It's been two weeks since I left my first congregation and I'm still not sure quite what to say about it. I've been searching for some kind of biblical link, or a metaphor, or an image which would summarize it - and I can't find anything. What I wanted to do was write a really meaningful, tightly-constructed reflection on leaving. But that doesn't seem to be working out. Which in and of itself might be the only image I have for leaving; it's kind of a mess, which is not altogether a bad thing.
This was my first call, and I stayed for eight years. I started as the associate pastor and (although this is wisely frowned on by the powers that be) became the senior pastor after my colleague was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Had I been blogging at the time of his illness and catastrophic biopsy procedure, I'd have a thousand entries by now - it's enough to say that that experience changed my life in profound ways. Among which was my decision to stay in the congregation, which I had been preparing to leave (not that they knew that). Which led to five more years of ministry there. And to a very tight bond with a great many people, and a fondness for that place which seems hard to believe could be repeated again. I've said that before, though, and been gratefully wrong: I thought no friends could be better than those I found in college, until I went to seminary. It's a good thing God sustains hope a lot longer than I can.
I was worried about my last Sunday, because there's no way around the fact that you, the pastor, are the center of attention that day. You're always up in the front, of course, but not as yourself; you're there to facilitate worship, to lead the service, and to offer something meaningful in the sermon. The office of pastor is your reason to be there, not your own personality. On your last day, however, this is not true at all. It's all about you. This is a bit intense for me.
I did fine through the first worship service, although I choked up a few times here and there. During the children's sermon; at the end of the regular sermon; and during the benediction, which I knew would happen. The standard handshaking time was very emotional, but I did quite well until the very end.
At the very end of the line of well-wishers came the high school youth group. Keep in mind that these kids were in the first or second grade when I got there, and in many ways, that is how I still think of them. I did their first communion class and trained them as acolytes and spent the night with them at camp for the grade school retreats. They are not children anymore, and they regularly tortured me during confirmation class given the fact that several of them are constitutionally incapable of shutting up for more than thirty seconds at a time.
They had been sitting in the balcony, so I couldn't really see what I realized when they came down the stairs to hug me, which is that they were sobbing. I do not exaggerate here. Sobbing. And I lost it. It was lovely and wonderful that they were so sad to see me go (some note must be taken of the general tendency toward drama in this group), but let me tell you this: there is nothing worse than knowing you have made children cry. You feel like the devil. Hands down, that was the hardest moment of the day. Because I remember when our youth pastor left, when I was in high school, and I remember how much it hurt and how I wondered why he would want to leave us and knew that I would never, ever, ever like a pastor the way I liked him.
This turned out not to be true, of course, but it hurt like hell at the time. And all the stuff I can tell myself now about how these kids will be just fine, and how they will remember this years from now and smile a little at their dramatic overtures - none of it matters when you know that you have hurt the kids you love. There are some things about leaving a congregation that, to be perfectly frank, are just fucking hard. There is nothing you can do about the fact that you are going to hurt people. They will get past it. But in the moment, that cliche doesn't help much.
So, the rest of the day went up from there. Surprisingly (to me) I didn't cry at the second service at all, until communion. We have a round altar, and as I came around for one of the last times to serve communion, I met the eyes of the woman who was congregational president when I came to the church. Next to her was an elderly woman who is, on the surface, the most unemotional person you have ever met - but who has survived, during my time there, the lingering illness and death of her husband and the completely sudden death of her only daughter, killed in a plane crash. Both women were crying. There is nothing harder than the tears of someone you have only seen cry once before, at the death of her daughter.
And, at least for me, there is something so intensely personal about serving communion. I managed to convince the congregation after a few years that we should be celebrating communion every Sunday. I gave them all the standard reasons, about the fact that worship is really meant to include this meal, that the ancient church did this all the time, that the piety of "less often makes it more special" was really invented by Scandinavians who lived so far north that the pastor could only make it there once a year so they had to give themselves some kind of meaning behind the infrequency of the sacraments. But what I didn't tell them was this: I also wanted them to have communion every Sunday because it means that they are guaranteed to get something meaningful every week. Even if the sermon sucks, they will have the body and blood of Christ. This takes the pressure off a bit. On the Sundays when I feel less-than-great about the sermon, I serve communion with extra fervor, taking refuge in the reminder that nothing I do up here changes the essential grace we receive in that meal. I cannot screw it up. (I have, in various ways, done very human things up there, like cough or forget the words of institution or spill wine or run out of wafers, but these things don't matter in the long run).
And honestly, I didn't feel all that great about my last sermon. It's too much damn pressure, you know? It's too much to expect of yourself that it be the BEST SERMON EVER, because that's not realistic. It was okay. I felt alright about it, but not great. So I was especially grateful for communion that day. And when I saw those two women and the tears in their eyes, I began to cry. Not horrible sobbing, but also not just misty eyes. I stopped for moment, and then kept going, and then I cried through the rest of the service. Especially during the closing hymn, my very favorite: Lift High the Cross.
After the service, we had a potluck. It was more fun than I had thought: I was worried about being emotionally exhausted, but that turned out not to be true. I was also worried about the "open mike!" invitation, but that turned out much better than I had anticipated (apart from the guy who talked about my initial interview there and mentioned that I was wearing "white silk stockings." What the hell? I bet no one says that kind of stuff at Rowan Williams' farewell potluck).
And then we left. I had packed up my office the day before, so we put a few last things in the car. I took the church's keys off my keyring and left them on the desk (that was a weird moment). I worried about what I had forgotten, which turned out to be a few minor things I came back to pick up later that week.
There is never such a thing as tying up all the loose ends. Not everyone I had hoped to see was there on my last day, though there were few significant absences. Thankfully, the weather cooperated for the first Sunday in a month and we had very little snow so those in outlying areas were able to come.
If this were a novel, there would be some great story that summed everything up. But there wasn't. It was just a good day, and a hard day, and a treasured day. I'm grateful to have had these two weeks off between calls, and it's still a bit unreal to me that there is another congregation waiting for me to begin.
Saying goodbye is hard. This is a good thing, of course, because it means you have formed real attachments, that you have really loved and been loved. There is nothing better than that when you are there, but there is a price to be paid when you go. I wish there was something more profound to be said, but I can't seem to find it. All I find is this: that even the best of farewells will break your heart a little bit, and the best hope is that it breaks it open for a richer life to come.
