You and I and this parish are in a similar position. Bishops retire not when they want to retire but when they turn 72, as I will in late October. I don’t feel as though I have finished, but the Holy Spirit and the rules of the church say otherwise. So that must mean our God in Christ has something in mind for me.
That doesn’t mean I don’t feel a little scared sometimes. I love my ministry. And thanks to my family of origin story, I’m afraid, deep down, that I won’t be as important to God and even the people in my life when I’m not working. Of course that’s not true. But the voices in our heads, the things we worry about most, have a big impact on us.
Each of you has a story like this. During these life passages, when we’re saying goodbye to someone or something so important, the sense of loss isn’t just emotional and spiritual. It’s physical. Something feels missing. We feel diminished, unsure of ourselves, lost. We know we’re supposed to open our hearts in hope to what’s coming. But we’d prefer to forgo the opportunity. We’d be happy if everything stayed the same.
What we know for sure this morning is that Jesus is the Messiah. In him, and we might therefore say, by virtue of the Incarnation, in us, God is well pleased. And there’s enough light shining from the mountaintop to guide us each into our abundant new season of ministry. What is it? We will each know it when we see it. Remember the words we just heard from 2 Peter: “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
[A portion of my sermon last Sunday at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hawthorne, which is ending its Sunday morning ministry. Keep its people in your prayers as they discern about where they will be today, Ash Wednesday, and next Sunday. The photo was taken at grandson Silas Passarella’s first birthday party in Yorba Linda. Silas hasn’t seen quite enough of Kathy and me to be entirely sure about us. We are sure enough for the three of us.]