I said what I had to say, but inside I felt sick.

I felt a little sick on Sunday morning. Physically, I was fine. But I was like the gorilla at the zoo who throws her own feces at the glass, just to let those who are watching on the other side know exactly what she thinks of them. But the thing was, for me, these were people I truly care about. This was not even remotely what I thought of them. And yet, I threw it anyway. What kind of jerk does something like that?

This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt this way, but I don’t remember ever feeling it like I did this past week. It happened while I was preaching the sermon. In my defense, the text was Luke 6:20-26.
Then he (Jesus) looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

If Luke had stopped with the blessings, like Matthew did, all would be well, but Luke had to go on with the part about the woes. And that was the problem.
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

(In my faith tradition, we have a schedule of readings that we go through every three years called the Revised Common Lectionary. I can deviate from it if I want to, but then I would always be preaching on my favorite passages and that’s not exactly an honest way to preach God’s word to folks. So, the lectionary forces me to preach on texts that challenge me. And that’s a good thing. Good for me, and good for those who are on the receiving end of my sermons.)

 
Now, it’s not that I have a problem with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. I’ve preached on them before without an issue. But this time was different. Although I've always been a preacher who tends to challenge people, during the pandemic, I’ve been trying hard to be more comforting than confronting. In a time when people are feeling so beaten down every day, they don’t need to be beaten down by their pastor. So, over the past two years, I’ve been emphasizing Biblical themes like compassion, trust, and hope whenever I can. But Luke 6:20-26 wouldn’t let me go there.

 
Before the pandemic, I had occasionally been criticized because I didn’t preach in a way that left everyone feeling good, like Joel Osteen. I figured that the scriptures don't always leave everyone feeling good, so I didn’t allow their feedback to change the way I preached. And really, even my challenging sermons were always infused with grace, I thought. (Of course, grace may be the most challenging theological concept of all.)

Then last week, I received an email from a member I hadn’t seen during the entire pandemic and it rattled me. She told me she could no longer attend worship because it left her feeling bad about herself, even though she knows she’s a good person. I tried to reassure myself that I wasn’t responsible for how she feels, but a part of me wondered if maybe I was. Maybe my confrontational sermons had been too much. And then, on Sunday, here I was, doing it again.

We are entering a time when people who have been away from the church for the last few years are deciding whether they want to return. It is the “Great Reset.” We don’t know who will be among us when we come out on the other side. The majority of our Ascension members continue to worship online, and we don’t know exactly who they are. Some of our members are going to other churches now. We also have welcomed new people to Ascension. In some cases, we have swapped members with neighboring churches. And then there are those who no longer have an interest in any church at all.

Somehow, politics have crept into this Great Reset. While we figured out how to coexist during the Trump years, we haven’t fared as well during the pandemic. A few people left Ascension when we put “Black Lives Matter” signs in our front yard, which was enough to encourage others to join us. Some disagree with the cautious way we have asked people to worship with us during the pandemic, which is perceived as politically motivated. I’ve struggled with this much in the same way that I struggle to be faithful to Biblical preaching. What does it mean to be faithful to Jesus in this time? It’s not so much about a need to be right as a need to be faithful to the Jesus I’ve come to know and love, the Jesus revealed in the scriptures, the Jesus who taught us, “By this everyone will know that you’re my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Sometimes I get it wrong, but this is always what I’m trying to do.

On Sunday, when I stood in the pulpit and said what I had to say, inside I felt sick. I didn’t want to beat people up. Heck, I’m getting ready to retire, and I’d prefer that there be a congregation to leave for the next pastor. And yet, I was telling my overwhelmingly white, affluent congregation that God has a bias that favors the poor, the hungry, the oppressed. I shared with them that Luke’s gospel celebrates the Great Reversal as a sign of God’s Reign here on Earth. Where the hungry are filled with good things and the ones who are full are sent away empty. Where the rich are brought low, and the poor are lifted up. And here we go again with the politics. Except it isn’t politics. It’s Jesus. So, I said what I had to say. But inside I felt sick.

And why am I telling you this? Because I want you to know that I don’t take the things I say from the pulpit lightly. That when I was ordained, I promised to faithfully preach the word of God and that means doing my best to not preach the word of Nancy. That sometimes the scriptures compel me to say things I really don’t want to say. That as a human being, I don’t want other people to dislike me. I don’t want to come across like a jerk. I don’t want to be a gorilla flinging my feces at people. I want you to know that I'm human, and sometimes I feel sick when I say what I say in a sermon. But I’m a pastor, so I need to say it.

Last Times

As I learn of a judge on the Supreme Court, an NFL superstar, and a gold medal snowboarder who are all retiring, I feel a kinship with them. Like me, and all people who retire, I suspect they are experiencing the strangeness of last times.  After doing something we’ve done a bazillion times before, it becomes a part of we you are, so knowing we will be doing it for the last time creates a bit of an identity crisis. And if it happens to be something that we’ve loved doing, knowing it’s the last time comes with some grief. 

When I was ordained at 26, I couldn’t imagine that I would still be a pastor 43 years later. And now that the date of my retirement is nearing, I’m thinking about all the lasts. I’m down to my last 20 sermons, after preaching thousands of times through the years. Will I preach my last sermon at the end of June, or sometime after I retire? I don’t know. But I do know that there will be a last sermon for me.

A few years ago, I looked ahead to the months before my retirement and imagined myself savoring all the lasts. My last Christmas, my last time presiding at Holy Communion, my last time teaching a class, my last Council meeting… I planned to take it all in and do my best to slow down time so none of those lasts would slip by me too quickly. But that’s not the way it’s been going.

This year I had what should have been my last Christmas with my people, but instead of savoring it, I just wanted to get through it and move on. I feel like I had my last Christmas with them in 2019. That was a real Christmas celebration with full organ, brass quintet, timpani, handbells, and choir leading us we sang our hearts out. We lit candles for “Silent Night”, and I fought back the tears as I looked into the glowing faces of the people standing on the other side of the altar. After worship, we greeted one another with hearty Merry Christmases and hugs. By the time all the worship services had ended that night, I was exhausted, but in the best possible way, with a heart so full that when I finally went to bed after midnight, it took me hours to fall asleep. If I had known that was my last full Christmas with Ascension, I would have relished it more. For Christmas 2021, I had no sentimental feelings. If I had any feeling at all, it was anger. I was angry at the pandemic for robbing me of this one last Christmas with the people I have grown to love.

I am down to my last five months as a parish pastor. And this is not the way I expected things to go. I am not treasuring my lasts the way I had hoped. So many of them already happened two years ago, back when I didn’t know they were my lasts. Now as I look forward to what is officially my last Easter with Ascension, I can’t help thinking that, like Christmas, my last Easter with them was back in 2019. Yes, I know it will still be Easter, Christ will still be risen indeed, and I’ll be spending it with my people. But it won’t be what I had envisioned for my last Easter.

I can’t stop wondering when I might be doing something for the last time these days. Some things I can’t bear to think that I’m doing for the last time. Like baptizing a baby. I hope that hasn’t already happened for the last time. And other things, it would relieve me to know if I’m doing them for the last time. I have a funeral this month and I pray, please let this be my last funeral. There have been too many in my time at Ascension. I look at the dear saints of our faith community, and I don’t want to commit a single one of them to their final resting place. Please, Lord, let the next pastor do that, after I’m gone.

I know that I have no control over my lasts. Even when I think I do, it often doesn’t go the way I expected. And the truth is, I never know, when I am experiencing the things that bring me joy, if it might be for the last time—the last time to taste Crème Brûlée, the last time to listen to Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, the last time to do the chicken dance at a wedding reception. Each time could be the last time.

I wonder what my life would be like if I treated everything I did as if it were for the last time. Would it give me a heightened awareness that helps me live my life to the fullest? I know myself well enough to know that it wouldn’t work that way for me. If I knew it was the last time I was going to do any of the things I love in life, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy them.

For most of my lasts that I’ve already experienced, it’s just as well that I didn’t know they were going to be my last. Although I had no idea that it would never happen again, I’ve already sat in the top branches of a tree for the last time. I’ve already roller skated for the last time. I’ve played my flute with a full orchestra for the last time. I’ve already climbed Mount Pisgah for the last time. And then there’s sex. Many years ago, I had sex for the last time. (Before you try to tell me that I still don’t know it was the last time I would have sex, trust me. I know. It was the last time I will ever have sex.) Of course, the last time I had sex I didn’t know it would be the last time I had sex. And I’m quite certain that, had I known, it would have felt so monumental that it would have ruined the whole thing for me. 

I’ve been dwelling on last times too much these days. I want to live through the next five months oblivious to the last time I will do things and instead look forward to all the first times I have yet to experience. For the first time ever, I will be with my grandsons for their first day of school. I will go to Justin’s soccer game for the first time, and I’ll watch Nick run track. I will be with them on Christmas morning for the first time. One day soon, I will visit with them and go home, knowing that I will see them again the next day. And this will be the first of many such days I’ll be blessed to enjoy. I still have so many first times ahead of me.

Last times and first times. Over the next year, I expect my days to be filled with an abundance of both. And I trust that the last times, the first times, and the many times in between are all in God’s hands. As am I.

From Mountain to Beach

I’ve made a big change to the way I’m coping with the coronavirus pandemic in the past couple of weeks. And it’s all in my head. I used to think of this time like a climbing a mountain. We all had to work hard to make our way up the mountain, but we would arrive at the top eventually. Then we could coast our way down to the bottom and our lives would return to their pre-pandemic ways—hugging, singing, feasting. All the stuff that happened so long ago that I can hardly recall what it was like, but I do remember it was a better time, and I long to have it back.

Most of the people in my congregation seem to share this understanding of the pandemic. Several times a day I talk with someone who tells me they can’t wait to be back in church like it was in the good old days. When you could sit wherever you wanted. When you could see smiles on unobstructed faces. When the choir processed down the center aisle and led us from the front. When we sang all the verses to all the hymns like good Lutherans. When we passed the peace with lots of hugs and kisses. When we joined hands for the Lord’s Prayer. When we visited with friends over a cup of coffee. When children added background noise to our gatherings and filled us with joy. 

So many of the people I serve at Ascension are fervently longing for those days. In the meanwhile, they wait. Some are staying home and worshiping with us online. Others are enduring the tight restrictions we have imposed on our in-person worship. But they’re toughing it out, doing what they can to climb that mountain until we can get past it. Of course, we don’t know how long the ascent will take. But we’re hopeful it won’t be much longer. Again and again, we’re hopeful it won’t be much longer. 

Initially, I was hopeful when I learned about the omicron variant. This is great, I thought. Everyone will get the virus, but not many people will die, and then we’ll be closer to herd immunity, and this will be the beginning of the end. In my mind I had it all worked out. But I came to learn that my theory was deeply flawed and that’s not the way this damn virus works. 

In January, I reached the point where I was hope-exhausted. And I couldn’t do it anymore. The mountain metaphor had run its course for me. So now, I’m thinking of this experience in a new way. I’m done climbing that never-ending mountain. Now I’m looking at it like a day at the beach.  

I think about the way the tide guides our activities at the beach. It comes in, it goes out. When the tide comes in, you pick up your beach chair and your umbrella and your sand buckets, and you retreat. But then, when the tide goes out, it’s time to play on the beach. 

The tricky part is figuring out when the tide is coming in and when it’s going out. The coronavirus isn’t as predictable as the ocean, but we generally have some warning. We knew before omicron that it was coming. We could prepare for it. And now, we can see that it’s receding. Does that mean that the tide is going out? It appears that it is. 

So, I’m looking at Lent, and I’m thinking, let’s plan it like we will be able to play on the beach. Let’s do some things we haven’t been able to do in a while, even if only for a short time. Nothing unsafe, of course, but let’s start some learning opportunities, find ways to serve the community, worship more, sing more. Time will tell if I’m wrong about this, but it’s less than a month away, so I’m going with it. If the tide comes in unexpectedly, we can pivot just as we have for the past two years. 

As the virus ebbs and flows, we are at its mercy, in so many ways. Planning anything more than a month away continues to be frustrating for a planner like me. (I can’t bring myself to think about Easter yet.) But it’s helping me to change metaphors for coping with this time. It’s not so much about enduring the slog up the mountain but receiving the changing waves as they come to us, pulling back when it’s prudent to do so, and building sandcastles when it’s safe to do so. Of course, I know that sandcastles don’t last, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them in the moment. 

I don’t want to waste any more of my precious time waiting for life on the other side of the mountain. Instead, I plan to savor any moments I have to play for a bit on the beach.