June 28, 2009

“Partakers With Me of Grace”

Philippians 1:3-11

John 13:2b-9

Pastor Jim Wood's "Final" Sermon

An old story among preachers, or perhaps and more accurately, a story among old preachers, is the one about a Bishop who had repeatedly sent ministers to a frontier town only to have the congregation there repeatedly chase the preachers out of town. In despair, the Bishop sent a youthful, inexperienced man, fresh out of seminary. The young clergyman stayed in that place several years and the people seemed content. Finally the Bishop visited the community and asked the people why they liked the greenhorn minister when they had chased away more competent and experienced clergymen.

An old timer replied, “Well, Bishop, it’s this way! We really don’t want no preacher around here. And this last one you sent comes closest to being that.”

I share this story on this day when I end a five-year ministry as a retired, part-time minister among you. And I wonder, “Is that why I have lasted this long?” Whatever the reason, as I worship with you in this sanctuary which has been our spiritual home these past several years, one which will continue to be even after full retirement, and as I bring my last “official” message as a pastor under appointment by the Bishop, I discover again the truth that it’s hard to come to the end of any important thing gracefully. Whether it’s a letter, a good book, a relationship, a celebration or a life, the final moment is always a difficult one.

It’s easy to understand why this is so. We never get said all that ought to be said, or done all that we wanted to do, and the sense of incompleteness about our efforts presses in upon us when the ending is in sight. Memories gather around the threshold of our awareness, and the prospect of closing a chapter we will not read in the same way again, of leaving behind what has been so wonderful, rich and blessed, suggests anything but a casual, indifferent or shallow handling of the departure.

But as one of my pastor friends once told me, “Life’s second most important lesson is learning to say ‘good-bye’ to what has been” because life is always in the process of change. Though Martha and I are not saying, “good-bye,” because we will continue to live in Sun Lakes and worship and serve with this congregation, we constantly must move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the known to the unknown, from well-worn trails to strange new paths. More than we want to accept, our days that we are privileged to live are made up of transitions, upheavals, and changes in relationships. While life is only understood backwards, as someone has suggested, it must always be lived forward. In that awareness we face this change, which for Martha and me is very emotional and heartrending, as I know it is for some of you.

Jesus tried to help the disciples with this truth, talking at length with them in order to prepare them for his departure from them, as is evident in John’s Gospel in what is called “The Farewell Discourses,” which follow immediately this morning’s reading from the Gospel, in chapters 14-16. First, Jesus acts out for the disciples what he wants them to claim as their life of servanthood in love. He girds his waist with a towel and kneels before them as a servant to wash their feet. Then he talks intimately and earnestly with them about how he must leave them, ending the relationship they had grown accustomed to sharing with him, so that they can claim a dynamic new relationship with him. It’s easy to identify with the disciples’ response as they try to cling to Jesus, to seek assurance about what his going away will mean for them and to resist having anything change at all! But because life’s second most important lesson is learning to say “good-bye” to what has been, the disciples had to accept a changed relationship with Jesus, whether they wanted to or not.

Then the apostle Paul’s words in his letter to his friends at Philippi read like a farewell letter. In it Paul thanks the people of Philippi for their many years of constancy, support, affirmation and caring concern, saying (and here I use a little different version than was read a few moments ago):

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy, thankful for your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now … It is right for me to feel thus about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace.

What a wonderful phrase—“partakers with me of grace.” But then further on in the letter Paul encourages them:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I (even) come to see you (in person) or am absent from you, I may hear of you that you stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

And bringing his letter to a close he utters those memorable lines:

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say Rejoice! … Finally friends, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.

Yes, life’s second most important lesson is to learn to say “good-bye!” to what has been.

But Jesus and Paul also make clear that life’s first most important lesson is to live out God’s love and move forward with faith to embrace the new, to let our lives be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, to live a servant life in a world that cries out to us to stop, to kneel down to help and to stay as long as our being there meets human need, to embody unconditional love in who we are, what we do, what we say and what we value. God created us so that we need each other, and shaped life so that its greatest meaning is found in relationships of sharing, constancy and trust, of reaching out to others and letting them come close to us.

Wayne Oates, in his book Pastoral Counseling, recounts what a 27-year-old woman said to a pastoral counselor during her first visit:

I have lived ever since I became a Christian on the assumption that with only God’s help and my efforts combined could I face life successfully. Now that has collapsed. God and I cannot live alone. We both need other people.

You bet! We need other people in order to receive God’s grace and God needs other people through whom God offers God’s grace.

Hasn’t that been your experience? It has certainly been mine across the past forty years of ordained ministry and even the years of ministry as a student pastor and as a member of the laity before that. During these years I have shared the darkest cruelties and the brightest gifts life bestows on people. The most secluded, intimate rooms of their lives were opened to me because they wanted the grace of Jesus Christ to heal their pain and bless their delight.

I’ve been in the trenches with many others—fighting against aimlessness and apathy, abuse of all kinds, world hunger, bigotry and prejudice; fighting for the marginalized, homeless, poor and families with low-incomes. These have been some of my battles, and they still are. I have rejoiced more often than not when the people of God have worked together to rid society of these ills, but the way is still long.

Nevertheless, I look across those years and am keenly aware of how God’s grace appeared for me in the people who entered my life—some to whom I ministered but most who ministered to me. In their gestures of love, in the truth they were for me, in their kindness, concern and affirmation, in their sense of humor and perspective, in the beauty they created, in the faith that centered them, God’s grace came alive for me. Jesus drew near and stood among us and joy filled what were holy moments.

We do need each other in love. To be partakers together of grace is to labor side by side in the Gospel together—indeed, to be the Gospel for each other, to live out the good news that God is at work in us, giving us each other, giving us faith in Christ, giving us joy and sending us out together to heal a broken world.

In one of his books, Henri Nouwen tells how it happened for him with one of his former students. He writes:

I vividly remember the day on which a former student came back to school and entered my office with the disarming remark: “I have no problem this time, no question to ask you. I do not need your counselor advice, but I simply want to celebrate some time with you.” We went outside and sat on the lawn, facing each other and talked a little about what life had been for us the last year, about our work, our common friends, and about the restlessness of our hearts. Then slowly as the minutes passed by we became silent. Not an embarrassing silence, but a silence that could bring us closer together than the many small and big events of the last year. We would hear a few cars passing and the noise of someone who was emptying a trash can somewhere. But that did not interfere. The silence which grew between us was warm, gentle and vibrant. Once in a while we looked at each other with the beginning of a smile pushing away the last remnants of fear and wariness. It seemed that while the silence grew deeper around us, we became more and more aware of God’s presence embracing both of us. Then he said to me, “It’s good to be here.” And I replied, “Yes, it’s good to be together again,” and after that we were silent again for a long period. And as a peace filled the space between us he said hesitantly, “When I look at you it is as if I am in the presence of Christ.” I did not feel surprised nor did I protest but only answered, “It is the Christ in you who recognizes the Christ in me.” “Yes,” he said, “He indeed is in our midst.” Then he spoke words which entered into my soul as the most healing words I had ever heard: “From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground between us will be holy ground.”

I want to say that similar moments have occurred for Martha and me with you—moments which were infused with the presence of Christ—moments of silence and laughter, moments of silence and the anguish of suffering, moments of silence and the sounds of grief, moments of silence and spirited conversation, moments of silence and the beautiful sounds of deeds of love being shared.

And that’s why “from now on, wherever you go, or wherever we go, all the ground between us will be holy ground,” because we are “partakers together of grace.”

And that’s why we dare to live forward, ready to embrace all that shall be. In that spirit I prayerfully hope you greet your new associate, part-time, retired pastor, Don Bommarito, as he comes to serve here among you as a “partaker with you of grace.” The greatest testimony you can give to my ministry among you is to welcome him, want the best for him, support him, pray for him, and go forward with him on your journey of faith, with a daring vision of the Kingdom of God made real in decisive deeds of love.

After July 31, that’s the official date, I will no longer be one of your pastors and I hope you understand that’s why I will be reluctant to serve in occasions that call for a pastoral presence or function. This is because I do not want to rob my successor of his rightful opportunity to be one of your pastors, to walk with you in joy and stand with you in the shadows or pray with you at the border moments of life.

But I will always be your friend in Christ, we will always be your friends in Christ, because in the years we were privileged to spend together and in the years to come, we are always partakers together of grace. And … “from now on, wherever you go, or wherever we go, all the ground between us will be holy ground.”

As Martha and I go on our way to “full retirement,” yet continue to do some of the things we enjoy doing here in this church, we’re very grateful for you and thank God for you! You can be sure that we will continue to cherish you and all our years together. God bless all of you—each one of you—with the power of the Risen Christ! Amen!