The Carpenter's Son Comes Home

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary..." (Mark 3:17)

Today we attended the first service of a friend who was chosen as Priest-in-Charge in one of our congregations. Both she and her new congregation have been through a lot. Their respective transitions have seen loss, pain, and grief. Yet here they are together, with high hopes. Her sermon was captivating, drawing upon people's memories of their children coming home from college as changed people. Jesus could not avoid the doubtful eye of neighbors, who may have felt a pang of sympathy for Joseph, left to mind the carpenter's shop alone.

My friend wisely and appropriately framed this conversation toward the future, sharing her hope that this will be a long and stable pastoral relationship. While both pastor and people bear scars, both believe in Jesus as risen from the carpenter's shop and free to frame a new future for all who believe in Him.

I have been managing pastoral transitons for over a decade now, and I do come to such meetings with a certain "patina". Nevertheless, I am moved by the wide-eyed optimism of a new pastoral relationship. It gives me hope and it gives me strength to speak of what I do with integrity. Maybe even the neighbors at my old neighborhood might come to see me with new eyes.