Pentecost V – C
Pastor Peter Lisinski
“WE’LL
(Text: Luke 10:1-20)
A
quarter-score years and two months ago – in other words, in April A.D. 2005,
shortly after my second interview with the call committee of
The rest, as they say, is history!
A few weeks later I received the call to become your next pastor; and, true to that fortune cookie, accepting your invitation to serve God together has indeed been a marvelous opportunity. The gracious hospitality you extended our family from the very beginning, your generous support and personal affection for us over these past five years have truly blessed us more deeply than you may know or imagine.
As it says in our worship bulletin, ten years ago today our son, Mark, died at the age of twenty-five. And, for the first five of those years since, Rosarie and I – like many who suffer a loss of such magnitude – often felt out of place in our community; out of step with our congregation; out of sorts in our own home, and even out of touch with our own selves. It was a long time of grief and loneliness.
But the next five years here at Meadowvale Lutheran have been a time of recovery and revival. Your community spirit and faithful friendship have helped us overcome our feeling lost and forgotten, and renewed within us the sense of welcome and belonging so vital for the healing and wholeness which is every human being’s God given promise and divinely-intended destiny. We still have a long way to go but, increasingly, the good days are outnumbering the bad days.
I thank God, and all of you, for our good fortune in being called to share our lives with one another even though it has been such a difficult time for our congregation. As I have said on a number of occasions – at council and congregational meetings, as well as in personal conversations – whenever regret has been voiced of the financial reality that has made the termination of my fulltime call necessary: “I wouldn’t have missed being here for the world!” Sharing your companionship, witnessing the dignity and integrity with which you have faced the challenges to our faith and obstacles to the fulfillment of our ministry within this Meadowvale West Church Centre has – hopefully – made me a better pastor and, more importantly, a better person!
And so, the time has come for us to part company.
Like the seventy disciples Jesus sent out two by two in today’s Gospel, today Rosarie and I and our family begin a new and, as yet, un-charted course in our faith journey – and so do each of you and your life’s closest traveling companions. Like that original group of seventy – a number that represents the whole Christian church on earth – we are all sent on a mission. We may not know where we might be tomorrow; we may not know what kind of response we will get, or how effective our mission will be. But we do know this: We have all been sent – the Greek word is ‘apostle’ – we have all been sent to tell the good news of God’s reign in Jesus Christ, and bring the peace of God in Christ, to every community and person we meet along the way.
Today you and I begin to walk along separate roads. But, true to the ancient claim that “All roads lead to Rome”, you and I share the hope of a common destination and promised destiny – a hope expressed in our son Mark’s last words to us, and carved into his gravestone: “We’ll all be together again!” Even if not as pastor and congregation in this life and world, we will certainly be together as redeemed sheep in the green pastures of eternal life in God’s whole new creation, established in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then, like the joyful reunion of the seventy missionaries returning to Jesus at the end of their mission, we too will rejoice to know that our names are written in heaven! Until then we can rejoice in knowing that, in our life and ministry together, the communion of God has indeed come near to us!