Pentecost 6
Mark 6:14-29

Dear friends in Christ,

As you are by now aware I announced this week that I have decided to bring my 20 ½ year ministry in this congregation to a close. After today I’ll have just 3 more Sundays with you as your pastor, finishing August 2nd. It’s tempting during these ending days to want to run and hide, pretend nothing has really happened, and just walk away and be done. But as I’ve thought about that, I don’t think that would be a good thing either for myself or for you, the congregation. We have the opportunity for some healthy leave taking, and that’s what I hope can take place. We have the opportunity to celebrate and give thanks and laugh and cry and forgive so that, in the end, we can each, pastor and congregation, go forward in faith to that new place God is calling.

I don’t have mapped out what I’ll say in each of these final messages. But I know where I’d like to start. I’d like to start by acknowledging that this is a time of grief both for myself and you. There is no way around that. For 20 years you have allowed me into your lives at very significant times, and vice versa. There are the times of joy like Baptisms and weddings and graduations and building dedications, and there are the times of sadness like unexpected illness, members moving from the community, death of loved ones , 9-11, and so on. In the end, ministry is about people, as we all struggle to understand life and God. When the time comes for those relationships to end or significantly change, there is grief.

Grief is a complicated thing. There is the initial shock of the announced change, there may be sadness, there can be anger or blame, there can be guilt, there can be mixed feelings of happiness and sadness, there’s always unfinished business. And in a congregation as large as ours there are some who will be quite glad for a new start with new leadership. Just as in our human families there are all these different emotions at a time of loss, and sometimes out right dysfunction, so it is also true for the church family. It’s not easy, it takes time to process, but it is normal. So, whatever you’re feeling today and in the weeks and months to come, it’s ok. Change happens in our churches even as it happens in our lives. It is God alone who is unchanging, and God always sees us through.

So, why bring on this sadness or complicated set of emotions to the church? Why go? Why now? It’s a fair question. The best way I can answer that is to say it is not any one thing, recent or past, that led me to this decision. If it were just one thing, I would have been gone long ago, because there’s always another thing that happens. It’s really 20 years of ministry in a congregation that has ministry needs from cradle to grave. 20 years of Sundays, roughly 1000, 20 years of holidays, 20 years of Wednesday confirmation, 20 years of council meetings, committee meetings, and on and on I could go. Throw in controversy about gay and lesbian persons, which has happened across the whole Christian church and across the whole culture. Mix in some inevitable staff changes, which can be hard. Throw in the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression and all the fear that brings. Factor in that my life stage has changed significantly in 20 years. The simple reality is I’m pretty worn out. And that’s why I need to be done. It has been a great blessing, and I’ll talk about some of that in upcoming weeks, but it’s also time to hand it off so that new leaders might emerge for the next leg of the journey. I’ve run a long race, I’ve run it hard, and I’ll run it to the end. But it’s time to bring it to completion, spend some time recovering, and look for that new place where God will call.

And what’s true for me is also true for the church. You will have time to evaluate what has been, what’s worked and what hasn’t. It’s a great time to redefine the congregation’s mission. It’s been 6 tears since we last did that, and much has changed. That will be essential as you think about your future and the type of leadership that will take.

Rest assured that you will not be without pastoral leadership. It’s up to the council to work with Noreen Stevens of our synod to provide for interim and eventually permanent pastoral leadership. There’s lots of good pastors out there available to help with the transition, and when the time comes for you to begin interviewing new pastors for the call, you’ll have many to choose from. God is already preparing the way for that to happen. Please welcome your new leaders, even as you welcomed me more than 20 years ago.

One final thought before I tie some of this back into our lessons. In the end, this is for me a spiritual matter. It is about listening to God and trying to be open to where the spirit of God will lead. Most of the people God called as prophets and disciples and leaders in the Bible obediently went not knowing where they’d end up. Think of Abraham or Moses in the Old Testament, Mary and Joseph, the disciples, Paul in the new. At some point we are called to trust God and to step out in faith. That is finally, after much internal struggle, what led me to this decision.

Well, let’s turn to today’s gospel. This gospel reading is about the least uplifting lesson we have in the three year lectionary cycle. It records the death of John the Baptist. It reveals humanity at its lowest. There are inappropriate relationships, sex and power issues, and a violent ending for John. Unfortunately, too much like what still happens today. Now over the years I have had my share of critics, but I still have my head, so I guess that’s a good thing. There could be worse ways to leave, like what happened to John.

Is there anything at all that we can learn and apply to our lives from such a sordid tale as is told in Mark’s gospel? Well, there is one thing I have noticed in the readings over the past couple of weeks. I haven’t talked about it, but it’s there. It’s also something we really don’t want to hear.

In these summer lessons we are reading about what it takes to be a disciple. Three weeks ago Paul talks about all the trials he encountered. He said he’s endured hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, sleepless nights and hunger. Aside from the sleepless nights, it makes the job of parish pastor seem pretty easy. Last week we read about Jesus being rejected by people of his hometown, Nazareth. He was shocked at their unbelief and could do very little with that. Today we have the murder of the forerunner to Christ, John the Baptist.

I think the reason this is all included, and this is what we really don’t want to hear, is that being a disciple is really difficult. Look what happened to Paul, look what happened to John, even Jesus was resisted in his hometown, and, we, of course, know how he died.

Most of us prefer the easy route. Come to church, worship with family and friends, go out to breakfast, repeat next week. But these are lessons that say that the Christian faith demands so much more than that. If you’ve never felt any push back, if you’ve never been hurt or wounded as a result of your faith, then maybe it’s time to think about what you really believe and how you live. There’s a cost to discipleship, we ought not forget that. It cost John his life. What has it cost you?
And then I think there’s another important thing we can learn. In the death of John, we can be inspired by John. The bold witness and courage of John the Baptist is that inspiration. As the forerunner to Christ he had an unbelievably difficult job. He was to prepare the way, to call people to repentance, to reveal sin. He had to believe in what he was doing. He had to be grounded in faith and the belief in God’s love and plan for the world. And he was. He was so grounded, so sure of God’s plan and his place in it, he was obedient unto death

Where does such faith and obedience come from? In Ephesians we have a clue. This faith comes from trust that God has indeed chosen us before the foundation of the world and has sealed us in Holy Baptism. In the Baptism service we say “You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever!” Forever! That’s a long time. That’s a lot more than 20 years. Because of that we believe God will never let us go. We might call this perspective the “long view” of the life of faith, trusting that whatever sufferings or hardships we endure in the present are but a single, small point on the longer time line of God’s plans for us.

Herod and Herodias, who were responsible for John’s death, obviously didn’t get this. They had no faith in God above. They thought their kingdom and power and glory were all that mattered. They disregarded God and therefore disregarded God’s messenger, John the Baptist. I was struck by what a coward Herod was. Instead of standing up for John, who apparently was making some impact on his life, he gave in to the pressure of Herodias to have him killed. Whereas John had convictions, Herod had none. And so he killed him, probably thinking that was the end of that.

But that was not the end. There was a greater purpose in John’s death that Herod failed to see. John’s death made it abundantly clear that the life of faith would be difficult. It foreshadowed what would happen to Jesus. It pointed to the challenges the disciples would face, as well as all that followed Christ. In the end, John’s death inspired others to be bold in their witness, to trust God always. His death was not the end. It was just the beginning of a witness that would be faithful even unto death. We, too, can expect hardships small and sometimes great. Yet God’s promise remains. We are God’s children now and forever.

Well, I know the days ahead will not be easy for me or for you. Grief never is. But it’s part of life. It’s not easy being a disciple, as our lesson has shown. And yet it’s often at our most difficult times that our need to depend on God becomes most clear. May this be true for us as we share in this time of leave taking. Amen