The end of an era

Friends,

Beginning today and going into tomorrow, Southwest Florida Presbytery will be having their winter presbytery meeting. A certain committee will be making a recommendation that I, a member of that presbytery, be "divested without censure".

Perhaps some readers will be astonished to find that since Fall 2001, I have been an ordained Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, that is, a pastor.

You're thinking [hm. the stuff that comes out of that guy's mouth - he has no business being a pastor anyway. Pastors are supposed to be diplomatic, for pete's sake! But should also crush the serpent under their heels. loving but firm, kind in person and thunderous in the pulpit, asexual but paragons of nuptial voracity, consensus building but independent, clean-shaven but with enough bad-boy mystique to bring in the 'seekers'. Short but tall, handsome but not attractive, dark but not dark.

They should home-school, and their children should piss holy water and find Jesus burned into every grilled cheese.  They should drive used gray '91 Toyota Corollas, cheerfully give all to charity, live contentedly on the mushrooms and berries we give them in our tithes. They should know everything and nothing, be available 25-7 for complaint phone calls, and never, NEVER touch a drop of drink or tobacco, not watch movies or read novels, and be a perfect synthesis of John Wayne, Mr. Rogers and Mother Theresa.]

I agree. I dont really fit the mold of a presbyterian pastor. Pastors are a third gender, so the saying goes. So as of Saturday evening I will no longer be "ordained." An odd thought. Who does the ordaining anyway? Isn't is God? Is it not an oxymoron for a group of people to declare someone not ordained, because the very definition of "ordained" means "established by God before time began."

I'm not sweating that. But to all of my friends who suspect that this is painful for me, thank you for your love. It is not especially painful. It is the end of an era - a long and confusing era for my family and me. But the  memories are painful, and they make it easier to let it go and look forward to what lies ahead. God is still on his throne - let all the world keep silent.