Reading One     Saying Goodbye to Very Young Children by John Updike

They will not be the same next time. The sayings
so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.
Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in
the more securely to the worldly buzz
of television, alphabet, and street talk,
culture polluting their gazes’ dawn blue.
It makes you see at last the value of
those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells
of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces
like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)
who knew you from the start, when you were zero,
cooing their nothings before you could be bored
or knew a name, not even you own, or how
this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye.

Reading Two The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb by Sharon Olds

Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
that’s been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that’s been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.

Sermon: Loving, Holding, Letting Go

Because this is what I do, when uncertainty and sadness arise, I have been looking for both rules – clear ones — and role models – ideally, wise ones.

I have wanted to do this thing both right and well. I have wanted to take it very seriously and have also wanted to just be oh-so-casual about it. I have wanted to focus on you and I have wanted to focus on me. I have wanted to DO and I have wanted to BE – to hold on and to let go.

Because this is who I am, me, the one with the reputation for being a control freak, I looked to rules. There is a code of conduct that I, and other UU ministers or UU candidates for ministry, must follow. I wondered what it would tell me what I must do and I wondered whether it would be clear…or clear as mud. This was helpful to a point, especially as a jumping off place for the conversation your next minister and I had regarding healthy boundaries for this…it’s time to say it: this good-bye.

He and I have crafted an understanding that supports the ongoing vibrance of this church place, that makes clear that this is a good-bye process, that when we worship together in two weeks’ time, on May 18^th, then share fellowship together, it will be not a “see you later,” but a real good-bye.

Then, because this is who I am, I looked to other rules.  Not to contradict but to give texture and meaning. There’s a minister who has written the classic reflection on ministers leaving congregations. His name is Roy Oswald and his piece is called, “Running Through the Thistles: Terminating a Ministerial Relationship with a Parish.” In it, among some insightful comments, are his five rules or tasks for a minister in the process of leaving:

• “Take control of the situation,”
• “Get your affairs in order,”
• “Let go of old grudges,”
• “Say thank you,”
• “Be honest about why you are leaving.”

So I looked at what I was doing and how I was doing it in these past few months through the lens of those five rules, some of them less salient than others because of the nature of this ministry, which has always been time-limited and has last only two years….so how many old grudges could I have accumulated?

I looked to the rules I have taught hundreds of home visitors when it comes to saying good-bye to clients they have served over a period of many months, sometimes several years. Of course, it’s a difference set of circumstances, but some of the wisdom applies:

• Start saying good-bye at the beginning (yep, done that)
• Remind them periodically (yep, done that)
• Review your time together and celebrate it (yes, doing that)
• Allow, encourage, celebrate them imagining their future without you (yep, doing that)

Of course, I also looked to the poets. Our readings today come from one of my favorites, Sharon Olds, and from John Updike, not particularly familiar to me, but a friend recommended it, and I thought it fitting.

And Mary Oliver’s poem, “In Blackwater Woods,” which is wise and deep and ends thusly:

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Oh, that poetry is some good rules.  And not just for ministers.  For me and for all of us.

I looked not only to rules, but as I said, to role models. To times in my professional life when I have had to say good-bye. To times in my personal life when I have had to say good-bye. To wise words spoken by leaders of this very congregation. To other ministers who have done this, reflected upon it, felt it deep in their hearts and bones. In particular, I looked to a Berry Street lecture by the UU minister, Mark Morrison-Reed, now officially retired but still very active in influencing the quality of Unitarian Universalism as a living, breathing collective spiritual endeavor. It’s a quote from him that graces the top of your order of worship.

And here is more wisdom from that lecture, entitled, “After Running Through the Thistles, the Hard Part Begins”:

The relationship of minister and parishioner has the qualities of a friendship, but no matter how warm and deep, authentic and reciprocal the relationship is it is not a sustainable friendship. Why? Because it is built upon an unavoidable imbalance — the minister is always more responsible for the relationship. When necessary we must be prepared to forsake the role of friend for that of minister, and ready to choose the well being of the community over the needs of the friend. We are not as free to share all aspects of our lives and ourselves. Nor can we make friends with whom we please, for that would create two classes of parishioners — the chosen and the not. Finally, when our ministries come to an end so must the relationships, lest we take up space the next ministry needs if it is to take root.  (Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed)

So this is why, when we say good-bye, you can expect that it is a good-bye, not a see you later. So this is why it is best practice that when a minister leaves, that there is no contact – not because you don’t like me or I don’t like you, but because though ministry – in the form of the congregation, in the form of the church — stays, ministers come and ministers go.

As our story from earlier indicates, I looked to the wisdom to be found in children’s literature. I looked at some stuff from Winnie the Pooh. I knew that The Little Prince had some heartfelt words to say about good-byes. And I turned to one of my favorite books on the topic, Judith Viorst’s The Good-Bye Book.

Of course, the good-bye in that book is of a different caliber than the one sitting in the room with us, invisible but fully sensible. In the book, there is a young child who refuses to accept than his parents are going out for the night, are going to leave him alone, which is nigh on abandonment, but really is the alone that comes with a babysitter. I have taught this book before because the stages our little friend goes through are nearly indistinguishable from those identified by Elizabeth Kübler -Ross when it comes to saying good-bye to dying loved ones. Kübler-Ross articulate a set of five stages, which are not fast like rules, but really serve the same purpose of giving us a foundation for understanding our context and experience.

In our little friend, we see hints, sometimes shouts, of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and of acceptance. Do you remember when our little friend says to his parents, as they continue to ready themselves for their night out on the town? He says, “And tomorrow, when you say ‘Guess who we met at the restaurant last night’ I’m not guessing.” Do you remember when our little friend said, “You’re going to be so sad. You’re going to cry and cry,” when he was really talking about his own sadness and, to use the term of Kubler-Ross’ stages, “depression.” Do you remember, as they were leaving, how he bargained for one more book and if not a whole book, then a half book and if not a half book, then a poem? And in the end, his parents already having lovingly left, he turns to the nice babysitter holding a book, and he accepts what is before him, going to the window and waving good-bye.

I have to admit, I recognize these in the book’s main character because I recognize them in myself. I don’t think I need to go into all the details, but as we have entered into this final phase of our ministry together, or my co-ministry with Jon, trying to keep my eyes wide open, there have been times I haven’t been able to. Times when Denial has been my companion, or Bargaining has whispered in my ear.

Now, I want to caution us – you all and myself. Unlike some good-byes, we have something exciting and worth celebrating that is inherently attached to it. You are entering into an exciting ministry with someone you know well, yet in an entirely new way – a sole ministry, rather than a co-ministry and more hours of leadership, of pastoral care, of community visibility. This is truly exciting.

And I, too, am not walking off to some dark sorrowful future, but with high hopes and lofty ambitions taking me first to be a chaplain intern at a hospital, then to my final year of studying, which will include serving a UU congregation on the other side of the state next year. And then a year-long internship, full time, at a UU parish as of yet unknown to me which should lead to my eventual ordination as a minister.

So there are exciting things we both face and we could just look in those directions, forgetting that part of what allows the success of our future plans is our looking back upon where we have been and what we are leaving behind. Part of how we enter the next threshold, as persons and as communities, is by facing squarely that which we are leaving behind.

With my leaving, I know that I am leaving behind my first church. I am leaving behind a church that nearly closed, that by all rules and rights should have closed, if you look at the statistics out there, but made a bold move, took a chance on two unknowns from other denomination, and said, “not yet, buddy!” I am leaving behind such engaged, brave people who embraced me – some of you even though I am not Christian and some of you because I am not Christian – and saw the minister in me well before I get the credentials to put in front of my name.

With my leaving, you are leaving behind a kind of temporary status, the moniker of “period of discernment.” You have done well with your process of looking at yourselves, which does not end with my departure, but is well-begun and now, instead of a phase, is a dynamic commitment to who you are in the world and how you respond to the world. With my leaving, you are able to engage in a wholesome exit of your minister, not some slow erosion that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, but instead with joy and intention, with mutual reflection and collective celebration.

Next time we worship together – the last time we worship together – the focus will mostly be on embodying and ritualizing our relationship and its transition, its end. It is then we will dissolve this co-ministry of the past two years, making way for the new ministry of Reverend Jon. It is then I will bless this congregation, joyfully doing my part to help usher you into the next stage of your collective life. It is then you will bless me and send me on the rest of my journey.

This is the work, the heart work, of loving what is mortal – what must end, as all things must. This is the work, the heart work, of holding against your bones, taking in the truth of it rather than minimizing or distorting. This is the work, the heart work, of then, somehow, when the time is right, letting it go.

Amen.  And blessed be.