Saying Goodbye Well Rev. Mark Stringer First Unitarian Church of Des Moines April 30, 2017 Reading Our reading today is from the 180 th Berry Street Lecture, delivered by the Rev Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed to UU ministers and seminarians gathered in Nashville, TN, the summer before Rev. Mark Stringer graduated from theological school and accepted the call to serve our congregation. Morrison-Reed told his fellow ministers: Being present is what it takes to love a congregation. We do ministry knowing that someday the relationship will end. The challenge is to be there despite this. For unless we can be fully there in authentic relationship with its members we can go through the motions of ministry but we can't really minister. We can't hold back because the power is in our relatedness to one another, and yet we must hold back or risk conflating the professional with the personal. To minister is to wrestle with this dilemma. The relationship of minister and parishioner has the qualities of a friendship, but no matter how warm and deep, authentic and reciprocal the relationship is it is not a sustainable friendship. Why? Because it is built upon an unavoidable imbalance--the minister is always more responsible for the relationship. When necessary we must be prepared to forsake the role of friend for that of minister, and ready to choose the well being of the community over the needs of the friend. We are not as free to share all aspects of our lives and ourselves. Nor can we make friends with whom we please, for that would create two classes of parishioners -- the chosen and the not. Finally, when our ministries come to an end so must the relationships, lest we take up space the next ministry needs if it is to take root. Ministry takes enormous courage or romantic obliviousness to the repercussions of giving one's soul to the church. Mary Oliver's poem "In Blackwater Woods" describes what is required: "To live in this world [she says] you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it, and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go." Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 1
We love what is mortal. For each individual ministry is mortal. It has its life span--a beginning and an end. Knowing this we [ministers] still invest our essence in the community. We treat it not as a job but as our lives. Then "when the time comes to let it go" we have to let it go. This is the way it must be. Forrest Church writes: "The fact that death is inevitable gives meaning to our love, for the more we love the more we risk losing. Love's power comes, in part, from the courage required to give ourselves to that which is not ours to keep: our spouses, children, parents, [our] dear and cherished friends, [and our congregations]." 1 Sermon I was 12 years old. My parents had asked my 15-year old brother and me to remain at the dinner table a bit longer that night. They said they had something to tell us. I m not sure where my 9-year old sister was. Maybe at a friend s sleepover somewhere in the small, North Carolina town we lived in at the time. My Dad said, I have good news and bad news. My brother and I listened intently. The bad news is that I have lost my job. The good news is that I have a new job with the same company. I remember looking at my mom and I could tell by her face that more news was to come. The new job, however, is in Akron, Ohio. So when school lets out for the summer, we will be moving. As I recall, my brother instantly burst from the table and tore down the hallway to slam the door of his bedroom as loudly as he could. I remained seated and dissolved into a puddle of tears. Through my sobs, I heard my Dad sigh and say to my mom, Well, that didn t go so well, did it? 1 http://www.uua.org/sites/live-new.uua.org/files/documents/morrisonreedmark/afterthistles.pdf Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 2
Big transitions were ahead for my family, but in my 12-year old brain, mostly all I could think about was how these changes were going to impact me. I was at that age where friend groups expand across genders, where deeper connections begin, and my friend group was tight. I was panicked wondering what it would be like to move to a new town just before I started middle school. Things weren t supposed to go like this. The whole thing was a disaster. At least at first. But, as all of us eventually have to play with the cards we have been dealt, I made peace with the change. There wasn t much I could do about it anyway. As the moving date neared, I decided I needed to mark the occasion in a formal way. And so, I wrote a two-page letter to the dozen or so friends I knew the most, the ones I assumed I would have grown up with, gone to high school with, and maybe even to college with. The friends I had thought I would know for the rest of my life. I put a lot of effort into that letter, carefully taking the time to acknowledge how important these friends had been in my life up to that point and how grateful I had been for their friendship. I think I even cried some as I wrote it. What can I say? I was a sentimental 12-year-old. I rode my bike to the local post office to make photocopies of the letter. And at the bottom of each one I wrote a personal note of thanks. Then, a few days before we moved, I put the letters into the mail. I think back fondly to this rite of passage that I had created for myself, even as I wasn't sure how my letter would be received. I figured my friends might think I was being weird to go to so much trouble, to make my departure so dramatic. But I knew my intentions were good and I didn t care if my friends thought I was weird. I needed to say thank you and I will miss you, and so I did. That story came to mind this week as I have been thinking about how you and I will need to say goodbye soon, how big changes are ahead for us, and how we might best mark and honor these transitions. As I moved from my friends in North Carolina, I knew that I was saying goodbye to an era. I knew that our friendships would not continue. Not really. Not in a substantive way. How could they? I d be hundreds of miles away and we would no longer share the school experiences that had bound us together. We were facing a kind of Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 3
death of what had been so that the future could arrive. And we had no choice but to accept it. Similarly, you and I will soon say goodbye to an era in our lives as minister and congregation. Some of you I have known for 16 years. Some of you are more recent relationships for me, but no less meaningful. And during our time together, I ve been grateful for my connections with you and for our shared ministry. More grateful than you can know. After we share our final service together on June 11, our connections will not end, exactly, but they will be different in significant ways. They will not continue as they have up to now, that s for sure. How could they? I will no longer be your minister. And that is how it must be. During my internship at the Unitarian Church of Evanston, as I was learning the complexities of what it means to be a congregational minister, I remember sharing dinner with a thoughtful member named Brian. He was a great guy and I always enjoyed our conversations. He asked me how I felt about the possibility of a minister being friends with members of the congregation beyond just the relationship of clergy to lay person. He said that the current ministers of the church, my supervisors, had told him that ministers could never really be friends with church members and he thought that was crazy. He wanted to know my thoughts. I told him that I wasn t sure how I felt about that, being new to the ministry, but I did know that I trusted my supervisors and would follow their lead until I had good reason to do otherwise. He was not satisfied with that answer, but said he honored that I was being politically savvy by not veering from the counsel of my mentors. It took me another year or so to really grasp why ministers can t really be friends with members, not in the way that we typically think of friendships anyway. Clearly ministers are friendly with members of the congregations they serve. At least the ones who keep their jobs are. They couldn t possibly navigate their ministries well if they aren t. And yet, there is something about the relationship of minister to congregant that is inherently different than a friendship. And that difference is about responsibility to and for the office of ministry, whether we like it or not. It was during the address that the Rev. Mark Morrison Reed gave to colleagues the year before I was ordained that I began to really understand this. I can tell you, sitting among my colleagues that June Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 4
afternoon in 2000, hearing that speech was like walking through a door of no return for me. I became fully converted to his perspective that there are three sentences that should be in the fine print of what it means to be a congregational minister. These three sentences are: You will love your parishioners with all your heart but never befriend them. You will pour out your lifeblood for the community but never settle there. You shall die to the congregation so that the ministry might live. In my mind it was that last sentence that really explained the first two and that was the most important of his presentation: You shall die to the congregation so that the ministry might live. In his address, Morrison-Reed referenced a famous essay written nearly forty years ago now by one of our colleagues about how to end a relationship with a congregation, how to die to the congregation so that the ministry might live. In that essay called Running Through the Thistles the author Roy Oswald wrote of growing up in rural Saskatchewan, and of how, as a young boy, the quickest way for he and his brothers to get home from school was over the fields through enormous thistle patches. Rather than take the long way around, they would often choose to sprint through the thistles, even when they did not wear shoes to school. He writes: "I can still vividly remember the experience: running full speed in bare feet across 20 feet of prickly thistles yelping in pain all the way through." Morrison-Reed shares Oswald s belief that this story is symbolic of how many ministers manage (or mismanage ) departures from their congregations and I would say, how many of us handle the difficult goodbyes of our lives. As he describes it, We deal with our farewells by steeling ourselves, then plunging in. We know it is going to hurt so we rush full tilt ahead hoping to get it over with. At the end, he says, there may be a few thistles stuck in our feet, but our ordeal is over. Or so we think. But rushing the goodbye is not ultimately helpful. Nor is trying to pretend that the goodbye isn t coming or isn t necessary. One of the benefits of 16 years in ministry with you is that I ve been a witness to many final goodbyes. Some have been rushed. Some have Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 5
been so hidden as to be nearly non-existent. But some have been so intentional and grace-filled that I couldn t help but be inspired. I m thinking about member Jane Bibber, how in her final weeks, as she knew she was dying, she embodied a blend of a traffic cop, an orchestra conductor and a virtuoso musician. She directed the traffic in and out of her room, asking for people when she needed them. Telling them to leave when she didn t. She brought out the best in those who visited, charming them to play along. And she took her time to craft her final melodies with the intention of reminding those she cared for why she cared. She savored her time in the spotlight of her death, knowing it was her time to shine. She was radiant the whole way. Similarly Xenda Lindel was also in charge of how she said goodbye, for as long as she could be. She gathered around her friends that just a few years earlier she wasn t even sure she had, and she loved us up, even as she never relinquished her salty self. She was large and in charge throughout, even agreeing to a living memorial service that served as a model for similar ceremonies we have held for other uniquely strong women as they neared their final goodbyes Ruthanne Harstad and Cynthia Lee. All of these folks lived in their final weeks the five tasks that Oswald says are essential to saying goodbye well. I think these five tasks apply to all important goodbyes. They are: Being honest about why we are leaving, taking control of the situation, getting our affairs in order, letting go of old grudges, and saying thank you. I think I ve done OK in my attempts so far to fulfill these five tasks with you. I ve been honest with you about why I am leaving. I ve tried to follow through on some of the things that are still left undone in our shared ministry, aware that there could never be a time when all things would be complete and that my job as I conclude my ministry with you is not to become the interim minister or make dramatic attempts to fix everything anyway. I m grateful that I don t have lingering grudges with you, but if I did, I would definitely be trying to make those right, as I hope you will do with me. And while I m not sure I ll ever have enough time to say thank you the way I want, I m grateful I still have a few more weeks to try. Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 6
But there is one task we have remaining in order for me to die to the congregation so that the ministry might live. We have to prepare for and understand the best we can that when I step away from my ministry with you, I must truly step away. I will not be attending events or services here, at least not for three years, if at all. The first two years of the stepping away is so that the interim minister can do their work with you without the interference of my presence. The third year is for the next senior minister to become settled with you also free of my presence, for similar reasons. And then, if I wish to participate in this congregation, I will need to work up a covenant with the senior minister that outlines the relationship I will have with the church and with the ministry going forward. My professional covenant as a minister requires that I be respectful to my future colleagues who will serve here, and I intend to honor that covenant in all ways. That means I will not be available to officiate memorial services or to conduct weddings here without the explicit invitation of the senior minister. I will not entertain conversations with members or staff of the church about congregational politics or decisions or pastoral care needs. I truly must step away. Some of you may already be at peace with this, having experienced ministerial transitions before. Some of you may even be anxious for me to leave! (You don t have to tell me who you are.) But this stepping away can be difficult for ministers and for some members because it may seem as an abandonment of everything that we had previously shared. We ministers lose the identity that came with the role. And some members may feel, with the departure of the minister, they have lost their church. These tensions sometimes lead departing ministers and remaining members to try to keep the connections alive to avoid the pain of letting go. While clinging to the previous connections is understandable, it is not healthy for the church nor for its ministry. Since first telling you of my impending departure back in December, I ve been hesitant to bring up this stepping away with you. We ve both had enough to grapple with just in imagining that I will be leaving in June. And I know it may be disappointing or confusing to some of you to think of me truly stepping away from you, much like it was for Brian, the fellow from my internship congregation who thought it was crazy that our relationship couldn t continue. But there are good reasons for this stepping away. The next ministers who serve here along with Erin deserve the opportunity to develop the connections with you that I have had the privilege, the benefit, and the blessing to enjoy. They will need to be the ones you turn to for Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 7
rites of passage and for pastoral care and for spiritual guidance. And they need to develop these connections without my intentional or unintentional interference. Yes, I will be staying in Des Moines, and the truth is we will see each other. And I ll be happy to see you, whether in my role at the ACLU of Iowa, or as one of your neighbors and fellow citizens. We don t have to hide from one another. Not at all! But we do need to be clear that my service as your minister will conclude on June 11. And the role of minister will then continue to belong to Erin and to the ministers who will follow me. Some have asked me what my family will do once I step away, where we will go to church and so on. I m not exactly sure. One of the gifts of my ministry has been developing my understanding that while I am a Unitarian Universalist through and through, I believe I can find and make meaning in other religious traditions. If I discover that I need religious community once I step away, I trust that I will find one that will work well enough, without interfering with the ministry here. That said, my daughter Leah may choose to stay involved here. If she does, I know you will welcome her and I thank you for that. When I heard Mark Morrison-Reed s Berry Street essay nearly 17 years ago, I knew my fate was sealed and I m grateful for the advanced warning. I knew that one day I would need to step away from this congregation and from the ministry. Challenging though it is, this transition is not new to me. Not really. I ve been preparing for it for more than 16 years and trying to minister to you while being respectful of it. I knew from the start that, by accepting the call to serve you, I would love you with all my heart and that I would pour out my lifeblood for this community. And I have. But I also knew I could never fully befriend you nor could I permanently settle here. I knew that I would eventually have to die to the congregation so that the ministry might live. Even so, I will be challenged by this goodbye and maybe some of you will be, too. So let us take these last few weeks together to say goodbye well the very best that we can. Let s be honest about what will come for us after this departure, both the known and the unknown. Let s honor what we have shared and learned and loved together. Let s take Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 8
control of the situation, get our affairs in order, let go of old grudges, and say thank you in all the ways we still can. We have so much to be thankful for. So very much indeed. Stringer/ Saying Goodbye Well / 4-30-17 9