Congratulations, Alan, you’ve finally made it! After all that hard work -- after all those books read, all those papers written, all those internships completed, after all that self-analysis, interviews, tests, screenings, and the General Ordination Exams too, you’ve finally finished and, now, here you sit with the finish line stretched out right before your eyes – embodied in the bishop’s hands. Well done! It’s all but finished, now.   Right?   Not!   It’s a funny thing about endings, because, you see, they’re also always beginnings. Sleep ends, and it’s the beginning of another day of activities. A meeting ends and it’s time for the start of another. You finish all those Christmas sermons and it’s time to prepare new ones. The workday finishes and it’s time to walk through the door to work on family relations and household chores. Endings always begin something else.

The Appalachian Trail crosses Goose Pond Road in Hanover, New Hampshire, about a mile from our family’s cottage. We’ve taken many a few-hour hike there over the years. The trek begins with a gradual downhill stretch from the road, during which, of course, the hiker leans slightly backward to resist the downgrade. You come to a beautiful wetland, where, at points, you step from stone to stone. Past that, you enter a glade of saplings, where the ground is flat and soft to the foot. The hiker strolls – admiring the tranquility of it all – but then the trail takes a sudden, steep and very lengthy upward incline. You lean into it as one does walking uphill and sooner or later your eyes, once free to scan the earlier gentle scene, become fixed upon the path itself – to prevent missteps. The climb goes on past your comfort as you pant your way uphill. Then, suddenly, you hit the crest and to your right a clearing called the “ledges” reveals a panorama that spans the lake below and several mountains stretching into the distance. The trail goes on from there. Any number in a group may be fortified by the view and the rest that it gives them occasion to take, to hike onward, but if even one in your party is unable to continue, you have a choice – to continue on and show your mettle or turn back with the least able.

That’s the way it is with life, in general, and certainly the way it is with ministry. Not only is every ending the beginning of something else, but each new beginning may well call upon us to exercise entirely different techniques than the previous stretch did. If a hiker leans backward during an uphill stretch or forward during a downhill stretch it’s self-defeating. If you fix your eyes on the scenery rather than your feet when stepping from stone to stone in a wetland you may well slip. Similarly, seminary was a time for individual achievement – to show your stuff and that you have what it takes to do ministry – the individual stamina, the intellectual capabilities, the reflective and spiritual capacities, the liturgical and theological know-how to do the work of ministry. But now you’re in the stretch of parish ministry, and individual achievement isn’t the goal any longer. The emphasis shifts with this ending – with this new beginning. It’s no longer about you proving yourself and your suitability for ministry under the coaching and supervision of others. That stretch on the trail of ministry is past.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically shift gears. You’ll need to work at it, and lots of people don’t. I think there’s such a thing as the possibility for arrested development in ministry as there is for anything else in life. And I’ve seen it all too often over the years. There was an article in the newspaper, a couple of weeks ago, listing terms that a group at one American university found objectionable. Apparently, they’ve come up with the list every New Year for the past 20 years – itemizing terms that the group finds objectionable and wants to expunge from popular vocabulary. Well I have my own list of objectionable terms – ones I’d love to see erased from our church vocabulary. Leading my list are terms like owning my ministry and living into my ministry or finding my voice. While it may be arguable that such terms have a place at seminary – where discerning the nature of one’s own vocation is a major focus – to carry that way of thinking into actual ministry within the real church in the real world is self-defeating, in my opinion.

You and I and the bishop, we have no ministry of our own. The terrain shifts in our journey once we’re ordained. We become trainers and facilitators of other people’s ministries. That’s clearly what the patron saint of this parish wrote in his letter to the Ephesians when he said, “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” Indeed, now that I think of it, the people entrusted to our training for ministry – these people in the pews – don’t have their own ministry either. Since they make up the Body of Christ, and are therefore, by definition, the physical extension of Christ in the world – here and now – they perform Christ’s ministry – His ministry, not their own. Our role, Alan, yours and mine, is to facilitate it – to coach them in that ministry -- the ministry of Jesus Christ. We don’t do that ministry to them like surgeons. We don’t do that ministry for them like parents. We don’t do that ministry for their admiration like performers or athletes – to the people’s applause or groans. It’s clear to me that Jesus didn’t call those first disciples to be a fan club – groupies to admire His stunning signs and teachings – but to train them to carry on what He began. This evening’s Gospel reading portrays Jesus’ hope for others – for us – to participate in harvesting what He began. So, like Him, we coach the people in our charge in their respective efforts, with God’s help, to exercise Christ’s ministries. It’s not about us, but about the people doing Christ’s ministries in the world.

In Thomas Merton’s diary – now published in the form of a volume of daily meditations, entitled A Year with Thomas Merton – he wrote this: “I have been absurdly burdened with illusions of great responsibility… Actually whatever work to be done is God’s work and not mine, and I will not help matters, only hinder them, by too much care.” That leads me to another pitfall of ordained ministry that I’ve noticed over the years -- apart from arrested development or perhaps underlying it. It’s the drive to try to overachieve in ministry. I’ve observed that the harder a priest works at ministry, even to encourage others to do their ministries, the less those people actually will. Why should they? It’s already getting done, and, after all, who wants to compete with a pro? Clergy overachievement almost forces the people into the role of the Monday morning quarterback. That’s where godly balance comes into play.

What better place can we look for godly balance in our work than to God? The first, and perhaps the best place, to find God working is the story of Creation in Genesis 1. It’s sad to me that some people become so enthralled with arguing over how literally to take the Creation story that we miss some of the morals of the story. One is godly balance for life and work. In the thought parallelism that makes up the Hebrew poetry of this Creation story, we’re shown the cadence of God’s work life – the unfolding of God’s workweek. God takes each day as a new beginning and, without carrying over baggage from the day before, builds on the good that’s already been accomplished. Each workday God conceived of the next project, articulated it, executed it, finished it, examined what He’d done and evaluated it – accentuating the positive -- then God put it aside and rested. In the end, satisfied with what He’d done, God took a full day of Sabbath rest.

Alan, take a page out of God’s book. This ministry, this work isn’t about you – it’s not about your competence, your worthiness, or your approval -- whether God’s or others’. It’s about coaching the people to do Christ’s work in the world. In the process, take each day as it comes. Shuck the baggage of the past. Build on the good that’s already been done. Visualize, plan, and execute as best you can – looking to God and to the community for guidance and help. Examine what’s been accomplished – accentuating the positive. Take joy in what’s been achieved – especially by others. Then rest. Keep a Sabbath day for rest and recreation. And always give credit where it’s due -- to God – to Christ and His people. That’s your charge. Your measure of success will be what Christ does through the people you serve. May God grant you the grace to accomplish it.