Scripture: Matthew 6:25-34
I’m not sure quite what to say this morning. I wasn’t even sure what to call it, although I went ahead and listed it in the bulletin as a sermon—even came up with a title—even though in some ways it doesn’t feel like a sermon in any usual sense.
For those of you who are visiting this morning or who for one reason or another may not have heard, I have just announced that I will be retiring at the end of this coming January. That’s a ways away and it’s certainly not time yet for being in a “good-bye” mode, but this being the first Sunday after I’ve let this be known, my retirement is what’s on my mind this morning. I don’t presume to know what reaction you may have to the news of my retirement. There are lots of possibilities: sorrow, surprise, rejoicing, relief (as in: it’s about time), understanding, support, curiosity about the transition process, anxiety, indifference. There are lots of possibilities, and I don’t presume to know whether any or all of those words might describe the reactions of any or all of you. But it’s what’s on my mind this morning, and I guess I need to ask your indulgence as I say a few things—not too many, I think, but a few things—that are related to my plans to retire.
Several weeks ago I made a comment at the beginning of the sermon. I had given a sermon the week before on a relatively obscure story from the Hebrew scriptures, and sometimes in the summer I do that for a month or so— just pick a book or a character or some random stories from the Old Testament to preach on for no particular reason, just for fun. I said that I had decided not to do that this summer but instead planned to preach several sermons on prayer, and I said the reason I had decided to do that was that my mood was more prayerful than playful these days. I didn’t mean that to have any hidden meaning or particular significance at the time, but looking back on it, I think probably the reason I have been feeling more prayerful than playful at the end of this summer is that I have known that I would be announcing my retirement shortly…as in now.
As I said in the letter that went out, this was not a decision that came easily or quickly. I took my time about it because I wanted to be sure, and even after I was pretty clear in my mind that retiring was what I wanted and needed to do, the right thing for me to do, I sat with it for several months, partly to make sure that I wasn’t going to change my mind or start to waffle on it. I didn’t, start to waffle that is, and so by now the decision is pretty well confirmed in my mind. As a result of living with the idea of retirement for quite a while, and then with a specific date for retirement a little while, I can say that I’m very much at peace with the decision to retire.
Nevertheless—people tell me I have lots of “neverthelesses” in my sermons—nevertheless I know there will be some grief involved in this process for me. I don’t expect that it will show itself very much until roughly the middle of next January, but I know it will be there, subconsciously if nothing else, as the fall season progresses, and it’s there to some extent even now as I go about letting everyone know of my plans. I’ve been in ministry long enough that it’s not just a job; it’s become a way of life for me. Maybe it’s been that way pretty much from the beginning, but much more so by now. I know when the time comes there will be some grief in leaving the active ministry. And as I say there is already some grief just in anticipating that happening. And of course in leaving the particular role I’ve had at Sojourners. Although Ava and I are staying in Charlottesville and have no intention of leaving Sojourners as far as it being our church family, I expect and hope that I will no longer go to bed at night and wake up in the morning thinking about something that has to do with life at Sojourners, whether it’s what I’m going to preach on that week or what I should be doing the next day. That will be a good thing for my mind and spirit to be occupied with some other things, but it will also be a big change, and there is also some grief involved for me, and I anticipate it will increase as time goes on over the coming months.
All of which is to say that I ask for your prayers. I’m drawing on the prerogative of being the preacher to use part of my sermon as an extended prayer request that would be way too long if I were doing it as part of joys and concerns, but for today I will do that shamelessly. I ask your prayers as anyone might who is embarking on some new endeavor, well-wishing type prayers, but also prayers for that part of me that will be dealing with some grief and some perhaps difficult adjustments not just to how I might spend my time but as to my sense of who I am, if you know what I mean.
I’d also like to say a few words this morning about the upcoming capital campaign, which might seem like sort of a strange thing to bring up in this context, but we are having the first meeting of the campaign cabinet this week, and again this happens to be something that’s on my mind. When we began settling in on this fall as the time to do the capital campaign, I knew that it was likely that this would also be the time I would be announcing my retirement. I mentioned this to Rob Peters, our capital campaign consultant, and asked him whether in his experience a minister’s impending retirement affected the capital campaign. The answer was, as you might expect…it depends. It depends on a whole lot of things. Might affect it positively; might affect it negatively; might not affect it much at all. Rob made it clear that he was willing to work with the situation, and since he was willing to live with the uncertainty of how the capital campaign might be affected by my retirement, I was too.
As I have thought about it more over the past several months, however, I have come to feel more and more that having this capital campaign take place at the same time that I am beginning to conclude my ministry at Sojourners is actually an appropriate thing. This is not so much an objective assessment as just how I’m looking at things from where I sit.
There’s a story line that I feel like has run through the ten years I have been at Sojourners. As I arrived at Sojourners, one of the goals was to achieve financial independence. We were being subsidized at the time by various denominational sources. We were able to do that—become self-sufficient—pretty much on schedule so that when our subsidy ended, we were able to stand on our own. Having achieved that milestone of being able to stand on our own financially, it wasn’t long at all before we were beginning to think about having a building of our own. It wasn’t easy. Not surprisingly, we were not in agreement about why we would want a building, what kind of a building we should be looking to build or buy, even whether we wanted a building and whether, even if we wanted a building, whether we could afford a building, being as young and relatively small as we were. There were lots of meetings, lots of discussions, some possibilities that turned out to be dead ends, quite a bit of frustration, and for some people I know a feeling that it was going to be next to forever before we had a building of our own. Then all of a sudden here we were. This building became available; we agreed by consensus to buy it, without ever having to resort to the clause in our constitution that allows us to vote if we can’t reach consensus; we raised a large amount of money in cash and pledges in a short period of time, enough to secure financing for the purchase and for possible renovations which have since become actual renovations, a story in itself, and five years ago this November we signed the papers that gave us a place to call home. The contract we signed provided that a portion of the sale would be deferred and completed at some later date, which turns out, after some further deferrals, turns out to be roughly now, very soon.
I feel like this story line I just described has been a thread running through my ministry here and I have to say that it would be a source of satisfaction to me if we could tie up that story line before I retire. I feel like I have lived that story with you—some of you have come in on it at various points along the way—but I feel like I have lived that story with you and it would be nice to be able to see it through to the end—or close enough—we don’t know exactly when the final settlement will be. And I feel like a successful capital campaign at this point in the congregation’s life will provide us with some financial stability for some time into the future as Sojourners looks toward and the next steps it will take, not only in seeking a new minister but in considering what the most important next steps will be for us as a congregation (a process that is always part of looking for a new minister) and in considering how the property we are about to acquire fits into our plans. To be able to have those conversations without an immediate threat of financial crisis would be a good thing, a very good thing, not to mention making Sojourners a more attractive place, an even more attractive place, for ministers to consider coming to.
I chose the scripture for this morning mostly because I like it; it happens to be one of my favorite scriptures. But I chose it also in part because of the message, “do not be anxious”. That is a message that I know I will need to keep in mind as I head into what is for me the unknown territory of retirement. Those of you who have already lived in that territory for awhile may have some advice or wisdom to share with me, and I will welcome it and pay attention. Since there are some unknowns in the future of Sojourners also, “do not be anxious” is probably a message that Sojourners community could benefit from as well. So there is that. But there is also the phrase that comes near the end of the passage: “but strive first for the kingdom of God”. I don’t know if that’s a meaningful or evocative phrase for everyone, but for me it suggests what Sojourners has said it wants to be all about: being an inclusive Christian community, being a progressive Christian community,–sorry if those sound like labels and I guess they are, but you know what I’m referring to when I use them—being a safe place for those for whom church has not always been a safe place, being a community of worship, of spiritual growth, of mutual support, and equally, not an afterthought or one of many things Christians might be concerned about but central to who we are and hope to be, a community that seeks social justice. That is a story line more basic than the one I referred to before, a story line that started when this congregation was started, that I have been fortunate to be a part of, and that will continue as Sojourners’ story into the indefinite future. To paraphrase the scripture. “Seek first the kingdom of God; all the rest will take care of itself.” Amen.
Jim Bundy
August 23, 2009