This will be my last Sunday worship as pastor of McKnight UMC, and very likely my last ever as a pastor of a specific church. I’ll likely do some guest preaching at times in various churches (our District Superintendent, Rev. Deborah Ackley-Killian, assures me that I’m on her list), but this will indeed likely be the last at a church where I am appointed by the Bishop. I will begin Monday June 6 as a Home Hospice Chaplain with Vitas Healthcare, with the bulk of the work being Monday-Friday (at this point at least—some flexibility may emerge), and that will be my appointment in retirement. Yes, I am retiring, effective the end of June, 39 years after I was first ordained in June 1983 (six years to the day from my high school graduation). It has been many years since I began this journey, and even though I’m retiring it will continue in this new role.
It hasn’t hit me that this will be not only my last Sunday at McKnight, but my last pre-retirement worship-leading Sunday. Carol Neifert’s over two-years delayed memorial service will be this month, and I will still be planning the worship for the remaining three Sundays in June, based on what the guest preachers give me as Scripture and sermon title;. And the evenings in June will be spent in cleaning out my study/office at the church. So maybe the lack of immediacy of the conclusion of my eight years at McKnight has delayed that sense of ending and the emotions that accompany it. And the abrupt shift from being with people in the dynamics of the end of their lives on some occasions, which does indeed happen as the pastor of a church—I have had those blessed moments with some of our dearly departed folk at McKnight—to being with them five days a week hasn’t really hit me yet either. The journey of lifelong ministry continuing in this new direction will likely engage me interestingly over the next months.
But the immediate reflection is on what this Sunday means for me personally, and perhaps by extension to you.
The passage from Acts tells of the Apostle Paul’s departure from Ephesus, by his own admission the first church he had founded in Asia. He’d been with them three years, faithfully serving with them and guiding them as they grew as a church. He now is leaving to go somewhere else, and although we have the Letter to the Ephesians that he wrote to them sometime later, he never again in his lifetime is in Ephesus. And so he reminds them of all they have done together, and as he’s leaving he says “And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.” (Acts 19:32) He reminds them that he served them with integrity, not seeking personal gain, and he leaves them with the assurance that they will continue in God’s grace, and therefore will continue to grow in grace.
I leave McKnight with those same convictions and those same assurances—for eight years. I have done my best to serve with integrity. I have preached and taught and organized and baptized and married and buried. I have visited you and been with you in joyous times and sad times. We have laughed together and cried together. And just as Paul writes to another of the churches he founded, the church in Philippi, I say to you (and to the other churches I have served for over 40 years, if you count the time before I was ordained in 1983—which I do!), “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3-6)
I do leave with that assurance that you will continue in God’s grace, and therefore will continue to grow in grace. I have been a cog in the wheel, a witness to the bigger and more powerful work that the Holy Spirit has done and will do in you. I am grateful to have journeyed with you for this time, and am grateful for all which you have inspired in me.
And now I commend you to God.
EPISTLE Philippians 1:3-11
3 I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God
NEW TESTAMENT Acts 20:17-38
17 From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. 18 When they came to him, he said to them: ‘You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. 20 I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus. 22 And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. 24 But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace. 25 ‘And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again. 26 Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. 29 I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified. 33 I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. 34 You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. 35 In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” ’
36 When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed. 37 There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, 38 grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship.