You were only 68 years old. Now you are almost 100. I arrived fresh out of graduate school, eager and excited but with a gnawing doubt in the back of my mind…would the church in America actually survive another generation? My favorite scripture was the call from the prophet Micah who demanded that we “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.” Surely it was up to us in the church to save the world.
Over the years I learned that a warm casserole on the doorstep sometimes spoke more theology than a six-week series on the gospels. I experienced how a spirit-filled anthem or a poignant elder prayer could usher us into the presence of God’s spirit with more gravitational pull than a good sermon. As I witnessed the astounding generosity and the quiet, behind-the-scenes tender expressions of care that folks offered to each other I became less confident in my academic knowledge and more certain of the Holy Spirit’s power pulsing in the church.
As I hiked with you in Colorado, dug ditches with you in Nicaragua and stood with you at gravesides in Kansas City, I became more personally aware of God, not as a “thing” but as an energy. As you placed your trust in me, I found my voice to pray, preach, teach. You convinced me that in Christ there is no “male or female” but we are all “one in Christ.”
Over these 30 years, I have fallen ever more deeply in love with you. In my first month on the job in 1988, Betsy Jensen was born and I went to see her in the hospital. Because her mother was in critical condition in ICU, I vividly remember standing by her bed and praying for the Spirit to heal and save. Now that my 30th anniversary at the church has arrived, I marvel that Betsy and her husband Jim are expecting their first child. I look out and see her singing in the pew and I am reminded that God weaves us together as a family of God.
I still worry and fret, but I no longer doubt. My favorite verse of the Bible has changed. It is now “nothing can separate us from the love of God” from Romans 8. Now I believe something different. Not that the church will save the world. But that God will save the world, and then the church will be most fully alive. Thank you for all that you have taught me. Thank you for sharing this journey of faith with me. Because of you, God is more real for me.
