I want to start today in an unusual way. But since this is an unusual time in our history together, I’m going to do it. I’m going to address a few questions about my new call to St. Paul’s on the Plains in Lubbock.
I’ve been asked these questions over and over again the past week. So I thought, maybe if I address them from the pulpit, I won’t have to answer them quite so many times later on.
Question: How big is Lubbock?
Lubbock has a population of about 212,000, plus about 30,000 students at Texas Tech, so functionally it’s about 2/3rds the size of Wichita.
Question: What’s Lubbock like?
Flat and brown. When we first moved to Wichita, people asked if I could live somewhere so flat and dry. I said, compared to Lubbock, Wichita looks green and hilly. But in the South Plains of Texas, the expanse of sky is absolutely glorious. There are places outside the city where you can see 190° of sky. You can just watch the curvature of the earth drop away in all directions.
Question: What drives Lubbock’s economy?
The big players are Texas Tech University plus a couple of large regional medical facilities. The main industry outside the city limits is cotton—Lubbock is the center of the largest cotton producing region in the world.
Question: Is it going to be a lot hotter in Lubbock?
Not really. Yes, it’s generally a few degrees warmer in Lubbock than it is in Wichita during the fall, winter, and spring. But the summers in Lubbock are usually cooler than Wichita's. And since Lubbock has a much lower humidity, and sits almost 2,000 feet higher in elevation, even when the temperature is the same, the heat index is usually 10 to 20° less in Lubbock. 95° in Wichita feels like 105°. 95° in Lubbock feels like 88°.
Question: Is St. Paul’s bigger than Good Shepherd?
Yes, not by a huge percentage, but it is bigger in all of the big 3 categories of membership, attendance, and budget.
Question: Of all the Episcopal Churches in the entire world, St. Paul’s really the closest one to Texas Tech?
Yes. It’s a block away from the campus, and a little over half a mile from the football stadium.
Question: Are you excited about going home to Texas?
Yes, and we’ll be an hour closer to Renee’s folks, two hours closer to my Mom, and eight hours closer to my Dad.
Question: Are you going to miss us at Good Shepherd?
Yes, I’m going to miss you terribly.
But, it's a good time for us to be moving. Lisa is changing schools anyway. Jimmy just has one more year in middle-school. And I've been here double the national average for Episcopal priests.
And it's a good time for you to be looking at new directions and a new priest. We've walked many miles together. But a new priest can take you further down the road, and hopefully along some different pathways as well.
It's interesting that our OT reading for today is starting a long cycle of readings about Abraham and his descendents. In fact, those readings will keep going through the end of August, even after I'm gone. And right afterwards, you'll start two months of readings about Moses and the Exodus.
I won't be here to preach about that whole cycle. But I do want to say a few words about it, because the journey of Abraham and his family, and the journey of Moses has many points of similarity with your journey during the transition from one rector to another.
Remember the story of Abraham in Genesis. Abraham lived in the land of Ur, which is either in modern day Syria or Iraq.
He hears God’s call, and moves his entire household a great distance to a strange land, the land of Canaan, later to be named Israel. There God promises to make him a great nation, even though he and his wife are old and childless. Abraham trusts God. Abraham has faith.
But Abraham's journey doesn't just take him to Israel. It later takes him to Egypt, and back again. It takes his son, Isaac, back home to Ur temporarily to find a wife. It takes Isaac's son, Jacob, back home to Ur for a couple of decades before returning to Israel. It takes Jacob's son, Joseph to Egypt in chains, though after a couple of decades Joseph becomes Pharaoh's right hand man.
Joseph's brothers and father and all their families eventually join him in Egypt. There they stay for several centuries. The eventually become slave to the Egyptians after a change in regime. But Moses leads them out of slavery. Moses leads them into the wilderness to receive God's law. Moses leads them back home to the promised land. But the people chicken out—they're too afraid of the inhabitants to enter. So they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Then their children return home to the promised land.
That's a lot of movement. That's a lot of change. But above all, that's a lot of trust. Throughout the changes, throughout this saga, there is a large degree of trusting in God. It's not perfect. Trust is not always there. But it's mostly there. Through many different changes and circumstances, the people trust God, and God comes through for them.
Occasionally in this saga, people try to force God’s hand. And when they do, they mess things up. Though they have faith most of the time, though they trust God most of the time, there are other times they try to take matters into their own hands. And when they do this, they mess things up.
Which brings us to the future of Good Shepherd. My time with you is short. It will end 7 weeks from now. I won't be here walk through most of the transition with you. And I certainly won't have any say in who your new rector is.
But I've been around the block a few times. I've been around the church for quite a while. I know how things work, and I know there are some potential pitfalls in your path that I hope you avoid. To avoid these pitfalls, you need to trust God, and not try to push things, or take matters into your own hands.
The first pitfall is to try to speed up the process. A good transition in the Episcopal Church takes about 12 months, and may even take 18 months or longer.
Those of you with business experience might guffaw at that time frame. You might think, "I've done executive searches. We can begin now and have a new rector before school starts." That's the way it often works in business.
But the relationship between rector and congregation is just that: a relationship. It's not as strong and permanent a relationship as a marriage. But it's much, much stronger than any secular job.
It's also a spiritual relationship. And to find a good fit, you're going to have to do two things:
1. You'll have to prayerfully consider and figure out where Good Shepherd is spiritually.
2. You'll have to spiritually discern which priest might be a good fit for you at this time in your history.
And that's a process that takes time. And it leads us to pitfall number 2, choosing the next rector based on the personality of the last rector.
This is a spiritual shortcut that tries for force God's hand and will mess you up every time. And it plays out in two different ways. There's a positive and a negative version of this.
The positive version is, "We loved our previous rector. Let's find another one just like him. Let's see if we can find his clone." This works only if two things are true.
1. the old rector were perfect (hint hint--I'm not)
2. Good Shepherd 2008 were just like Good Shepherd 1998 (hint hint—you're not)
Plus, it leaves a horrible legacy, it puts horrible pressure on the next rector. If memories of Jim Haney become enshrined as some kind of gold standard, then my successor will never be good enough.
"We'll, our new priest is good, but not as good as Fr. Haney." That's a terrible thing to live with.
And the opposite is just as bad. It goes like this. "Our last rector was totally incompetent. When he announced that he was leaving I thought, 'Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.' So we need to find someone who is his exact opposite."
The problem with this is it puts just as much pressure and leaves just as hard a legacy for the next rector.
"Well, our new priest is a total screw-up, but at least he's not as bad as Fr. Haney."
Either way you go, comparing the next priest with me is a horrible trap. Yes, I'll always be part of your history. Yes, you'll always be a part of my history, and I'll cherish that. But you can't let the ghost of Jim Haney, positive or negative, dominate the future.
We have 7 more weeks to say goodbye to each other. If you've got issues with me, positive or negative, let's deal with them, let's not stick the next rector with them.
7 more weeks. Then you'll begin the spiritual work of looking for my successor. Don't hurry it along. Don't take shortcuts, as tempting as they might seem. Take the time needed to do it well. And as you do so, try to wipe the slate clean of Jim Haney. File me in the file for former clergy. Put me into your past. Then turn the etch-a-sketch over, and start fresh in looking for your next rector.
Find out where you are, and what you need, and what your hopes and dreams are. Then begin to look for a priest. Find out who you are. Then find out who they are and what their gifts are.
And trust that God will use this time and this process to help you find the priest you need, the priest he has already selected as the next rector of Good Shepherd.
May God bless you as you do so.
The Rev. James P. Haney V
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
Wichita, Kansas
