On Parting
Updated: Oct 7
Yes, it's true that Mary and I are leaving Pauls Valley. The official announcement can be found here:
Yes, this will be the beginning of a new season for this congregation, but the old season still has a couple more weeks in it. There will be time enough to work out the new ways of doing things during the interregnum, and to form a Pastor Nominating Committee, and get to know your new pastor later. These last weeks are about parting, not planning. I can't say that I'm good at it; who could? It makes me want to look for an example to compare myself against. It turns out there is one. When Jesus was getting ready to part with his disciples, they gathered together, and in the Gospel of John, they sat around and talked about it a great deal--five whole chapters!--he washed their feet and gave them advice and answered their questions and tried to tell them how much he loved them. I'm not Jesus, but I try to learn from Jesus. Here's what I see.
First, Jesus washed their feet. "I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done." I have tried to be a servant in my time here. I can't say that I've been perfect at it (I'm not Jesus) but the things I've done have been motivated by serving the congregation, the community, and the larger denomination. "Servants are not greater than their master," says Jesus. I'm not your master, Jesus is. I have not been a perfect servant. Jesus was. We work together to try to serve each other. What does Jesus want? When he leaves, he wants the disciples to serve one another. Me too. I'm going to continue to try to serve. You also: continue to serve each other, and our community, and the denomination.
Here's the tricky part. Service to others can sometimes seem like a chore. Jesus follows the command to serve one another with a command that sums up the entirety of the gospel. "Love one another as I have loved you." Aside from these Maundy Thursday chapters, the Gospel of John has very little in the way of moral imperative. This one command, to love one another, covers all the rest that could be said. To some extent, Jesus is saying, "Love one another and work out the details for yourself." Jesus loved us and died for us and rose for us and reigns in power for us, says Paul. Jesus said, "you will do the works that I do, and in fact you will do greater works." That's kind of amazing, the idea that we might do greater works than Jesus. In the context of these Maundy Thursday discourses, it seems to mean that we will serve and love each other with greater works. Is that possible? Yes, I'm going away, but you will still be a loving community and will continue to love each other when I'm gone as we all love each other with Christ gone.
What empowers that love and that service to one another? Jesus promised the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit, and they did. "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth." I would translate that as "God will give you another besides me to walk alongside you and always be with you. This is the Spirit of faithfulness." Ok, I'm no translator, but the implication is that the Holy Spirit is always walking alongside you all the time, not just being a defense lawyer when you get in trouble. It means that God has always been faithful to us, and God has been known as having covenant love for us and faithfulness to us since the time of Moses, and this Spirit is the Spirit of that faithfulness to us. Whether Paul or Apollos or Chas is here in the pulpit, whoever is serving on session, it's Christ whom we follow and God is faithful to continue loving this congregation.
There's kind of a funny moment at the end of Chapter 14. Jesus says, "Rise, let us be on our way," which makes it sound like the meal is over, but Jesus keeps on talking for three more chapters. In this, I'm kinda like Jesus, just rambling on with more words. Here's the thing, though. Having posted the official announcement, I find I have more to say to you in love.
Here's what I think is really going on, though. Jesus has just said, "If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father." He knows that there's more work to do on earth, more loving and more serving to accomplish. He has told them that he prepares a place for them and all this has made him anxious to get on with it; to get the work of life done so that we can get to the reunion later. While we are parting now, there will come a time when "we've been there ten thousand years," and we'll have "no less days to sing God's praise" together. So Jesus says, Rise (as Jesus is rising to the Father), let us be on our way, let us be about that business. Let's hurry up the end times, the escahton, and start enjoying each other's company. Sometimes we say "Come, Lord Jesus!" to mean the same thing. In hope, we know that, though we're parting, it won't be forever.
In the meantime, we share in mutual abiding. Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me as I abide in you. If you abide in me you will bear much fruit." If each of us abides in Christ like branches in the vine, then we also abide in each other. Paul says we are the body of Christ and individually members of it. The one body of Christ, the one vine that we all abide in also makes us one. It may seem like we're apart, but we are unified in our mutual abiding in Christ.
This mutual abiding plays out in two other important ways. First, we in the Presbyterian tradition emphasize the connectional church. When we give to the denomination, we are still paying Tom Buzbee's pension; we are supporting the love and service to other Presbyterians and the people that Presbyterians serve. When we serve on Presbytery committees, we are working with colleagues across the denomination and forming relationships as we work and accomplish things together. As long as we abide in the larger body of Christ, we are connected to each other, no matter where we are worshiping or working.
Second, the sacraments witness to our mutual abiding. When we are baptized, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ. "Incorporated" literally means "In the Body (the Corpus)." When we take communion, we enact taking Christ's body into us. For one thing, and I've never thought of this before, all our relationships ARE Christ's body, and when we take Christ's body into us, it is as though we are taking those relationships into us, holding each other in our hearts. That's a spiritual/emotional interpretation of what's happening during communion. Finally, after all the Reformation era debates about the real presence of Christ in communion, Calvin settled on the idea that of course, Christ's presence is real during communion. Christ ascended to heaven and lifts our hearts and minds and eyes to enjoy his presence there. Christ abides among us during communion with real presence, regardless of what's going on with the bread, and that means we also abide with each other during communion. As long as the Word is faithfully proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered in this congregation, we will abide together.
Jesus tells his disciples whom he now calls friends that he knows they will have pain over their separation. I feel the pain of our separation, something like anticipatory grief at this point. I know part of this is painful. Jesus says, "but your pain will turn into joy." As long as we abide in Christ, the new season that is about to start will produce fruit, and some of that fruit is joy. I am sad to go, but excited for you as you get to re-imagine the ministry here and strengthen your life together under the leadership of the session and with the help of the Presbytery. Somewhere, we say when a church is between pastors, your next pastor is already out there being called to your exciting next season. When they come you will celebrate them just as you celebrated me when I arrived. You will get to know them, love them, and mutually abide together in Christ as you serve God together.
Finally, Jesus reassures the disciples that he is going to be with the Father, and that the Father loves them. That is certainly true when we part. God loves this congregation and remains with you. Do not worry about me, either; God loves me and remains with me as well. Jesus tells this to the disciples so that they will have peace. That is what I pray for you as I go: that you, also, will have peace.
"After he had spoke these words," Jesus prayed. Chapter 17 has been identified as something like a Midrash, an expansion and explanation of the Lord's Prayer. Jesus prays here to the Father about Glory, making God's name known and holy, protecting the disciples and providing for their needs, delivering them from evil. The themes and even sometimes the literal words come in the same order as in the Lord’s Prayer in this prayer that Jesus prays for his disciples, his friends, before he parts. We have prayed that prayer together weekly or more. It's easy to hear it as cliché, but Jesus makes it real and emotional. I pray all this for us as well, and every time in the future I pray the Lord's Prayer, it will have deeper meaning as I think of friends in Pauls Valley.
Peace and blessings,
--Chas
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