God’s Gifts have Overflowed
June 10th, 2007
Gary Harder
Text:
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Ephesians 3:14-20
Introduction
This is a very rich and full and wonderful Sunday morning. I celebrate the fact that God continues to call people into pastoral leadership. Witness the “licensing toward ordination” service this morning for Jonathan and Maureen. I celebrate the fact that God continues to invite people into the fellowship of God’s church – witness the membership service this morning for Ernie and John. I celebrate the incredible gifted-ness of this congregation – all of you. Witness the amazing things this congregation has done over so many years. I celebrate the invitation – the open, loving invitation – of Jesus to eat and drink at his table. Witness our communion table. And I celebrate the awesome privilege I have had of being your pastor for almost 20 years, a time now in its ending phase.
I have been overly nostalgic this week, and that has coloured this sermon unduly. My apologies. I do want to reflect a bit on my experience of being your pastor, but only as a kind of lense through which to celebrate the much larger picture of what God is doing and of what God’s people are doing.
There is a deep irony, and maybe even a deep mystery, that is almost overwhelming me as I am about to preach my last sermon here at TUMC before my retirement next week. The irony and mystery has to do with the fact that when I began my vocation as pastor 42 years ago I was terrified of preaching, and feared that I had nothing to say.
It was in Wawa that my panic boiled over. The little town of Wawa in Northern Ontario. We were on our way to Sudbury and the Waters Mennonite Church, where I was to be pastor. I was 23 years old and very insecure. I had been quiet for several hours already, brooding away. For me that wasn’t so unusual, neither the silence nor the brooding. I was quiet on the outside and in turmoil on the inside. Suddenly I burst out, right in the middle of the town of Wawa, “Lydia, I think I know what the theme of my first sermon is going to be. But what am I going to preach on after that”?
“What am I going to preach on after that”? For the whole next year (which then became two years in Waters Mennonite). And for the next forty some years (thought I couldn’t have even imagined forty two years of preaching then. “What am I going to preach on after that”? And the amazing thing is that I have never run out of topics or themes or texts or ideas to preach about. Always there have been more than enough, more than I can in fact preach about. There is still panic, often, on an individual Sunday when nothing seems clear or seems to work. Tuesdays are still my miserable day when I am trying to begin sermon preparation and realize again that I have no idea whatsoever how to begin preparing a sermon. But always, mysteriously, the pool of possibilities is bigger than I have time to use, with left over crumbs filling many baskets (as in waste baskets). I don’t know where many of these come from.
My oldest son it was who put me in my place about some of the preaching ideas that do come. He was at CMBC at the time, taking a homiletic course – a preaching course. I was there for meetings, and sat down for lunch with him and a table full of other students who had just come from that homiletics class. And of course they were talking about the class offerings that morning. They had been studying the classical Princeton three point sermon. Or, as Kevin put it, “three points and a poem”. I very foolishly entered that conversation and confessed that I very seldom peached a three point sermon. To which my son replied, “Yah, dad seldom makes any points at all”.
And here I am at the end of almost twenty years of ministry here in this place, maybe still pointless, wondering which, of the many unexplored themes and texts, to preach about in this my last sermon here. One part of my heart insists that I have run out of words to say in the immanent reality of my retirement. I have had 42 years to try to find words, and surely I have run out of them. And I think I have. What more can be said in terms of either challenge or comfort or inspiration or understanding a text or our context. Surely if I haven’t managed to say what is important in twenty years here, it is too late now.
But the other part of my heart cries out that the mystery of how God works in my life and in our lives is so big that we will never run out of themes and texts, and we have to keep on reaching for language to try to understand it. Words are never enough for this awesome task, but words are really all a preacher has to offer. The irony, and the mystery, is that when I started my career as pastor I was terrified of preaching. I panicked about not finding themes and words for next week, let alone the next 42 years. And now, at this ending, there are far more themes and texts than time to preach them. I so often don’t know where they come from. There is a mystery of God’s grace at work, I think. Don’t blame God for my lack of points.
Celebrating God’s ministry
Today I want to direct my few words to a celebration of ministry generally – a thing enormously bigger than what any pastor, or pastors, can embody. One part of this is celebrating the church – though the church is too small too to contain all that God is doing in this world. God is at work in our world, lavishly, almost wastefully, giving gifts of ministry to people – inside of the church and outside of the church. God is at work, often through the church, but also often in spite of the church. God does work through us pastors, but also works in spite of us pastors.
Today I celebrate the church – this awesomely gifted bunch of God’s people who do the primary work of the church. Our Mennonite theology insists that the church is Christ’s church – not our church, and certainly not the pastor’s church. The church cannot be “pastor centred”, though the pastor does have an important leadership role and function. The church must be Holy Spirit led, and the Holy Spirit uses a great number of people in that leading.
Hear again the words of Paul. ‘Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord’ and there are varieties of activities. But it is the same God who activates all of
them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
I am eternally grateful to God for calling me to be pastor and inviting me to exercise my gifts in my small part in providing pastoral and spiritual leadership. I am also eternally grateful to God for all of you – for each of you – for each of you have been a gift to the church – and to me.
Naming some of your gifts to me
I want to name some of the ways in which you been a particular gift to me – have been a particular blessing to me, and will, I’m sure continue to be gift and blessing to Jonathan and Maureen and to every new pastor who will come.
– You have let me be authentically me
You have let me be me. You have not squeezed me into a “Pastoral mould”. You have let me be Gary first, not Reverend Harder first. And that has been a huge gift to me.
One of the things I have been reflecting on as I prepare emotionally for my retirement is to ask “what is the core of my identity”? “How central is “pastor” to who I see myself being”?
We all wear many hats which are each a part of our identity. The pastor’s hat is certainly a very big one for me. It is a hat I have loved wearing, and will find difficult to lay aside. I’m sure I will be tempted in many places and situations to reach for it. I hope I will have the grace to stop myself from planting it on my head in any context related to TUMC. I think I can lay it aside, despite that temptation, because it is not yet central to who I am. Other hats are bigger. Being a husband, a father, a grandfather. Being a friend. Being a follower of Jesus. These all continue after I take off my pastor’s hat. These, and others, are more to the core of who I am.
One of your gifts to me has been to let me be Gary first and pastor second, and not to presume how I should wear that pastor’s hat. And you are ready, I think, to offer that same gift to Jonathan and Maureen.
– You have opened your lives to me
Another enormous gift is that you have opened your lives to me in remarkable ways. You have welcomed me when I have called to invite myself over. Or you have taken the initiative to come to me. And so often it has been a sacred moment when you have opened your lives to me – whether in sharing struggle and pain, or in celebrating special moments and special joy and special grace. Often you have made yourselves vulnerable to me, and often there have been very intimate and very sacred moments where God’s Spirit is at work in a way that transforms both parishoner and pastor.
I am already grieving giving up pastoral care. I think that of everything I do, I will miss this the most. I am fully aware that pastoral care was what I most dreaded when I first became a pastor, and which now I will grieve the loss of the most. Continue to open your lives to each other.
– You have honoured my integrity as a preacher
I will miss preaching too, of course. I will miss it a great deal. Partly this is because you have honoured my integrity as a preacher. You have given me the freedom to speak what is on my mind and on my heart. And this is not to be taken for granted. I have always felt that I could be honest with you – honest about how I interpret the Scriptures even when my interpretation is not conventional or traditional – like, for example, on the issue of homosexuality. Honest about how I analyse our context, the world in which we live. Honest about my theological views when they are orthodox and when they aren’t. Honest about what is going on in our lives and in my life.
You have not tried to make me conform to what you think or to what you think is orthodox. You have rightfully challenged what I have said, and differed with me, and disagreed with me, and critiqued me, and sometimes been angry with me, but you have never challenged my freedom to say what is on my heart. You have honoured my integrity as a preacher.
The other piece is that you listen so carefully. You are a listening congregation. Every preacher who preaches here realises how carefully you listen to a sermon. And I can see your response in your faces. It is an enormous gift to be listened to like that. And that can’t be taken for granted either. In many other settings it has felt like I am preaching into a void, not knowing whether anyone is listening, whether anyone is responding.
Here you honour us preachers with a keen and attentive listening. You honour us by allowing us to find and express our own voice. You respect our integrity as preachers. That is a wonderful gift that you can continue to extend to any pastor, and in fact to every person who preaches here
You have nurtured me and my family
I have felt well nurtured here – emotionally and relationally and spiritually and intellectually nurtured. One of the huge temptations for us pastors is to think that we are the primary nurturers, the ones who are always giving, never receiving. We look to help meet other’s needs, and forget our own. The huge temptation of a congregation is to see themselves primarily as receivers of nurture – especially from the pastor – and thus become passive recipients, drawing in everything the pastor may have to offer, not realizing that no one can keep on giving without also receiving.
And so it is that many of us pastors dry up, wither away – whither away spiritually. You have not been passive recipients. In so many ways and in so many settings you nurture each other and you nurture me. In many committee meeting settings we share our immediate stories around the table and listen and care for each other and pray for each other. You have given me three sabbatical leaves in which to give space to renew my energy and my vision. We have been a part of wonderful small groups. We have known deep friendships here.
This is a very alive place. I keep on being amazed at the gifts that are offered and shared here by so many people – public gifts like worship leading and preaching and music ministry and story telling and teaching, and ushering. Administrative gifts in leading meetings and organizing projects and planning events. People related gifts in forming relationships, in caring for each other, in touching people’s lives, in expressing love and acceptance. Behind the scenes practical gifts in fixing things and buildings things and preparing food.
So often I have felt nurtured here by worship, by wonderful congregational singing, by organizational efficiency, by the open, caring heart of this congregation.
I feel
that I can retire, not because I feel dried up and depleted and exhausted, but because it is the right time, and I look forward to other ministries that God may have in mind for me. Take to heart the gift of nurturing your leaders and to keep on nurturing each other.
– You offer a rich diversity to each other and to me
I thrill to the increasing diversity in the congregation – a theological & denominational diversity, a cultural and ethnic diversity, a racial diversity, an economic diversity. It is hard, sometimes, to see diversity as a gift. Certainly it is always a challenge. But you are learning well how to name your own story, your own thought, your own convictions, your own interpretations, without demanding that the other agree fully with you. I think we are seeing more and more that our unity is in following Jesus the Christ. It is not in agreeing with each other. And so our worship can be Christ centred even while we give the freedom to share diverse interpretations and convictions and opinions.
I continue to be fascinated with this Jesus and with his absolute radicalness for his time and for ours. We Christians differ enormously in how we understand Jesus, of course. How could it be otherwise if he is the fullest expression of a God who will never be fully disclosed or understood. The Christian church over the centuries has done its best to tame down this Jesus, to domesticate him, to make allies of him for our human causes and often for our human wars.
It was the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century who dared a major re-look of the Jesus of the Gospels, and unleashed a radical movement that sought to follow this Jesus, not only to believe in him. And this following including a commitment to peace and non-violence, a commitment to justice, to service, to befriending the marginalized and poor and abused, to building a caring community of support. The symbol of this movement was adult believers baptism. But at its heart if was a new understanding of who Jesus was and of what it meant to try to follow him in life. So radical was this movement, so counter culture, so threatening to existing structures, that a horrendous persecution was launched to try to stamp it out.
We are the heirs of that movement, and I think the identity of being Anabaptist/Mennonite still is central to us. Many of you come from other than Mennonite heritages, but I think you too resonate with this core identity.
And so our diversity, such a blessing, still has some rather solid core foundations which hold us joyfully together. A centring on Jesus the Christ, and understanding this largely through the lense of Anabaptist/Mennonite identity – holding as very basic a radical following of Jesus into peace and justice and community and inclusion.
Our diversity – played out from solid core convictions – is an immense gift to a congregation. It has been an immense gift to me. And I think it is an immense gift to our world.
– Above all you have offered me and my family your love.
Always being here as your pastor has been more than only a job, more than only tasks that needed doing, duties that needed to be fulfilled, responsibilities that needed to be carried out. This has been a place to live life in all its fulness – to grow, to fail, to feel safe, to make mistakes, to be challenged, to be supported and encouraged, to struggle, to follow God’s mysterious invitation to be God’s people.
In the end I have experienced this as a very loving place – not always, of course, no humans and no community of humans ever is. But in the end I have felt loved and have felt empowered to return that love. And have felt immensely blessed being here.
Conclusion
I will retire from being your pastor feeling that this is a good time to retire – good for me, and I think, good for you as a congregation. You have an amazing potential to be God’s hands and God’s voice and God’s love here and in many parts of our world. You are an immensely gifted congregation. You are a growing congregation.
I celebrate the privilege it has been to be your pastor. I celebrate what God has done among us and through us. I celebrate who Jonathan and Maureen are, and the gifts they offer us all. I celebrate what God will still do in and through Toronto United Mennonite Church.
I close with the prayer of Paul for the Church at Ephesus. This prayer has long been a particularly significant prayer in my life. This is my prayer for you.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have he power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”