Well, this is it! I’m feeling both sadness and anticipation. My sadness has to do with leaving this special community and this wonderful experience of being involved once again in parish ministry. You were so welcoming initially, and I’ve felt affirmed and cared for during these five years. Very early in our experience here, Meg said to me, "We’ve gained another community in our life." That has been so true. And it’s been such a joy to be part of this staff team. I work alone in my counseling practice downtown, and although I have a peer group to meet with, and I cross paths with other colleagues, here I’ve been able to spend a few hours each week with these other staff members who respect and support each other. We work well together and we really have a good time together. That’s not true for a lot of church staffs. And you benefit from that special relationship. And frankly, we’re also very good at what we do! Being here has certainly stretched me. Before coming, it had been quite a while since I had preached and participated regularly in worship leadership. And this has necessitated my digging more deeply into the Scriptures and into theological reading and reflection. And while you may have picked up that I’m not very doctrinaire about such things, my faith has been strengthened. And I’ve been grateful for the opportunities to discuss and share my insights and convictions about such things. That’s because this is a place where we can find a way to keep the faith without closing our minds, and where we are not afraid to explore and question. This is not a place where your clergy do not challenge you by merely reverting to traditional doctrine and ways of speaking about the faith. This is also a place of affirmation and inclusiveness, where your uniqueness is accepted, different gifts are honored, individual conscience is respected, and where you are free to experience and know God in your own special way. Being here has also reinforced my conviction that what it really is finally about is relationships, community and love. By now you know that these themes run through my sermons and discussions. This I believe is at the heart of the Christian faith. And being here has reinforced my conviction that the church can be (can be!) relevant and an important and compassionate voice in our world today. This morning we read from Nehemiah. Nehemiah is an account of Israel back in Jerusalem after its time of exile in Babylon. The reading is about return and homecoming, about renewal of the covenant and bringing the people to a deeper understanding of themselves as the people of God. And in the Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus, after his baptism and his time in the wilderness, returns to his hometown of Nazareth, and returns to the synagogue for worship and is handed the scroll to read. He reads the familiar passage from Isaiah and that prophet’s consciousness of mission. And he sees this as illuminating his own mission and that of those who would follow him. And later, Paul also comes to a deeper experience and revelation in his life. In this morning’s passage he reminds a very diverse church at Corinth that life in Christ means life in community, interdependent and caring for one another, and working for the common good as the body of Christ in the world, reaching out to the whole human family. These scriptures are about return and renewal, remembering and fresh insights about God in our lives and our ministry. And this is what being with you has been for me: returning to ministry in the parish; remembering that which has brought me to this time and place in my life; and re-membering parts of myself in the sense of bringing them back in to my life and work here. So, this has been renewing and deepening for me, a homecoming of sorts. And it has helped me to grow in confidence and a broader sense of competence –even as an event planner! I’m grateful for this. At times I’ve heard my leaving spoken of as my retirement. I’m not really retiring. I can’t afford to. I will be continuing my counseling practice of 33 years. However, I am on Medicare and Social Security now, and so I am looking forward to a bit more personal time for reading and study, some volunteering, more opportunities for traveling with Meg, and sorting through and cleaning up what has piled up on my desks over the past five years. Meg has been wonderfully understanding and supportive of my time and work here. Thank you, Sweetheart! I will also return with Meg to First Congregational Church downtown, and rejoin the choir. I’ve already been asked to offer Life Review groups for folks there, and to assist in training lay visitors, as we’ve done here in our Called to Care program. There are some other words I want to leave with you. First, I want to say "Thank You!" I’m grateful for this time I’ve had with you, and for the love you’ve shown. Then, I want to say that I think the life of this church is in a very good place. It’s working and we’re growing. Programs are in place, and the energy and resources are here to move it into the future with confidence, empowered by the love of God we experience here. For all of us, our security and our future will lie in our ability to be in community, establishing mutual bonds of trust and compassion, and in reaching out and bringing together, reflecting the inclusive love of Jesus. A month ago, the Bill Moyers show focused on the Rev. James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. Forbes spoke of growing up in a southern Pentecostal family, and of the family’s dinnertime ritual. Before grace was said, his mother would ask, "Are all my children in?" If any weren’t, a plate was prepared and warmed in the oven. This is God’s continuing question to us in our diverse and divided world, the question that must continue to illumine our lives and ministry –"Are all my children in?" You and I are living in this historical moment, just one moment in a long process of healing and repair in our world. And we are called to see ourselves as part of that long process of healing and reconciliation, and the care of the earth and that web of life that sustains us. Perhaps you read as I did the other day the alarming Washington Post article in which researchers are concluding that the present rate of global warming will drive up to 37% of living species toward extinction by 2050. Oh well, there’s always the moon and mars! You see, it’s as if by our baptism, which we re-affirmed here last week, that we are watermarked for a special mission in the world. And this will at times mean going against the flow. And this is also how we participate in the eternal, and in the unfolding of God’s love. Speaking of going against the flow, you may or may not (probably not!) remember my first sermon here. I spoke of David Maitland’s book, Aging As Counterculture, in which he speaks of the unique role of the church in our society as a community of "support and defiance." It’s a community where people are present to one another and care for one another. It’s also a community that must defy evil and engage in social criticism, insisting on the sacredness and interrelatedness of all of life. And he speaks of aging as countercultural, because it’s an opportunity to step outside or beyond so much that has defined us earlier in our lives, and to speak our minds and report what we see. Seniors have a way of doing this. You see, they’ve been over the mountain many times and figure "what have they got to lose?" I’ve loved my work with you seniors, sharing with you, learning from you, and caring for each other. In so doing, I believe we come to know more fully what it means to be held in and grow in God’s love. Thank you for this opportunity. What a blessing this has been for me! Would you seniors please stand up…. There’s a wealth of life experience, wisdom and courage here, and many years of loyal service and giving that these folks bring as this church moves into the future. And I am thrilled and gratified that Julia Jarvis will be carrying on this important ministry. And now listen to these words that I borrow liberally from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets: "Time present and time past are both present in time future, not the experience of one life only, but of many generations not forgetting. Last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice….. There is no end, but addition. To make an end is to make a beginning. Old men (and women!) ought to be explorers….we must be still and still moving into another intensity….With the drawing of love and the voice of this calling, we shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." As I said, being here has been a kind of homecoming for me, because it has been a time of rediscovery and restoration of some of those untended parts of my spirituality and gifts. And I’ve been led back to where I started in this journey of faith and ministry, knowing that place more clearly, as if for the first time. And this ending is yet another beginning for me, an addition and further exploration, drawing on the love I have known here. And this ending will be a new beginning and a further exploration for you as well, a time for remembering and renewal. I will miss you. But what we’ve deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us. You will be a treasured part of my memory, and we all are part of God’s memory. Again, thank you, and Amen. |
