A Sermon on the Occasion of the Farewell to
The Parish

The Rev. Bruce R. Bramlett
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
San Rafael, California
January 26, 2003

The Lesson: Mark 1:14-20

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

There is an irony in our Gospel lesson for this morning. In our reading, Jesus is right at the beginning of his ministry in the Galilee. He is calling his first disciples to join him in his work. He is proclaiming the message which would be both his life and his work in clear and unequivocal terms."Turn," he says- turn around and reorient your lives from a world of death and rebellion against God. Believe and act in a new world of God's righteousness. Live so that the good news that the reign of God is breaking into the world will be seen and experienced by others. For the entire Gospel of Mark, this is the message of Jesus' whole ministry, including his death and resurrection. It was the great challenge to the church to whom Mark wrote. It is our challenge today. This message which we try to live out in community continues to be always and everywhere the same. We must turn our lives around and follow the call of Jesus of Nazareth in witnessing to God's reign breaking in upon us all the time. We are challenged to witness to that reality even in those moments that seem darkest or those where God seems silent or even absent.

Yet today we are marking the end of something. I have been among you and have come to love and care for you for the last seven and a half years. Some of you I have come to know quite intimately as I have been privileged to share your most intimate lives both times of rejoicing and times of deep sorrow and loss. You should know that I cherish those times as sacred moments and sacred memories. I have felt deeply blessed in that sharing. Being your pastor has been the greatest privilege of my life and my most cherished task.

For some of you, I have remained simply a public religious figure, an image of the churches' leadership and ethos. I have represented an authority for all the good or ill which that word connotes. Some of you have never come to know me as a person, nor I, you. There is no blame in this. It's just a fact. It is always so in a community as large and diverse as we are. Some of you have resonated with my vision of our congregation's ministry and mission and responded enthusiastically to my leadership. Others of you have not. That also is the way it always is in any congregation as faithful people seek to discern God's call for themselves individually and for a congregation collectively. In truth, I have always believed that if I were making everyone happy I probably wasn't doing my job in proclaiming the Gospel. We have struggled to hold honest differences in tension lovingly.

I have tried to lead us by my words and by my example as I am charged to do. There are times when we have succeeded and there are times when we have failed. In the light of God's eternal love, I am content that we have been as faithful as God's grace has allowed. There is much that remains to be done and more of the journey to be walked. However, today, we mark that time when our journeys must diverge.

In short, today, we mark what might well appear at first to be a death. Over the past few months it has felt like that to me as we have struggled with our respective future actions. Now, those decisions having been made, you in this congregation will surely move forward and prosper and while I will move on to new and different opportunities for ministry, something here, now, is dying. It is essential for us to acknowledge that fact. We will all need time to grieve the loss and the changes that are occurring even if we believe that we have made appropriate decisions.

Birth and death are always and everywhere a constant reality of all of our lives. Change is constant and while we may resist that change, God in God's mercy and love gently but firmly refuses to heed our plea. We are constantly reminded throughout the church year in lesson after lesson that our lives are a journey begun even before our birth and which will continue after our physical death. We are all on a journey from the divine life, toward the divine life and upon that journey God promises to meet us and lead us into God's unknown future. Yet, it is precisely God's future and so we can trust God's leading. It is a central conviction of our faith that our lives are filled with lots of little deaths and lots of little rebirths so as to rehearse for the great one yet to come.

Our good news says that we must continue to learn this difficult lesson throughout our lives. We must constantly learn and relearn to trust in this God who calls us toward God's unknown future--taking us into a land of promise. What often appears like failure or death is, in actuality, in light of God's inbreaking reign, simply a new and unexpected turn in the road. It is another opportunity for us to practice receiving new birth and new life. Remember that when the people Israel got free of their slave masters and were in the desert, they cried out to return to the familiarity of their enslavement rather than face their fear of the future and their fears of death. So it is with each and every one of us. Yet, God continues in the midst of this to call us beyond our fear.

Jesus begins his ministry in our lesson today but we who know the rest of his story know that, according to any rational standard of assessment, Jesus failed miserably in his ministry and ended up being executed by the Roman Empire as a seditionist. His ragtag band of disciples huddled in a locked room in terror and despondency, sure that they themselves would be hunted down and killed. It must not have seemed like new life or the kingdom's dawning to them. Yet, here we are today, carrying on the work begun in them and continuing the task of proclaiming by our lives together in community, the inbreaking of God's righteous kingdom. Who would have thought?

No, while I am sad and while I grieve to take my leave of you good people, while I will miss the life we have come to share, and while I will watch with eager anticipation as you call new leadership and continue to live out your ministry in this place, death is not what today is about. Beyond the sadness of parting, beyond the fear and the anxiety that the future can bring to us all, we are a people of resurrection faith. We are a people who attempt to live out that rock solid conviction, born of long experience, proclaimed in faith and nurtured in the wisdom of the church community--that what today is about is new life. We must leave this worship today holding feelings and thoughts of deep gratitude, thanksgiving and hope. As I give thanks for all that you have given me in our time together, I am filled with gratitude that God has allowed me the sacred privilege to be your priest and pastor.

Today we gather to say our farewells and to give thanks for the next part of the journey that is yet to unfold. It is also true is that as I leave you, I will continue to carry you all in my heart. We have lived and worked together in such a close way that both of us, you and I, have been irrevocably changed. Who and what each of us has become over these last seven years, me as your pastor and you as a congregation, and what we will yet become in the future has been profoundly affected by our lives together. There is, if truth be told, a life that we have lived together which can never die because we belong to the divine love which will never let us go. We are a resurrection people and we must witness to that today. May the divine love watch between us and keep us ever within God's loving care today and always. Amen

[Ed. Note: After seven and a half years of thoughtful and dedicated service, Fr. Bruce resigned as Rector of St. Paul's effective January 31, 2003.]