This sermon was delivered on my final Sunday at the Episcopal Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Hingham, MA where I was blessed to serve the past three years.
The Rev. Noah Van Niel
St. John the Evangelist
October 21st, 2018
Proper 24 (B): Job 38:1-7; Ps 104:1-9, 25, 37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
When someone is ordained a priest the responsibilities of their role are articulated in the Prayer Book as follows:
As a priest, it will be your task to proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to fashion your life in accordance with its precepts. You are to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor….In all that you do, you are to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace, and strengthen them to glorify God in this life and in the life to come.
I had little idea, on that December day in 2015, when these words were read from these steps at my ordination to the priesthood, just how powerful and fulfilling it would be to become a priest in your midst. I know now what I knew only the beginnings on then that St. John’s is a special place — it was 
before I got here and it will be afterwards. And it has been an honor to serve. You are a community of people who really love this church, and have for a long time—for some of you twice as long as I’ve even been alive! As one of our long-time parishioners said to me on Wednesday night, “You know, I love this place so much that every time I drive by, I wave. I can’t help it.” I deeply appreciate that level of affection and love, and I have tried to honor it for the time our paths aligned. I particularly have always valued the great privilege of preaching from this illustrious pulpit and tried to give you offerings worthy of your attention. You have many choices for who and what you spend your time listening to in your life, and I never once took for granted that you listened to me with such open ears and hearts. Add to this the joy I found in teaching—especially our youth; the depth of Spirit I was privy to in our pastoral conversations, be they in my office, a hospital room or a living room; the chance to absolve and bless; to baptize and bury and keep you fed from Christ’s table for the journey in between; there is no work I would rather do and no better place to have done it. It has been a blessing in the fullest sense of the word.
As I take my leave of you, I want to try to give you something in return for all that you have given me. Or not really in return, for that would be an impossible task, but perhaps to reflect back to you, some of the important spiritual insights I have learned from my time here. Now these past three years have been so full that my original list of insights was going to be entitled “20 profound spiritual lessons you taught me.” But Melinda said “That’s way too many, I don’t care if it’s your last sermon.” So I said, “Okay, how about ten? That’s a good round number; like the 10 Commandments.” She said, “No, still too many.” “5?” I bargained. “3. Get it down to 3,” she said. So three it is. A trinity of spiritual insights you have revealed to me, and I now offer back to you.
1) Come in close.
A few years ago I called one of you into my office for a get to know you conversation. I hadn’t even been here a year and was still getting a feel for the people of this place. And before I could even begin the conversation this woman sat down, looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’re in a funny position you know. You’re like the boyfriend we know we’re not going to marry.” Needless to say this threw me off my guard, so I tried to laugh it off and asked her to explain. And she went on to articulate exactly what I needed to hear at that point in my ministry with you which was that there was a choice that both I and the community were going to have to make. Knowing that there would be an end to this relationship, would we let the reality of that end diminish the time we had together, keep us from trusting each other, letting one another in, connecting? Some priests, some people for that matter, remain at a spiritual and emotional remove from others because it’s easier that way, less painful when the time comes to end it. And endings always come. So people hold others at arm’s length to protect themselves emotionally. I chose to come in close. And you did to. And for that I thank you. Because it is when you come in close that the richness of relationship is revealed, and the wonderful miracle of who each person is shines through. It is when you come in close that God is palpable and real. That’s what God did, after all, in Jesus. He came in close to humanity, got right up into the messiness, and the drama, and the difficulty and the laughter and the pain and revealed that right there, in the fullness of our humanity, there too was to be found the fullness of God. To come in close can be uncomfortable, it can be unnerving; it can swell your heart with happiness and it can crush it with sadness. I feel so lucky to have been able to rejoice with you when it was time to rejoice. And God, do I miss those people I no longer see in those pews. But through it all, the ups and the downs, right in the thick of the reality of our human condition, that’s where God was to be found. You welcomed me into that place in your hearts and lives, and in so doing you revealed the face of Christ. It has made leaving so, so hard, but it made these past three years here so, so rich.
2) Open your eyes.
Sometimes when I need to clear my head or get a breath of fresh air, I like to walk along the back edge of the property of St. John’s and look through the thicket of trees and out across the tall reeds of Home Meadow. One morning I was doing that and one of you, an artist, who happened to be in early to help out at church came and stood next to me. I sheepishly told him what I was doing and he stayed and stared out with me. After a minute he said. “I’m loving the light on that tree right there. If I was going to paint this, that’s what I would try to capture.” And then he turned and walked away. I followed where his finger had pointed and suddenly saw, this old, angled tree, aflame in a warm golden light, almost ethereal in its glow. In that moment I remember thinking, that this man looked at the world and saw things I literally did not see; beautiful, wonderful things. And he showed them to me. Open your eyes. God is moving all around and most of the time we don’t know how to see Him. I’ve tried to help point him out when I saw Him, but just as often, you have pointed Him out to me, teaching me to see the world more fully, to see God more clearly in my life and our life together.
To open your eyes in this way takes practice and commitment. Times of prayer, concentrated, focused conversation with God is a good place to start; so too is reading the Bible—a resource of revelation for thousands of years and billions of people. And then there’s the need to stretch your comfort zone by putting yourself in situations and places with people who look differently, act differently, think differently from you so as to open more fully of our eyes and our hearts. There is so much more to this world, so much more to God, than we even know. To open our eyes is to recognize that we do not see all that there is to see, that even our most firmly held convictions should be scrutinized in the name of fuller and deeper understanding. God is more. You’ve heard me say that before, and you have shown it to be true again and again. He is so much more than we could ever conceive. Do not shut the door and draw the curtain; do not close off your eyes or your hearts from the world, especially from those in the world who have something to teach you and especially from those in the world who need you, because they are often one and the same. Look for the glory of God hiding in plain sight; the light of Christ shimmering on the trunk of a tree or in the eyes of your neighbor, just waiting to be seen.
3) Surround yourself with good people
A funny thing started happening these last few weeks. Tim and I started the dressing the same. Now, you may be saying, don’t you always dress the same—black shirt, white collar? But then our pants started matching. And then even on the days we didn’t wear our clericals our shirts were matching. This happened multiple times recently. And as funny as this was it underscored the old truth who you spend time with is who you become. I think our twinning was emblematic of the impact that you, Tim, have had on me. I have been beyond lucky to have you as my first boss; a priest of the highest caliber that I was able to learn from and emulate. Your liturgical style, your humor, your calming presence, your leadership and your generosity have not just taught me a lot, they have molded me and shaped me. I am the priest I am because of you, and the priest I become over my career will be in large part because of you too. And I have been even luckier that you embraced my family just as much as you did me. It has been a blessing to work with you, and an even greater blessing to call you my friend.
But before I go I want to make sure everyone knows one thing: On July 4th, 2018, I, Noah Van Niel (230lb retired college fullback) beat Timothy E. Schenck (former marathoner, fresh off sabbatical) in the annual Hingham 4th of July road race. I do not lie! Look it up! (I almost died, but I did it). But seriously, I hope you all know lucky you are in your rector. And your whole staff for that matter. Buffy is a musician and human being of utmost quality. Alexis has done wonders for the biggest ministry in this entire church, the Sunday School. Fr. Robert is a pastor par excellence. Evelyn is one of the most capable Parish Administrators you will find. And Dorothy may be the most incredible sexton in the history of Christendom. It has been a joy and a privilege to work alongside them.
But even the many hours we have spent together do not outweigh the person I spend the majority of my time with. Being the wife of a priest is a funny job. Rarely is your spouse so intertwined with your professional life. I enjoy it that way, but it’s not always easy. And in this endeavor I could have asked for no better partner and friend than Melinda. It has delighted me beyond measure that you all got to benefit from the glorious beauty of her voice. What you may not realize is that you have also benefited from the fact that for every single Sunday sermon I have ever given she has served as editor in chief (this one included). She hears the rough copies, the half-formed ideas, the over-embellished prose and she never fails to draw out of me exactly what I am trying to say, and pushes me to go deeper and say it better. If anything I have said from this pulpit these last three years has resonated with you, you have her to thank for it.
I have also had the privilege to be surrounded for much of my time by the amazing youth of this congregation. What a joy that has been. To my Middle School and High Schoolers, I want you to know I think you’re pretty awesome. And I want you to know God loves you. I hope that through all of our classes and activities you have had fun, memorable times and have learned that your faith and the Church are there to comfort, strengthen and guide you throughout your life. If who you spend your time with is who you become, spend time with good, faithful people. And most of all, spend time with God, because that will call forth the best from you as you go through your life. And I say the same to you adults as well: come to church. Spend time on your faith, surround yourself with God, with Jesus, and with one another. Once in a while just isn’t enough. God wants you. The church needs you. For it is in communities in communion with God that we are transformed and through us this world is reborn. Communities of faith like St. John’s are not perfect, but they are places to learn and grow and be shaped by the Spirit. They are places to practice graciousness; to be vulnerable, to ask for help. To experience forgiveness. To exercise patience. To dream impossible dreams and wonder together what might be. And above all they are places to give and receive love. Love, that great gift of God’s very substance, is rooted here. And love withers in the abstract; it evaporates in isolation. It needs a place to be practiced and enacted and that is what we do here. So show up for one another, and show up for God, and it will call forth the best from you, today and all the days to come.
So there you have it. These are the messages I want to leave you with: Come in close. Open your eyes. Surround yourself with good people because who you spend time with is who you become. If I had to summarize this another way, it would be this: that as you continue on this journey of faith, striving with all your heart, mind, body and soul to love God and to love your neighbor, know that those aren’t actually two separate commandments, but one and the same. That as you come in close to your fellow human beings you will find God at the heart of those relationships; that as you open your eyes to the working of God all around you will be drawn out of yourself to show others and be shown by others the Spirit of God, living and active and true; and that as you surround yourself with good people by participating in the community committed to living into this dynamic trinity of relationship—You-God-Neighbor—you will be so grounded in love and peace that as you spend time there you might just glimpse the Kingdom of God.
And now it’s time to say good-bye. Experts will tell you that the first three years of a child’s life are the most important. In those early years the furrows of learning and personality are plowed into the brain with such speed and intensity that it’s a wonder to behold. They learn the right words to say, the right ways to move their hands, how to listen, how to behave, and how to think. Just as importantly, they learn to form relationships, make connections with people and things in their environment and they establish, at that young age, a foundation of trust and empathy and security that—studies have shown—will stand them in good stead for successful development the rest of their life. That is why they tell parents that giving your child a foundation of love and support in those first few years is so critical, for it will form the core of their identity and impact, more than anything else, the kind of person they turn out to be.
I have experienced this very process in my time here as your priest at St. John’s. When we arrived here in June of 2015 I was neither a father, nor a Father. And over the course of these years, you have molded and shaped, you have imprinted on me as a community of love and care and faith in a way that I cannot help but carry with me the rest of my life. Nowhere I serve will have a more transformative effect on me than St. John’s has, and lucky for me, unlike an infant, I will get to remember these moments forever. Other floors will be built upon this foundation, but you all have claimed the cornerstone, and for that I am grateful, and blessed, and it means that I will never, ever forget you or stop caring about you because you journey with me, not just in my mind’s eye, but in the core of my soul.
My friends, thank you. These have been some incredible years. I will miss you more than you even know. May God bless you. May Jesus be with you. May the Holy Spirit guide you. I love you. Amen.