This is our last goodbye
I hate to feel the love between us
die
But it's over
Just hear this and then I'll go
You gave me more to live for
More
than you'll ever know
-
Jeff Buckley, “Last Goodbye”
I’ve had this song stuck in my head for a couple of
days now. Jeff Buckley is one of my
all-time favorite musicians, and while his song is definitely about a painful
break-up (and not about leaving a beloved church), I love how the first line
ends with hope: “you gave me more to live for // more than you’ll ever know.”
By the way: if you’re reading this and thinking, “What
in the world is he talking about?” I’d
encourage you to read the following letter – sent out to the FPC family back in
August – to help clarify. Exciting new
calling, crazy timing, and God’s provision are big themes I hope the letter
presents to you:
Back to Jeff Buckley.
Our time at FPC has been endlessly life-giving. Sometimes, pastors find that their first call
out of seminary is a grind. The opposite
is true of our time at FPC. Four years
in the Grand Valley has revealed a vision of God’s kingdom which I could never have
imagined. The people who love and follow
Jesus here are genuinely committed to serving our neighbors, to being a
blessing for the sake of Christ, and to rolling up our sleeves and getting our
hands dirty in the work of community.
For that, I’m deeply grateful.
Someone asked me when we moved to Colorado four years
ago, “So does this mean you’re going to become a Rockies or Broncos fan?” I would argue – as I did then – that there’s
very little that feels quite as disingenuous as simply adopting the guise of a local
fan when you move to a new part of the country.
So, no, we’re not leaving Colorado with our fan-ship realigned. However, we’re leaving with our hearts
changed and more adept at the work of ministry.
We know more about our calling together as a family. And as we’ve experienced abundantly lately (especially in finding a buyer for our Colorado home and a new rental home in Washington) as God has provided for us in tremendous ways throughout our journey, so will
He continue to provide in the next stage.
This will be my last entry for “Grand Mission, Grand
Valley.” It’s been a lot of fun to write
and to hear feedback. Thanks to all of
you who have read faithfully and enjoy the content. I’ll be blogging again soon at a new site,
and I’ll make sure the office at FPC knows the new web address to pass along to
anyone interested in my musings and mental wanderings. :)
I’ll close this chapter of the journey with a quote
from Wesley Hill, a writer and seminary professor who wrote a great piece on
saying “goodbye” in Christianity Today:
Rather than downplaying
the significance of saying goodbye, [pastor and theologian Dietrich] Bonhoeffer
wanted to experience the full force of a farewell. “[W]e have to suffer
indescribably from the separation,” he wrote. Only in that way “do we sustain
communion with the people we love, even if in a very painful way.” God keeps
our goodbyes painful, Bonhoeffer said, in order to highlight how vital our past
togetherness was.
So these days, whenever I have to move away from
friends, or bid farewell to friends moving away from me, I try to let myself
mourn. With Bonhoeffer, I grieve the physical distance that will yawn between
my friends and me. Rather than immediately imagining the future bridge that
will close the gap, I want to acknowledge the ache of it in the present and not
rush too quickly into comfort.
The word goodbye is actually a contraction of “God be with you.” Saying
goodbye is important, in the end, because it’s one way of reminding each other
that we are God’s bodily creatures. We want him to watch over us and keep our
love for one another alive, right now, even before the day of our eventual
reunion.
-
Wesley Hill, “A Severe Separation”
