I chose this passage from Acts for our consideration today for many reasons. It is known by Bible scholars as, “Paul’s Farewell Discourse to the Ephesian Elders,” and has been used over the years as a sort of a swan song Scripture for a final sermon. Such sermons generally offer good words of happy comparisons and parallels between the Scripture’s events and the current situation and I’m going to do something akin to that, but because we are UCG, I think I’ll start with the parts of our situation that are not like the Scripture because that’s how we roll here: Number 1. I will not be talking until midnight until some poor person falls dead asleep out of a third story window, shake him awake, and then continue to preach till dawn. Though, granted, we have lots going on today, and some of you over the years have rested your eyes for extended periods while I was preaching, and even snorted a little when you came to. Still, this sermon won’t be long enough to say all the thanks, to share all the love.

Number 2. Though I’ve got some excellent plans for after this, unlike Paul, I’m not leaving here and heading next on a cruise to Greece and then to the Holy Land. But I guess he wasn’t exactly on a cruise, either… I mean, pretty immediately after this, he got shipwrecked, arrested, and chased down by some pretty serious enemies in the next place, so there’s that. And hopefully that, likewise, won’t be a parallel for us, though in this life, you never know.

And number 3. I am just not a saint, Paul, or otherwise, not at all, as you well know.

However, there are some wonderful ways that our circumstances are like this story, and as it is regularly considered by scholars to be one of the most poignant and beautiful stories in the New Testament, I wanted to share it in case you hadn’t read it before. Here’s how it speaks to me, as I speak to you, for the last time as your pastor.

First, Paul worked in churches and formed new kinds of partnerships with the leaders of the church. In this story, he recounts how he tried to live among them, with humility and truth and conveying the teachings and the practice as best he could, and he always ends both here and in all the letters we have of his, with some exhortation for the church to keep on keeping on, to be strong and not to worry when the times ahead are both beautiful and filled with challenge and complication, reminding them that the work they have done together is only one part of a long story of grace and joy and love realized in the world in their own place and time. He says that, after he is gone, they are to follow the lead of the ever-creating one, and do a new thing—to keep growing the faith for the new day and the new time. And they did—caring for one another and especially for the most vulnerable, and new leaders were chosen and the boundaries and the binaries were expanded and expanded, for the new day, and the old exclusions and prejudices and practices were changed. That fearful, beautiful opportunity. After they wave their hankies on the shore as Paul sails away, the church then turns its attention to the new needs and opportunities for the next right thing.

Also true for us here in our own day. You know well enough that the times we live in are hard ones, and it is essential for the church of today to be woke and ready. The mainline church of the glory days of the last 50 or so years—my generation–that church did wonderful ministries in its time, including its emphases on the social gospel so foundational for our work today for peace and justice. But new avenues of service and new ways to be in ministry and to work in new community partnerships are required of us for today’s challenges. God is still speaking, doing a new thing, and the work of leaders and congregations must grow to be even more visionary, activist, involved, and brave. Worship life must be broad and inclusive so that God however known may be experienced in new ways, in new places, in smaller groups, and intimate spaces, wherever the margins are, wherever injustice and suffering happen, wherever good news and hope are needed.

The good news is–this church is positioned to do just that if you choose it—to live into that future. We joke here that we have an eleventh commandment and it is “Process.” Throughout the teachings of Paul, too, he points to the lineage, the process and the changes—”I planted, he writes, another leader, Apollos watered, and God gives the growth.” And we, too, have flexed, changed, learned. Once upon a time, we taught mainly progressive Christianity here, and over the years, things have changed, and needed to. With our collective wisdom and experience, we are learning that the bounty of Spirit and grace and human kindness are beyond any one spiritual path or practice. Once, we learned one facet of the truth and became open and affirming–gay and straight together. Then in the process, we began, over time, and bit by bit, to understand life and identity and humankind and Earth and her children of all sorts beyond boxes and binaries, and now, with Talia’s leadership and the partnerships of our young people, we are learning more light and truth and language and a welcome that invites us to co-create the beloved community, a gender fluid society, in the church and in the world.

Once upon a time, we did much of our benevolence work from our place of power and privilege, offering charity with good and loving intention. And over time, new work and expanded understanding, and the process and the work that Andy and his community advocacy and partnerships are doing, we are learning more than ever, that environmental, economic, healthcare, and racial justice work requires a systemic and long-term engagement. And relentless self-inventory and antiracism education and courage and is all the time and everywhere and about empowerment and respect and listening.

Together, relying on, but not bound by the past and or the process, you will move into UCG’s strong and future calling. Paul always said to his churches about his successors: love and support them as you have always cared for me… and I’m echoing his words… because like Paul, I really, really have been aware at every moment of the presence of grace and love between us—given and received. From the first of the meet and greets when we first arrived, through innumerable board and committee planning meetings, during beautiful worship services, and fun-filled all-church retreats when I had to do those super embarrassing minister skits with partners who could really sing and dance, through the hospital and hospice and rehab and memorial services, the poems, prayers, and promises made, I always knew you had my back. There were SO many times over these last six years when there was the latest outrage or attack or tragedy and I’d be standing on the street or the courthouse steps or preparing to march or to speak to the community as a faith leader, and I’d look out and there you would be, a pile of you, always. Someone at those events would regularly say to me—your folks are always here. Everything that is helping and making a positive difference in this town has UCG somewhere in the middle of it. True, that.

Paul talks about himself a fair amount in his sermon, and I guess I’m sort of doing that now, but this—what we have going on here, it was always only partly about me or any other minister. For what I have found to be essential in this life we shared has been that has been this life we shared– that the creativity and outreach and love and ministry at their most effective were, are, a lovely dialogue, a weaving of threads, as we like to say here. And the churches that are going to survive in this new age are the ones who know and practice that. Most mainline churches give lip service to “freedom of the pulpit.” What that means is that the preacher is able to speak from her own heart and experience of God and to preach her best conviction of the truth at any given time. Some churches say they believe in that, but they really don’t. Here you really do. You haven’t hesitated to let me know if you disagreed, and I always felt like you were listening, really listening in worship and when we prayed, like something mysterious and amazing was happening. When I would share what I was thinking about a sermon topic, and an artist or a musician or a writer got it, then they would inevitably respond with the perfect song, or another insight or a different opinion or experience, and my best effort at the truth at any given moment beautiful as it might have been, well, then it was multiplied, and I never was afraid. Not afraid that I couldn’t share it, say it, believe it, because here we have freedom of the pulpit and the hallway and the seminar room. In this new time in the life of the church everywhere, the churches that are going to survive and grow and thrive are going to understand that inclusive, non-dogmatic freedom. They are going to be nimble in organization, creative in their vision, and not be tied to the old way that church looked and acted, for as Paul told his church in Ephesus, hard times are upon us. As you well know. The old tools are not enough. The old leaders must learn new ways and be led by the young, and we all must see it through together, for the sake of the life of Earth and all of its inhabitants.

And I go in peace because I know you will.

I don’t know if it is true, but once I read that the deepest love and beauty cannot be given by only one leader. That the deepest love and beauty are conveyed when a group can do that work and play, united. Thank you for the grace and patience and love you have offered. I take great joy in knowing, friends, that what we have done in these years, we have done together. Amen.

After All

Acts 20:7-37

August 18, 2019

Shelly Wilson