Holy Communion Lutheran Church is affectionately known as “the Church on the Hill,”  but I’m starting to wonder if our nickname shouldn’t be “the Church of Frequent Farewells.” In January,  we bade farewell to Pastor Jeff Barrow,  Holy Communion’s senior pastor for the previous seventeen years, so he could become bishop.    Pastor Steve Samuelson graciously and generously agreed to step in temporarily as interim senior pastor, but for personal reasons could only stay through the end of May- so  his goodbye came on May 30th.   A week after that,  we had to say goodbye to our quarter-time assistant pastor, Steve Wohlfeil,  who was leaving to accept another call.  And then yesterday came the fourth and – at least for awhile – final farewell with the departure of Pastor Kathy Brown, who has accepted a call elsewhere.  This means that at the moment,  Holy Communion Lutheran church has no pastors at all ….  not even an interim.   (Not yet.)

It’s one thing when you have been someplace for 18 years, as Jeff had been.   For a farewell like that,  you do everything but hire sky-writers and a troop of dancing bears to commemorate the occasion –  and you write funny skits and songs to assuage the sorrow.    But a departure like Pastor Kathy’s  – after a much shorter tenure of less than four years – is bound to feel different,  seeming like a much less momentous change for both her and for us.  But it was clear on Sunday that this was a tough goodbye on both sides.   Pastor Kathy and Greg, for as excited as they might be about the next chapter awaiting them, are sad to leave –   and there are certainly people at Holy Communion who are very sad to see them go.  And surely tied up in this departure is this sense that our congregation has entered a new era- an era which has yet to be created or charted, and which leaves all of us feeling a bit unsettled.  (I almost used the word “disquieted” but thought that might sound a little pretentious coming from my humble little pen.  But that word really does describe our feelings well.)

My favorite moment in the morning-  which included two church services and a lovely luncheon afterwards-  was when Kathy and Greg (the Browns,  not the Bergs) sang a duet version of a neat Spanish hymn called “You have come down to the Lakeshore.”   The words are really all about that sense of being called to a new venture and being willing to embark on whatever that venture might be, even though you might know next to nothing about what exactly lies ahead.  The text begins this way:

You have come down to the lakeshore

seeking neither the wise nor the wealthy,

but only asking for me to follow.

 

refrain: Sweet Lord, you have looked into my eyes.

Kindly smiling, You’ve called out my name.

On the sand I have abandoned my small boat.

Now with You, I will seek other seas.

The three of us practiced Saturday morning,  and I thought it sounded very pretty-  but it wasn’t until Sunday morning, as they were actually singing it for the congregation,  that I realized how incredibly fitting these words were for the occasion.   And it doesn’t stop there.  It turns out that Pastor Kathy sang this song for her home congregation on the Sunday when she announced to them that she was going to enter the seminary and study to become a pastor.  This is a song to which she is likely to turn (and to which she will return again and again) as she reaches each and every gateway for the rest of her life.

Pastor Kathy joked about the church giving her a warm send-off  (since we were headed for a high in the low 90’s) – and there was also an incredibly severe thunderstorm that rattled the church’s windows just as the second service was ending, to provide some added and unwanted excitement to the proceedings –  but it was otherwise a nice morning and I think they came away feeling appreciated and embraced.  And that’s important when someone leaves a place where they have been doing ministry; when you add up the good and the bad, the accomplishments and the mistakes, you hope that it all adds up to something worthwhile- and you hope that you mean something to the people you are about to leave.  Typing those words calls to mind an unhappy moment in my dad’s ministry when he left one of his congregations (which shall remain nameless) to accept a call someplace else.   I was away at college at the time,  so I didn’t attend the farewell reception which occurred the afternoon of his last Sunday,  and I am so glad I wasn’t there.   For some reason-  poor publicity,  other things going on,  late notice,  who knows-  almost nobody came to that reception to bid my folks goodbye and to thank them.  I can still hear my mom saying “it was so embarrassing-  and I felt bad for those few parishioners who were there because it was almost harder for them than it was for us!”   It’s tough enough to move, but when you suddenly, unexpectedly find yourself wondering if the church you’re leaving is going to miss you at all- and if you’ve made any difference at all or left any sort of imprint-  and wonder if you’ve offended or angered people without even realizing it.   Those were some of the feelings which encroached on my folks as they made that particular move-  and it was only down the road that I think they came to be reasonably certain that the poor turnout at that reception was not some sort of indictment or gesture of dissatisfaction –  just one of those weird things that can’t be easily explained.  But thinking about that just reminds me that it matters what we say and do when we have to say goodbye. . . especially when the people to which we’re saying farewell are setting out on unfamiliar seas.  So I’m glad that so many people came out Sunday to wish Kathy and Greg smooth sailing.

pictured above:   Pastor Kathy and her husband Greg singing their duet.   By the way,  Greg is a doctor who specializes in the treatment of Autism.