Words of Welcome

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 “So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.” With those words, the children said good night to the partygoers in the Sound of Music. Today I join them in that refrain as I say goodbye to you as your pastor. When it comes to preaching your retirement sermon, what should you say? I could have gone with Moses’ final message in Deuteronomy, but Moses dies at the end and that didn’t seem right. I thought about using something from Revelation, so I could expound on the subject of eschatology. While that might work, it might take too long to get to the main point. So I turned to Paul’s closing words in his second letter to the Corinthian church. In these verses, Paul offers words of encouragement and blessing. This seems like a good way to close out a ministry.  Since Paul likes things to be done decently and in order, the first thing he does is tell the Corinthians to “put things in order.” That sounds like a good word for a season of transition. One reason I a

Psalm 138 It’s taken thirteen years, but we’ve finally reached the river’s edge. But, we’re not quite ready to cross over to the other side. We still have some work to do before we’re ready to cross over. Some of us will go across the river sooner than others.  In the biblical story, God called Moses to lead the people to the river, but it was Joshua who took the people across the river. In a couple of weeks your interim minister, the Rev. Glen McIntyre, will assist you in preparing for that moment of crossing. These river crossings are more complicated than we like to think. There are a lot of logistical elements that need to be taken care of before you can successfully cross the river.  Our story will be a bit different from the biblical story. You see, in the biblical story Moses hands things off to Joshua, who will lead the people across the river, and then Moses heads off into the sunset never to be seen again. We’re going to rewrite the story a bit because I get to cross th