Peter J. Gomes



Peter J. Gomes
1942 - 2011



I would love to see the day when we would be prepared to try living out what we know to be our better nature, what we understand in our hearts to be our ideal image as created in God's image. I know we want to be better than we are. I know we want a world better than the one we have. I know we want to do better things than the things we seem trapped into doing. If we only had the courage to try that, it would be an amazing phenomenon.

I remain hopeful that there are enough people who will look at themselves in the mirror and say, "I do not want to be this person. I want to become somebody else. I want to be the person God meant me." As long as there are people who think that way, I remain hopeful. I remain hopeful because I'm that way. I look at myself and I say, "Gomes, I want to be what God meant me to be."

I've done some interesting things and they've been fun and sometimes even productive, but I believe my best days are ahead of me. I believe that God is not finished with me. Extraordinary things to happen, and I can't wait to find out what they're going to be.

– December 14, 2007, in an interview conducted by Tavis Smiley

The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes was Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Every year, his sermons greeted the new freshmen and launched the graduating seniors.  A prominent conservative Republican, he gave the benediction at President Reagan’s second inauguration and delivered the National Cathedral sermon for George H. W. Bush's inauguration four years later.  In 1991, in response to anti-gay commentary in a campus magazine, he shared that he was homosexual.  Subsequently, he used his considerable theological and rhetorical skills to present the case for religious tolerance of diversity.  In 2006, the Baptist minister switched political parties and supported Deval Patrick, the Democrat, for governor of Massachusetts.

He passed away on February 28, 2011.  He had planned to retire in 2012, after more than 40 years at Harvard.

Sample sermons can be found at the Memorial Church web site.  Gomes was also the author of several best-selling books.  He will be missed by those he touched.