Last summer, after Nancy and I came home from General Assembly in Salt Lake City, I happened upon an add for a local men's clothing shop that stated if you purchased one suit at full price you could get two of similar price free.
Now I am old enough to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch; but what about a free suit?
Well, that's an entirely different matter.
And not to give away secrets of my personal spending habits but when I divided the full price of the one suit by three the cost came out to be around two hundred dollars per suit which in my line of work is just about right.
I say my line of work because at the time I purchased these suits I had no thoughts of retirement.
While I did assume that these might be the last three suits I might need in this lifetime, I bought them with every intention of getting several years of pleasure from them.
As it happens, we all know about good intentions.
So it was that last fall my cardiac issues resurfaced in full glory and I was set back a few notches.
September melded into October and in November I was briefly back in Fairfax Hospital as they tweaked my defibrillator one more time.
Clearly all was not well with Hemo the magnificent.
So it was, that during a Thanksgiving trip with Nancy and our daughters that I made the decision to retire as your minister and time being what it is here we are: my last Sunday in the pulpit as your minister.
Seven years ago I was installed as your minister.
On that day Peter Bunce, then president of the congregation, asked me to enter into a covenant with the members and friends of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley. That afternoon Peter spoke these words:
We, the members and friends of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley would have you dwell among us preaching the truth, as best as you may know it, to us in freedom and love.
We would have you educate our children and counsel our youth.
We would have you minister to us in our times of joy and sorrow.
We would have you demonstrate by your example as well as your words, a way of life committed to the principles of freedom, reason and tolerance and we would have you lead us in a mutual quest toward greater understanding of the religious life.
In exchange for agreeing to do so, the congregation promised to be charitable toward my failures; to assist and walk with me down the path of common growth in the religious life of the congregation.
In striving to live up to my part on this covenant I have always been motivated by the words of the Rev. Gordon McKeemon who once led this congregation, and who was present in the congregation on that afternoon.
Rev. McKeemon observed that:
Ministry as all that we do together.
Ministry is that quality of being in community that affirms human dignity--beckons forth hidden possibilities, invites us into deeper, more constant, reverent relationships, and carries forward our heritage of hope and liberation.
Ministry is what we do together as we celebrate triumphs of our human spirit
Miracles of birth and life
Wonders of devotion and sacrifice.
Ministry is what we do together--with one another--
In terror and torment--in grief, in misery
And pain,
Enabling us in the presence of death to
Say yes to life.
We who minister speak and live the best we know how
With full knowledge
And that is never quite enough
And yet we are reassured
By lostness found,
Fragments reunited, wounds healed
And joy shared,
Minisistry is what we all do--together.
And so it is that over the past seven years I have tried to live up to the promises I made that day and to walk with you down our common path.
What should I say this morning to mark my tenure as your minister?
That's it's always been a piece of cake? It hasn't.
That we loved each other equally and at all times? Impossible.
That my sermons were brilliant? Were it only so.
That I have been compassionate at each bedside I visited? Probably not.
That I've been a dynamic presence at Board meetings? Forget it.
But here is what I think I have done.
Over the past seven years the worship life of this congregation has grown and matured.
We have become more open about our religious diversity and I believe that it is not only permissible but also welcome to use the language of reverence and to feel comfortable with the use of pastoral prayer.
The music program has grown from the solid foundation laid down by Claudia Martin and now Mariana surprises and delights us with the varieties of musical experiences that fill the sanctuary during worship.
We've had drums and marimbas; clarinet quartets, saxaphone, Indian flutes and guitar soloists .
We are getting close to the time when people will hear about this congregation because of its reputation for excellent music ministry.
The congregation has started to find its place in the larger community.
Through the efforts of the Social Justice and Social Action Committee we have adopted a little boy--a Unitarian Universalist--living in an orphanage in the Kharsi Hills of India.
We have helped to feed our neighbors through our food collections and our participation in efforts such as the Blue Ridge Food Bank and the Volunteer Farm.
We have provided shelter to those in need by our work on behalf of the Interfaith Habitat For Humanity house located here in Stephens City and our support of the Winchester Area Temporary Thermal Shelter.
When I arrived seven years ago, our summer programming was very casual and now we becoming a year round congregation with Religious Education and quality worship services through out the summer.
Seven years ago adult education offerings consisted of a forum before church on Sunday mornings and now through the efforts of the Lifespan Faith Development program over two dozen events occurred in the past year.
To augment these efforts we grew our covenant groups to the point where over 60 adults participate.
Our sharing suppers continue to provide another type of small group ministry.
The members of this congregation are a community of religious seekers who truly care for one another.
As I said to Lyn Plumb, soon to be your interim minister, this congregation is blessed to be free of some of the hierarchical infighting and clique-based leadership that plagues some congregations.
But having come this far, we have in the words of Robert Frost, miles to go before we sleep.
Like so many congregations, this congregation never seems to have enough volunteers willing to fill all the leadership jobs that need to be done.
This congregation needs to learn how to shift from being a needs-based church to an abundance-based church.
And I don't mean just monetarily.
This congregation is what church demographers call a pastoral sized church.
This means that much of the life and direction of the congregation comes from the leadership of the minister.
However, this congregation also has one foot in the door of a program size church where more and more of the ministry is done in small groups that do more than just the business of the organization. They support one another and provide pastoral care to those in need.
As I said earlier, ministry is what we do all together.
But in retrospect not all has been successful with my ministry.
I fell short in my ministry to our children and youth.
For some time I have wanted to lead a covenant group for our teens and that never happened.
I wanted to be a regular face in RE classes and that hasn't happened.
I regret that my life-long struggle with conflict kept me from taking a bolder stand in the politics of the congregation and in maters concerning the staff.
I regret that there may be some among you who have felt a slight or a lack of attention from me and you each of you I apologize.
It's never been intentional and in spite of theories to the contrary, we ministers are no better at reading minds than the average person.
And I leave knowing that I may not have been as introspective as I should have been.
The poet Adrienne Rich wrote the following:
No one ever told us we had to study our lives,
make of our lives a study, as if learning natural
history or music, that we should begin
with the simple exercises first
and slowly go on trying
the hard ones, practicing till strength
and accuracy became one with the daring
to leap into transcendence, take the chance
of breaking down the wild arpeggio
or faulting the full sentence of the fugue.
--And in fact we can't live like that: we take on
everything at once before we've even begun
to read or mark time, we're forced to begin
in the midst of the hardest movement,
the one already sounding as we are born.
In the days and months and years ahead may I have the skills to make a study of my life.
I couldn't tell you exactly the moment or the place when I decided to study to become a minister.
I remember a time maybe thirty years ago, when I was going through a difficult time telling a friend that I thought I might make a good minister, if only I could find a denomination that would permit my questions and my doubts.
So, in seven years as your minister, what have I learned?
Many things and nothing!
I've learned that I can be a selfish and self-centered as anyone else.
I've learned that it is one of life's most gracious moments to be invited to sit with a sick or dying parishioner and to hold a hand, stroke a forehead, or just sit in silence and be present with a beloved congregant.
I've learned that my greatest strengths--my extroversion, my humor, and my skill at turning a flip phrase are also my darkest sides as well.
I've learned to love the spoken word and to respect its ability to help and to harm.
I have learned that indeed I am called to this work of ministry like no other job I have ever had for that I am grateful to each one of you.
Adrienne Rich had it right, I think, when she wrote, "a lifetime is too narrow to understand it all."
What greater gift in life can there be than to be present with others and to help beckon forth a greater good and a deeper and more complete understanding of our neighbors, our world and ourselves?
And so it is. Today I will step down as your minister.
In some ways I suppose it will be the worst of days and the best of days.
There will be sadness on both sides of the pulpit.
Sadness for Nancy and me at losing a community that has meant so very much to us; that has nurtured us, and cared for us. That has shared our joys and supported us in our sorrows.
But there is also a sense of hope that one day we may once again worship in this beautiful space.
We have made friendships among you that will remain with us all the days of our lives and we hope that each of us--and to some extent our daughters Kathryn and Kristina--have left lasting memories with each of you.
And yes, I will have three new suits, to wear wherever it is that my retirement takes me.
When I completed my seminary studies I earned the privilege to wear a preaching robe. And so one Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax, I took off my regular suit jacket and put on my robe.
And while I haven't worn my robe too often, it represents to me one of my most significant life accomplishments. And so, this morning I'll take it off, not permanently, but for now, and I'll replace it with a suit jacket that I bought last summer.
May it serve me as well.
Howard Thurman once said that, "There is something incomplete about coming to the end of anything." We will each carry with us the memories of the others. We will each have in our hearts a fragment of the lives of all we have touched.
For all of the varied reasons that have brought us together for these seven years we are thankful.
For the blessings we have given to one another we are thankful.
Together we have made life just a more enjoyable.
Looking ahead I hope you will be gentle with your new interim minister and I hope she will return your kindness with a kind of tough love of her own.
I hope she and you will take the time to truly look at the systems that are in place in this congregation and try to discern where significant growth needs to occur.
How does this congregation resolve conflict?
How do the members strive to be in right relationship with one another?
What inner strength does the congregation possess that would enable it to survive a major crisis--heaven forbid!
The leadership of this congregation is graying and growing long in the tooth.
Those of you in your thirties and forties--those of you with all the pressures of home and families; careers and obligations--yes, even you, need to step up into leadership roles.
As the old saw goes...ministers come and ministers go...but a congregation must learn ways to remain a congregation.
And so, another chapter is closing--in mine and in yours.
There have been many that came before and many more to come as this congregation creates its future story.
So let me close with a lovely story that comes out of Kenya, in Africa, that speaks of days such as this one. The story is about a man named Zacharias.
Zacharias was a hard worker who often gave generously to support his small village. He was a respected elder and eventually the day came for his funeral.
After the service, one of the mourners was walking back from the gravesite to the place where he was staying. Along the way he encountered a villager also returning home and the villager said simply, "We will miss him."
He said, "We will miss him." And then he added the words, "Ki-Sabuni." Which in Swahili means "like a bar of soap."
Confused, the mourner asked, "Like a bar of what?"
The villager repeated his words, "Ki-sabuni."
"Like a bar of soap." And then he said,
"You know. In the house, the bar of soap sits next to the basis, available morning, noon, and night to all--children, adults, the elderly, family and guests alike.
It never discriminates or complains of being used and reused. It is taken for granted as it slowly disappears, until someone exclaims, "Gosh the soap is gone."
Well, Zacharias was that kind of man.
But then someone puts a new bar of soap in the dish and the people smile with its new fragrance, its new shape and its new color.
And just like the bar of soap before it, and the one before that, and the one before that the new bar is available morning, noon, and night to all--children, adults, the elderly, family and guests alike. It never discriminates or complains of being used and reused.
So let us say "Ki-Sabuni" to one another....for truly as the poet Tennyson wrote:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways
Amen and Blessed be.