Westmoreland Sermon Archive

June 6, 2010
Philippians 1:3-11, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Rev. Rich Smith

Well, friends, it’s finally come down to this, my last sermon here after nine years. On the one hand, nine years isn’t all that long. If I were a senator, I’d just be getting warmed up. Although if I were President, my time would have been up a year ago. Better to leave, I say, before Potomac Fever becomes an incurable condition. It’s been an exciting nine years, and I can see why people do like to stay. I have been amazed by many things here, in DC and in the church – not the least of which is that people actually come out on Sundays to hear to what I have to say. But whenever I get big-headed about that, I just think of Winston Churchill who once remarked, “I’m always astonished at how many people come to listen to my speeches, until I realize that, if I were being hanged, the crowd would be twice as large!”

So, maybe it’s time. The third or fourth Sunday I was here, a now-long-departed little old lady came through the door and shook my hand and said, “Each of your sermons is better than the next!” After 283 of them, I wonder what she’d say now! At least, so far an usher has not pushed the secret button that would send the preacher snuffer down upon me….

Still, it’s not that easy, saying “goodbye”. Like most families, ours has always had an elaborate ritual for leaving. I learned it growing up, when we’d drive across town to my grandparents each Sunday afternoon. We call it the “Smith stand-off.” It works this way: About an hour before you really need to leave, you start saying things like, “Well, it’s been a great afternoon, but we really must be going. We have an early day tomorrow.” At which point my grandmother would say, “So soon? Seems like you just got here!” And then she’d mention that there was some leftover food, and didn’t we want some more and of course we did. And then, didn’t we want to pack up the remaining leftovers, and of course we did. And didn’t we want some roses from her garden to take home, and so my grandfather had to go out to the yard and cut them, and they had to be packaged properly. By then, we kids, who had been given the two-minute-warning, had decided that departure was not exactly imminent, and had begun a new game of hide and seek. After about 45 minutes, and two more cups of coffee, we would move to the porch, and then the steps, and then stand around in the yard, chatting some more. Eventually we’d climb into the car, where we’d sit for another fifteen minutes with the windows rolled down before even starting the engine. Then just as my dad was ready to back out, a little brother had to use the bath room, and no he couldn’t wait the twenty minutes it would take to get home. In the end we got home, a hour later than planned. Perhaps we should have started the ritual two hours earlier, but that would be rude. And that was the beginning of the Smith stand-off, which in the next generation has evolved into a kind of “who’s gonna leave first” competition, with everyone standing around in the front yard daring the others to make the first move to their cars — a standoff broken only when we see my mother heading for the house to get some piece of childhood memorabilia that we need to make a decision on.

So I come by this hesitation in saying goodbye rightly, and that’s why we have a liturgy for departure, “a time of passage,” so that we do this right. When this service is over, so is mine! But not my caring or affection or memories. Some of these memories are wrapped up in statistics, like 283 sermons preached, 29 baptisms performed, 58 memorial services, 21 weddings, 225 new members, and the number of pounds I’ve gained from enjoying the Coffee Hours – the exact number is classified, but this church unquestionably has the best coffee hours of any church I’ve been to.

These nine years have been quite a wild ride, really. They started out so hopeful: I walked into the office on Tuesday, September 4, 2001, to find a letter from Loring and Helene Chase, (he was the minister here during the 1970′s) saying “Our thoughts will be with you….as you begin your pastorate at Westmoreland…..The Washington experience is unique. Enjoy it. Not everything is part of the political scene, and even when it seems that way, you don’t have to let it dominate your life…. Have FAITH in the importance of your work, FORTITUDE for the journey, and know that you are part of the FUTURE…” How important that advice and blessing would come to be, in very short order, for two days after my sermon everything changed, and with September 11^th all my plans for beginning a new ministry went right out the window and I felt like I was thrown into the deep end of the pool. Of course I was not alone there – we threw a lot of lifelines to each other and survived. And grew in the process. I remember joining some of you along with several thousand other people of faith as we marched in protest, a year-and-a-half later from the National Cathedral to the White House on the eve of the Iraq War. And then standing near then-UCC President John Thomas a few years after that as he was arrested – again in front of the White House – attempting to present petitions from over 50,000 UCC-ers, calling for an end to that war. Last year I got to sing with GospelGrass at a rally for Health Care at Freedom Plaza, on a hot June day; and six months later on a frigid December evening, stood and prayed in solidarity with hundreds of others at a Candlelight vigil for Health Care on Capitol Hill. While there I was interviewed by a correspondent for the “Russia Today” TV network – my fifteen minutes of fame, I guess. Suffice it to say, this city, along with the nation and the world, have changed dramatically in nine years, and I have been gratified – if a bit exhausted – to witness it from this vantage point.

But as Loring Chase wrote, it’s not all about the political scene. The church, as well, has seen many changes over the past nine years. Someone recently returned after a long time away and remarked that in many ways it seemed like a different church, which I suppose it is. Just as you can never stand in the same river twice, maybe you can’t attend the same church twice. To be alive is the be changing, growing, becoming something more, transforming more and more into what God is calling us to become. These changes take many forms: Except for Sanelma, the entire staff has turned over, and even her position is different from what it was. (But we do have a super staff in place, don’t we!) Worship, while having the same general shape and order that it had when I came, has become less formal, with more variety, and a lot more lay participation. Services featuring bluegrass, rock, and jazz are not just aberrations. The Washington Conservatory of Music has settled in with us, and has become as much a partner as a tenant. The word “Briggs” now refers to the Center for Faith and Action housed in the Carpenter House, not the 55 former Baptists who came to us with their pastor four years ago and who are now fully integrated in the life of the church. The church has become more outwardly focused, and the Board for Community Action set a good example for the rest of us when they started referring to themselves as “Outreach Ministries.” It is a recognition of the fact that in 2010, unlike the 1950′s, people don’t join a church so they can serve on a board (boards tend to be inwardly focused), but do wish to respond to God’s call in their lives to engage in ministry. What would happen if all the boards became ministries? It would greatly move along a transformation that has been occurring over the past several years here – this church responding to God’s call to be God’s people in this place in this century.

It has been a joy to witness several people respond to God’s call as they were ordained to the Christian ministry: Sharon Graham and Tom Lenhart in 2005, Amber Neuroth in 2006, and Jessica Peterson last year. That ceremony took place in Iowa, but it still stuck!

There were the themes that guided our year’s work, proclaimed by banners: “Feel the Spirit,” “One Westmoreland, One Washington, One World,” “Sixty on the Circle,” and “Join the Journey, We Will Walk Together.”

I will carry memories of these and I hope they will be part of my legacy. I hope my preaching will, also. Although I recall these lines from Anne Dillard: She told the story of an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”

I’ve told you. So now it’s up to you to avoid hell!

But I will also remember those little, everyday, almost unnoticed things – those encounters with the person who drops by the office, the chance meeting in the hall of a hospital, the phone call or email that tells of a joy or a worry, the board meeting where some bold and faithful action is voted, the perceptive question raised at Bible study, the time spent with a student at Marie Reed, the connection made with someone I hadn’t known very well before at a church retreat — all times where the spirit of God was quietly acting, and the presence of Christ felt. How do you measure such things, except in a fullness that one feels inside?

I have a lot of memories, and a great deal for which to be grateful. And if there is sorrow at our parting, it is in many ways a “sweet sorrow,” for as I often say at funerals, grief is natural, and is a sign of the love that is present.

Perhaps the scriptures can say it best here. I am drawn to that passage from Philippians, Paul’s own farewell to some people who were quite special to him, where he writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you, praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the Gospel from the first day until now…. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me….”

This is indeed how I feel, for we have been in this together, we have shared in ministry and what it means to be the church, the people of God in this place. And you would do me no greater honor than to continue to be just that — not to think of this as “Rich’s Church”, but as Christ’s, and to carry on in the work of ministry.

I’ve tried to give leadership that would make a difference, would hold out a vision of what the church could be, of how our lives can be lived, of who this Jesus is whose call is so compelling. I’ve tried to model an attitude of openness, one that celebrates differences, that sees the humor in things, that is hopeful and positive. I’ve tried to be there with you in those times of your lives that have been filled with fear or questioning or pain, or celebration. I’ve tried to make a difference.

But whether or not I have, I want you to know that you have certainly made a difference in my life. Not just by offering me a place to practice my calling and my craft, but by granting me freedom to do so as I have been led, and by giving me your trust. You have allowed me to try many things, attempt new things, stumble and bumble my way through and grow in the process. And for that I thank you. And I hope along the way I have encouraged some of you to try your wings a bit, and become the persons God is creating you to be.

What more can I say? I’ve had more of a glimpse of my future than you have had of yours. Some say that the seeds of our future are planted in our past, or as one wise philosopher put it, “Life is lived forwards but understood backwards.” Looking back I recall that I attended Washington High School, Maryland Elementary, and had a favorite teacher named Mrs. Montgomery. Destiny? And now, as we leave on Friday and head out I-70, just past Frederick we will pass very near the monument to one Jesse Lee Reno, a Union general killed in the Civil War Battle of South Mountain, in 1862. Some years later, when the Crocker family bought up land around the Truckee River in faraway Nevada, a place called Lake’s Crossing, they decided to re-name it memory of their old family friend, General Reno. While Reno himself had never set foot in Nevada, we will now complete the circle. If the church to which I go is anywhere as loving and welcoming and supportive as they appear to be, then I’ll be fine. And you’ll be okay too, I am sure of it, for this church is strong and vital, and while you will work through some things in the interim period – which is normal and healthy – your future is now in the dependable hands of the Still Speaking God and awaits discovery. Believe in it! Embrace it! And I’ll only add what Paul said in closing his second letter to the Corinthians:

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another (and if you can’t, at least do so lovingly), live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss….And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.