Norman B. Bendroth
It was my last Sunday. I had just finished a very satisfying stint as the Sr. Sabbatical Minister for six months. The folks gave me a wonderful send off with a photo album full of cards with well-wishes, gift certificates, and CD’s of favorite tunes. It was gratifying and humbling. This was my ninth goodbye in 24 years of ordained ministry; two of them as a settled minister and seven as an interim.
When I took the training to be an intentional interim minister we were told that we had to learn to become good at goodbyes. I go through the usual round of “closure” activities when I’m finishing up an interim ministry: write up an evaluation of the time together, say goodbye to those with whom I’ve had special or important connections, mend any fences that may have been broken, have an exit interview, and share a farewell liturgy on our last Sunday together. I’ve become good at it, so to speak, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Psychologist Judith Viorst tells us that our life story is essentially one of loss. In her book Necessary Losses, she explores how our lives are shaped the various losses we experience — from the very first loss of our mothers’ sheltering arms, to the loss of our impossible expectations, to the loss of options and muscle tone as we age, to the loss of loved ones in and out of season.
In this life we say goodbye to people and places all the time. Sometimes we say “good riddance,” but more often than not they are painful goodbyes. We say goodbye to people we love because new jobs and possibilities call them away from us. We say goodbye to relationships that are sometimes ruptured because of harsh words and misunderstandings. We say goodbye to children who grow up and leave homes stone-still quiet and empty that were once filled with laughter and energy. We say goodbye to youthfulness and idealism when gravity, disease, and cynicism wear them away. We say goodbye to common sights, smells, sounds, and routines whenever we move on in life.
In his book, My Name Is Asher Lev, a young boy, Asher, and his father have an unexpected encounter with death. They are walking home together from synagogue and they discover a bird lying on its side against the curb near their home. The conversation goes like this.
“‘Is it dead, papa?’ I was six and could not bring myself to look at it. ‘Yes,’ I heard him say in a sad and distant way. ‘Why did it die?’ ‘Everything that lives must die.’ ‘Everything.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You too papa? And mama?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And me?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. Then he added in Yiddish, ‘but may it be only after you live a long and good life, my Asher.’
I couldn’t grasp it. I forced myself to look at the bird. Everything alive would one day be as still as that bird? ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘That’s the way the Ribbono Shel olom made his world, Asher.’ ‘Why?’ ‘So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever is never precious.'”
That is why goodbye is so difficult as pastors because people become so precious to us. One of the great privileges of being a minister is that we get to experience vicariously in one year what many people experience in a life time. We find that ordinary pew-sitters and sermon-hearers have incredible stories of travels, triumphs, suffering and overcoming that we never suspected. I learned from one arthritic woman that she had walked the Appalachian Trail in her sixties and had scaled some of the highest peaks in the world in her younger days. From a retired man I learned that he used to run a general store in rural New Hampshire and was asked to become a recruiter for a new company that had relocated there. He knew the townspeople so well that he could help them make good hiring decisions. He worked his way up to become the head of the Hong Kong office.
It is said that you always remember the people you have laughed with, but you never forget those with whom you have cried. Even during an interim time where we know the relationship will eventually come to an end, it is hard because as pastor and people we have thrown our lot in together for a season. I have felt their pain, shared their laughter, carried their anxiety, heard their stories, and rejoiced in their joys. My life was immersed in theirs and theirs in mine. That separation does not happen lightly or easily.
People are usually bad at good byes. They are painful so we either avoid them, pretend they are really no big deal or do weird things we would never do consciously. Sometimes there is an emotional cut off by ending the relationship abruptly. At other times people cause each other to get angry and storm off so they can say, “See, they were no good anyway.” The best way to say good bye is to raise the emotions to a conscious level, to acknowledge that they are painful and confusing, there will be a loss, and there will be a mixture of joy, regret, and even anger because someone who has meant a lot to us is abandoning us. When saying good bye we should celebrate what our life together has meant, repair or reconcile any hurts, ask for and receive forgiveness where necessary, and joyfully share in specific ways how we have been blessed by one another.
As Christians we remember that our God is not a stranger to goodbyes. We do not have an unmoved mover standing back from the creation with a pitiless stare, barking orders, toying with us. We have to do with one who said goodbye to all rights, privileges and status as God and became a human being in Jesus Christ. As a human being, Jesus was well acquainted with goodbyes. After the incident of Jesus confounding the sages of the Temple at age twelve we hear nothing about his earthly father Joseph. Apparently Joseph died in Jesus’ youth and he became responsible for his family’s welfare earning his living as a carpenter. He said goodbye to his friend Lazarus who died too young and he wept before his grave. He said goodbye to the loyalty of his friends and disciples when they all abandoned him at the Garden of Gethsemane. And finally, he said goodbye to intimate communion with his God when he died on Calvary.
Michael Kelly Blanchard is a singer-song writer who captures the poignancy of saying goodbye. It begins with the emotions of having to say good bye to his wife and kids whenever he had to travel for a music gig and ends with the exquisite pain of saying goodbye to someone who has died.
Every time I leave I feel like a magician with nothing up his sleeve; a bag of tricks that no one will believe, every time I leave. I’m as clear as the rain out the window of this airplane, and I cannot disguise how I feel: oh this pain here inside’s much too real. I wish there were…
Chorus: No more goodbye’s, no more departures with tears in our eyes, no more broken hearts or the lonely insides, just “hello, how are ya’s” and welcome back sighs, but forever no more goodbyes.
Last night I cried with a room full of friends for a friend who had died; oh we cried, we ached so inside, last night I cried. But then a love took the room and resolved all the gloom, he only has gone from this place, someday not too long we’ll meet again face to face when there’ll be (chorus)…
God has made a world where goodbyes are possible; a world where we can say “no” to God and go our own way; a world where things break and die; a world where “moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.” But our God will not be dissuaded; our God will pursue the promise of life until all our goodbyes find their hello’s
in Jesus Christ, where those tears collected in a bottle will be poured out, when we will receive justice instead of calumny, and shalom instead of shame; a day when there will be no more goodbyes, but “Hello, how are ya’s” and welcome back sighs, but forever no more goodbyes.”
