IN JUST A FEW DAYS, as I write these words, I will lose my pastor. After almost 20 years as the pastor of our church, and almost 13 years as my pastor, he is retiring.
I have not been prepared for how hard this is. After all, until this particular chapter of my life, I have never had a pastor — not in the strictest sense. When I was a child, theoretically it was my dad who was my pastor; but mainly he was my dad! Across the years of my own ministry in which, before coming here, I served a succession of four churches as a pastor, I had a handful of cherished pastoral colleagues who sometimes played the role of my pastor; but they were primarily friends — not persons charged in an official sense with the nurture and care of my soul. Here and there, there’s been a therapist, or a Jungian analyst, or a prayer partner. But they were not tasked with reaching out to me in moments of visible need, or baptizing or confirming my daughters, or calling on me in the wake of a parent’s death, or serving me Communion — nor did I expect that of them.
But across the last 13 years, the time that I have been here in Austin, this man was that kind of pastor — an attentive, faithful, sacramental shepherd. The son of a doctor, he grew up in the plainspoken panhandle of Texas and, for his seminary education, migrated to New York where he drove a taxicab and attended Union Seminary and served the East Harlem Protestant Parish. Eventually, he served in Houston, Corpus Christi, and finally Austin, where he honed his preaching gifts in a D.Min. program at Austin Seminary. I and so many, many others have been the beneficiaries of his many-faceted life experiences, his voracious reading, his diligent stewardship of the mind and of the heart.
By constitution, he is rather introverted — not a back-slapper, but one who cultivates a rich interior. All the same, as our pastor, he laughed with us, he celebrated my family, he marked with us some of the seasons of life. On one occasion, in an especially hard season, he wept with me. I would like to think that enough of us parishioners were there for him, too, when he needed some care; that surely across the years we returned the favor. But here’s the amazing thing: In largely quiet, un-trumpeted and purposeful ways, he simply did his duty. He carried out the promises made at ordination and somehow he infused it all with a deeper meaning.
In recent weeks, as we have been diligently preparing for what is coming after next Sunday, we have been reminded by a fellow church member of the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah, the prophet, after an amazing tenure of service in northern Israel, was taken up into heaven by a chariot of fire, but his mantle was left behind for his successor Elisha, who received a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit. Elisha picked up that mantle — that stole — and made it his own.
On Maundy Thursday, as my pastor served communion to all of us who came forward, and then again as he served the body and blood of our risen Lord on Easter, I noticed his stole. It draped his tall shoulders with the weight of larger purposes, and, on both occasions, I noticed a sad lump in my throat. He has worn his vocation so well.
I will miss my pastor. But I will honor him and his ministry by looking forward to the next chapter, when another pastor will come to us to pick up his mantle — his stole — and wear it, to the glory of God, as his or her own.
THEODORE J. WARDLAW is president and professor of homiletics at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas.