In 1988 I withdrew from St. Paul's Parish,
Bantam, after fourteen years as part-time pastor. Always feeling 18 (and
sometimes behaving younger), I realized with regret that my stamina was much
less than it had been. Parish life had stabilized well, and with my fulltime
teaching position and writing commitments I needed fewer responsibilities. If I
had continued at St. Paul's, burnout would have developed. In my concluding
sermon on February 28th I remarked, "I hope that I can find another parish
where I can in time feel at home, among friends." At that moment I had no idea
where I was going to worship, never mind serve somehow as a priest.
Knowing a bit about Christ Church Cathedral's
embrace of "all sorts and conditions" of people, I spoke with Dean Gushee,
Canon Mansfield, and Bishop Walmsley about joining this congregation and
helping out a bit. About a month after leaving St. Paul's, I assisted Canon
Jones at the 8 A.M. Easter Eucharist. More and more, I have felt at home, among
friends.
I retired from my state teaching post two years
ago, and plans for my Florida senior years are in place. In two weeks it will
be time for me to leave this congregation. Although the next chapter is a new
and exciting adventure, for quite some time I have been apprehensive about the
transition. I do not easily leave beloved people, familiar places, and patterns
of living. However, I have not been left comfortless. Last November the
Executive Council of the Episcopal Church met in Hartford. The Cathedral
welcomed the Council to a Service of Evensong, reception, and dinner. From the
chancel, I saw a seminary classmate in the congregation: Calvin Schofield,
Bishop of Southeast Florida. In the course of the reception in Cathedral House,
I found myself in conversation with him and Bishop Coleridge. Standing between
the two bishops, I was wonderfully reassured. I realized that although I shall
leave nearly four decades of living in the Diocese of Connecticut, another
diocesan community awaits in southeast Florida. This awareness does not negate
the sad and uneasy dimensions of my passage, but it does ease the pain and
provides hope, even expectation. I trust that eventually I shall again feel at
home, among friends.
The remarks of Jesus in today's Gospel indicate
that quality relationships were very important to him. He considered his true
family to be those who do the will of God, not necessarily his relatives. While
preparing this sermon, it occurred to me that most of my enduring and closest
relationships, my true family and friends, are with Church-related women and
men, and most of those are Episcopalians. I assure you that I am not conscious
of any deliberate Anglican chauvinism. Nonetheless, as a youngster and
afterwards I have experienced a positive, qualitative difference among friends
and those who are my true family, people who in various ways align their hearts
and minds with God's will.
This is not to imply naively that all churchfolk
offer quality relationships or are doing God's will. In this regard, last June
Bishop John Burgess, retired Bishop of Massachusetts who had ordained me to the
diaconate thirty years earlier, wrote to me, "I am disheartened by the crazy
and senseless things that seem to be keeping our church upset these days.
...Now with so much evidence of the disintegration of our public and personal
lives, it is tragic that Christian people, with the Gospel of salvation, can
get excited about who should be admitted into the (ordained) ministry, whether
prayers should be said in Elizabethan English, whether one translation of the
Bible or another is the Voice of God. As if folks who have broken hearts,
broken families, broken bank accounts care a hoot."
Some lay and ordained churchpeople have
priorities falling short of God's will; some are dictators, malcontents,
mischief-makers, and wrongdoers ever ready, sometimes subconsciously, to do
battle or wreak havoc. In spite of them, I firmly believe that within the
assembly of God you and I have the opportunity, not only to continue to grow in
Christ's love and service, but also to develop personal relationships, true
families and friends, that grow in mutual affection.
More specifically though, what is this "will of
God?" What does today's Collect mean by thinking and doing those things that
are right? Surely it is not a preoccupation with those matters Bishop Burgess
notes as "crazy and senseless things keeping our church upset these days."
Certainly it is not the concerns of parish dictators, malcontents,
mischief-makers, and wrongdoers! Hear from Bishop Porteus' words spoken at the
Consecration of Bishops Coleridge and Hastings in 1981: "And Matthew said
that Jesus came and put forth His hand and touched them. That is a picture of
his ministry. There was no one He would not touch. That is a picture of His
life. ...That is the secret and the heart of His ministry, and that is the
secret of His life: reaching and touching out of love in order to bring God's
love and nearness...to people, one by one. ...So in the years ahead, yes, be
for great causes and speak for great causes and work for great causes, for poor
and oppressed and for the disenfranchised, but no more resolutions, no more
speeches; let it be touching, let it be love. ...Stretch forth your hands, Brad
and Clarence, and help us to continue to stretch forth our hands, too. For
Jesus stretched forth His hand, and touched them, and brought them life."
Touching the lives of others with God's love and
ours, and allowing others to touch our lives as well: this is the will of God!
Within our congregations especially we have the responsibility to see to it
that this touching quality is active. Who gives a hoot about new "Decades
of...whatever," innovative materials, helpful programs, or Rites 4 through 104?
They mean next to nothing unless lives are touched steadily through faithful
and life-giving worship, religious education, and pastoral care. Moreover, I
believe that the most important of these is worship. In the words of another,
"There remains to the church only one unique and peculiar responsibility: the
conduct of public worship. If the church does nothing other than to keep open a
house, symbolic of the homeland of the soul, where in season and out women and
men come to reenact the memory and vision of who they are, it will have
rendered society and each of us a service of immeasurable value. So long as the
church bids men and women to participate in the liturgies of the Christian
faith community it need not question its place, mission or influence in the
world. If it loses faith or is careless in its rituals it need not look to its
avocations to save it." [from Westerhoff, The Spiritual Life]
The conduct of public worship, religious
education for people of all ages, and pastoral care within and beyond the
congregation are the active priorities of this cathedral church. I believe
that, beyond whatever conflicts may exist among us, beyond whatever personal
quirks may too often get in the way, the congregation of this sacred place is
doing God's will. Without doubt I know that during these six years you have
touched my life with God's love, and for your life-giving ministry and
affection I thank you.
Let us bow our heads and pray again the Collect
of this day: "O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your
inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful
guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."