he celebrated 40 years of ministry in a sanctuary where he is better known as a son of Plymouth.
The special service, attended by Governor Deval Patrick, honored the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, pastor of Harvard College's Memorial Church and one of the most well-known professors at the Harvard Divinity School.
Gomes, 66, has counseled five Harvard presidents, prayed at presidential inaugurations, and written two national bestsellers, and he said his connection to First Baptist Church of Plymouth and to this historic town where he grew up has kept him grounded.
"Everybody needs a base, and everybody needs to know where they're from," Gomes said in an interview following the packed service.
"This church taught me that anything is possible and you don't have to be caught up in the limitations of your own circumstance. I preach that every day. I call it the gospel of possibility."
Yesterday, Gomes knelt in prayer at the altar of First Baptist, the church where he was ordained, after publicly reaffirming his vows of ministry.
Church member Michael Maybruck said Gomes has kept a regular presence at the church, where he remains a member and occasionally preaches.
"He's our celebrity," said Maybruck, an usher who said 40 to 50 people usually attend Sunday morning services. He estimated 400 attended yesterday.
"It's really nice to stake a claim that we know Peter Gomes and he's a member here. We really appreciate the fact that he just feels [at] home here."
Patrick honored Gomes as a spiritual mentor from his time as an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1970s, as well as a key political supporter.
Gomes changed his registration from Republican to Democrat to support Patrick in the 2006 gubernatorial primary. He also joined Patrick in his efforts to block a ban on gay marriage.
"I was 18 years old and a freshman at Harvard College in 1974 when I first encountered Peter Gomes," Patrick said. "You encounter Peter Gomes, you don't meet Peter Gomes," he said in describing Gomes's presence. The governor said Gomes, a black minister whose home church has a predominantly white congregation, came across as an "extraordinary, scholarly, self-assured 'Afro-Saxon' utterly determined to define himself on his own terms."
In lavishing praise on Gomes for his role as pastor to Harvard (his official titles there are Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church), speakers said he frequently invokes his upbringing in Plymouth.
"It is said institutions have no soul, no memory, and no conscience," said Jacqueline A. O'Neill, Harvard's university marshal. Gomes, she said, provides all three to Harvard in abundance.
Preston Williams, an emeritus professor at Harvard Divinity School, said Gomes has tackled issues of war and peace, race relations, sexual orientation, and even evolution in his role at Memorial Church, which began in 1974 as America's involvement in Vietnam was winding down.
"We admire Gomes because he preaches the same thing no matter where he is," said the Rev. Charles Gilchrist Adams, a Harvard Divinity School professor who preached the sermon at yesterday's service. "Whatever he preaches at Harvard, he also preaches in Harlem."
Gomes has always used his ministry to address real-world issues, the speakers said.
A year after graduating from Bates College in Maine, Gomes returned to preach a sermon, telling his alma mater, "The world is a mess, but it's a changing mess," recalled Carl Benton Straub, a Bates professor. "Out of biblical faith, he has spoken the truth to institutions and powers."
John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com. 