When I travel in my neighborhood, I can do one of 2 things.  I can drive my car.  Then, I’m traveling 25-30 miles per hour, watching for the stop signs and pedestrians.  Or I can take a walk.  If I walk with my granddaughter Presley, I try to name some of the trees and flowers.  This last vacation, we talked about lilacs, tulips, the dog that barks out of a third story window, the nest that was on the sidewalk.

These are two very different experiences of traveling in my neighborhood.

When I read the words of Romans 5:1-8, I want to go from suffering to hope as quickly as possible.  The words fly by me like scenery going past in the car.  “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

I try to slow down, but I can’t.  The end is what I like about the passage.  I am impatient, focused on reaching that hopeful part.  My brain asks, like a child’s voice; “Are we there yet?”

The mention of hope and love draws me.  I feel called to share a message that gives people hope.  Yet as powerful as it is to preach about God’s presence and enduring love, about looking forward in the midst of suffering, you will hear this message differently depending on how quickly you are living through the succession of steps on your way to hope.

Some of you could be just starting out on the suffering-to-hope journey. You may be experiencing suffering as just that: suffering.  For you suffering is producing anger, sadness, and pain well ahead of any promised endurance your experience might bring.  St. Paul’s route for this trip may be clearly mapped out, but for some it’s not a trip on a straight interstate, at 65 miles per hour. 

Instead, it feels more like a dizzying drive on a road with steep climbs, narrow bridge crossings and warning signs.  On this winding road, the journey takes on a new dimension.  Those words---suffering, endurance, character, hope---are like signs for small towns you ride through on a road trip.

They are not the backdrop for the trip, but part of the experience.  Paul seems to have traveled this road.  He knows the curves and uphill climbs, and he knows the little towns along the road.  He has lived in each of them---in some for short periods of time, in others longer than he had anticipated.

We meet people everyday who live in these towns.  They move from one town to the next, and perhaps back again, depending on what life throws their way.  If I am to bring  a message of hope that will be heard and believed, I must make it clear that I have taken the back roads and come to know the townsfolk in Suffering on a first name basis, that I’ve stayed in Endurance, and have relatives who live in Character and Hope.  Somehow all these places have been part of my life’s journey. 

If I try to speak about these little towns while keeping a safe distance, those of you not currently living in Hope may wonder if I really understand what it takes to travel those roads with you.

A pastor colleague of mine, talked to me at the Synod Assembly about how all of us compose stories, narratives, to come to terms with the things that are happening to us.  Pastor John and I served and lived in a town of 1,000 in Southeastern Minnesota for 12 years before coming here.  My narrative of that time went something like this:  everything really important happened there… we adopted our three children, my father died, Pastor John’s father died, his mother and brothers came to live in the town and then his mother died.  We were heartbroken.  What our parishioners wanted was someone to love them.  We had to leave, because if we stayed, we couldn’t afford to send our children to college.

For a while, it seemed like nothing so momentous happened in Kansas City.  But looking back over these 13 years, I’d say that here my children graduated from high school, one daughter married and divorced.  One daughter moved away, had a baby and lived back home for an amazing 20 months.  Our son is taking small steps into adulthood.  Our house has become a place that brings me serenity and joy.

What you have wanted was a vast array of programs and opportunities to serve and to grow deeper in your spiritual lives.  And this call, this amazing call, has been, I believe, my best work.

One of the prized possessions is a plate given to me by Louise and Bob Sorenson’s family.  It depicts a mother bird and her brood in a nest.  “You’re the mother bird at St. James,” they told me.  This call, this amazing call, has been the hardest work in my life.

Someone sent us an email this week that said that Pastor John and I were steering the boat that is St. James.  Maybe Pastor John has told you how disastrous it is for the two of us to actually be in a canoe together, because we both try to steer!  But the boat metaphor might be helpful.

Because in some strange way, and I need you to trust me on this, the way Pastor John and I are looking at the end to our call here, is that we have to get out of the boat.  We don’t fully understand this, either.  We don’t know where we’re being led.  We have a sense of peace in this leave-taking.

I know that many of you are not at peace with this.  We are, for now, at different parts of the journey, different understandings.  But for reasons that we can only partially articulate, we feel called to leave, to get out of the boat.

I will trust you as you move from one place to another on this journey in our congregation’s life.  I am going to ask that you trust us as well. 

And Pastor John and I are going to ask you for one more thing.  That you stay in the boat.  Continue to be the Body of Christ at Saint James.  It doesn’t matter any more if you were for us or against us, to use those ridiculous terms.  You are in this congregation together. Be kind to one another in your grief.  Listen to one another. Speak up and participate because everyone is needed, everyone has a part to play.

You placed your trust in us when you called us.  Please trust us in our leaving.  We will find a blessing for each other in these days.