Sermon at the Retirement of the Rev. Nancy Baillie Strong

This afternoon it was my honor to preach at an Evensong at St. Matthew's Parish in Worcester to celebrate the ministry of their rector, the Rev. Nancy Baillie Strong, who will retire at the end of this month. 

On Thursday, September 13, at precisely 5:26 pm, I received an email from Mother Nancy Strong. In that email she asked if I would preach tonight. She said that the propers (i.e. the lessons) would be focused on Hilda of Whitby. “They seem appropriate,” she wrote. And then she added, “Apparently there is a reception following at Holy Cross, but what do I know?”

Now I suspect there is not a person in this room tonight that does not know Nancy well enough to know how much that question just kills a control-freak like her. (And I’ll just add, it takes one to know one.)  

But it gets better. She signed that email “your elder sister.”

Now, I am the oldest of four children in my family of origin: boy, boy, girl, girl. I never had an older sister. I’ve known Nancy for almost two decades now, however, and our relationship has evolved over time. We began as colleagues when I was the rector in Holden and she came here, to St. Matthew’s, and we discovered we shared Pennsylvania roots. Soon we were in a weekly lectionary group together.  At some point, we moved from colleagues to friends. Perhaps it was around the time I convinced her to take over for me as chair of the Commission on Ministry, but it may have been earlier than that.

But over the course of the past five years (especially after I became Canon to the Ordinary) it has dawned on me that she has a tendency to treat me like her younger brother. Just so no one misses the point here: she likes to tell me what to do. Make no mistake here: her “churchmanship” (as we used to call it) is such that she totally respects my position and in fact most often when there are other people in the room she insists on referring to me as Canon Simpson. 

To be honest, I kind of like having her as older sister. Most days.

Now you may think I’m exaggerating here a bit and I admit I can be prone to hyperbole. But I want to take you back for one more minute to September 13. As mentioned, she emailed me at precisely 5:26 pm asking me to preach tonight. Five minutes later, at 5:31, I wrote back and I told her it would be a great honor to do so, and thanks for asking. Just less than one hour later – at 6:30 pm, this is the response I got from her:

I am delighted that you can preach! I didn’t tell you why we settled on Hilda. When we (Meredyth and I) looked at the office propers – the Epistle was great and everything else stunk. So we’re using the Eucharistic propers for Hilda at Evening Prayer. Hopefully the liturgical police won’t report. And Hilda’s story has some things to say about building community, appreciating gifts, and reconciling opposing points of view and/or knowing when to step away from the edge; step back to allow for something different to happen. Okay, I will stop preaching my sermon…”

Isn’t that awesome? Isn’t that so Nancy?

Now I like to tease my control freak older sister but the truth is that I’m very grateful to have had her as a companion in this journey. She is wicked smart, but more importantly, she is very wise. I trust you all know the difference. In the life of Hilda, we do indeed see someone who was “about building community, and appreciating gifts and reconciling opposing points of view and knowing when to step back to allow for something different to happen.” And of course we also see these values and commitments mirrored in Nancy’s life and ministry as well.

My friends: we are called to be faithful. We are called to be truthful. We are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation, and to live with authenticity and integrity. We are called to love God and to love our neighbor, not in some theoretical neighborhood, but in the real, complicated, messy neighborhoods where we have been called to serve. Priests are called to love their people; again not some quaint theoretical parishioners but the generous, kind, wounded birds God gives us to be companions along the way. And when clergy are truly blessed, they get loved back.

The second-largest city in New England is stronger because Nancy has spent these years among this faithful people in this part of Worcester; not just the members of this congregation inside of the walls of St. Matthew’s who have gathered here week after week to hear her preach and to break the bread, but also the people of this parish in the older meaning of that word, the people who live and work in this part of the city, whether or not they identify as Episcopalians or even as Christians. Thanks be to God.

And now she steps back – wanting to do that well, but more importantly wanting to do it faithfully. Because it is indeed time, time for something different to happen in her own life and time for the next chapter in the life of this community. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Let me add this about Hilda. Nancy mentioned in her instructions to me that Hilda was committed to “reconciling opposing points of view.” Let’s unpack that a little. Hilda lived at a time when the Church was trying to sort through Roman and Celtic ways and Hilda was clear; she liked the Celtic ways. But the Roman ways won out. So here is the last little bit of her bio in Holy Women, Holy Men, or whatever we are calling it these days:  

Hilda herself greatly preferred the Celtic customs in which she had been reared but once the decision had been made she used her moderating influence in favor of its peaceful acceptance. Her influence was considerable; kings and commoners alike came to her for advice. She was urgent in promoting the study of the Scriptures and the thorough education of the clergy.

These words, too, speak of Nancy’s fidelity over the span of her ordained life and in particular these past two decades in this diocese. Nancy has not only been a faithful pastor here, but she has also taken her share in the Councils of the Church. She’s served on Diocesan Council but her biggest contribution has been to Chair the Commission on Ministry. Her influence has been considerable. Bishops and priests and canons and laypeople alike have all come to her for advice! And I know of no one who has been more urgent in promoting the study of Scripture and insisting on the thorough education of the clergy than Nancy Strong. At times she has said to me that she knew she was getting “long in tooth,” as she has put it. She is “old school” in many ways. But she has not wanted to lose the focus on priestly formation, even as we do new things in the Church. So she has been “a trusted and reconciling friend to leaders of the Church.” And I honor and cherish that Hilda-esque quality in her. It’s up to others of us now, including her younger brothers and sisters, to take up that mantle.

Now let me turn to the Epistle reading. To refresh your memories, it’s short enough to hear again.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

The scholars debate whether this was really Paul or a disciple of Paul’s but let’s leave that to them. This passage is very clearly Pauline, whether or not he wrote it.  So “Paul” is in prison and he is writing to people he cares for very deeply and he is reminding them, and us, about what it means to be the Church: what it means to be the Body of Christ. Whoever wrote it was having a very good day, and there is clarity here of the kind that Paul himself did get every now and again. Like in First Corinthians 13, where faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love. Or when he speaks of being living members of Christ’s Body reminding us we all have a role to play but the ear and the eye have different jobs and our work is to do our job!

In this text we are reminded to live lives worthy of our calling. What does that look like? It looks like humility. And gentleness. Patience. Bearing with one another in love. Striving for unity and peace. Knowing there is one body, and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I submit to you that Nancy has faithfully born witness to this vision, with God’s help. And we need to see what all these traits look like embodied to know why they matter and how they can change the world. 

But perhaps even more importantly she’s called these qualities out in us.

This epistle reading is not about the clergy – it’s about our shared Baptism. Surely the clergy have a role to play among the Baptized, but that role is meaningless without the whole people of God. Priests remind us all who we are and whose we are. Nancy has done that and we have been the beneficiaries.

It’s become fashionable to ask what God is up to in the neighborhood. To pay attention to what God is doing in the world around us. We do this at places like Walking Together and it wakes us up when we remember that God is not confined by the walls of the Church. That is very true, and right, and it is good to ask that question and to seek and serve Christ in the neighborhood and among our neighbors.

But Nancy was doing this before it was cool. She, long-in-the-tooth was doing it when it was just called plain old ministry. Because here is the thing: clergy were never called to just sit in their offices and ponder deep thoughts and wait for parishioners to drop in. We have always been called to roll up our sleeves and join God in the neighborhood because we trust the Incarnation, because we know that Jesus was born in a barn and crucified outside the city gates. And we trust that the Spirit is at work in the world around us, not just in the Church.

So, of course this is absolutely right and as I’ve said several times, Nancy has gotten this. But it’s only half of the truth and I worry a bit, sometimes, because – well, maybe because I am also getting a little long in the tooth myself. So let me just say this, and then I’ll be almost finished:  it is also true that God hasn’t left the Church. It’s also true that our neighbors need for us to be witnesses to the love of God in Jesus. They need for us to be the Church. Of course the Church has messed up an awful lot along the way and sometimes we’ve literally pushed people away, for all kinds of ridiculous reasons. And it’s quite possible that our list of shortcomings is longer than our list of successes, which may be why so many these days consider themselves to be “spiritual but not religious.”

But this is precisely why it is also our work not only to join God in the neighborhood, but to let the neighborhood know (particularly by our actions and sometimes even with our words) that God is, from time to time still alive and at work in the Church, too. It is our work to let the world know that God isn’t finished yet with the Church. That God is still carrying out God’s work through this wonderful and sacred mystery, still carrying out the plan of salvation. So that when we preach the Word and when we break the bread and bless the cup at a midweek Eucharist or on a Saturday night or on a Sunday morning, God is here. And God’s people are here. It is our shared vocation to help the world to see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up and things which had grown old are being made new.

With God’s help, we are still trying to be faithful witnesses and to act like that by being humble and gentle and patient and bearing with one another in love. Nancy Strong has embodied that as a priest, as a spouse, as a mother, as a friend, as a colleague. As a big sister. And in so doing she has reminded us what a mature person of faith looks like. The Church may be the last place left in our society that is not a bubble of like-minded people. This parish is a place to find unity and peace not because all agree, but because we all agree to live the Baptismal Covenant. Always with God’s help. But we need people like Hilda, and people like Nancy, to be faithful servants in their generation and to remind us of this high calling.

Nancy and Dan are on their way to New Hampshire and we wish them nothing but the best. She has left a mark on all of us and I know that we have marked and changed her for good as well. And so the only thing left to say to her is this: thank you. Well done, good and faithful servant.

As Nancy and Dan begin this new chapter, may this parish that Nancy has so faithfully served remember that the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord and the work continues: to always keep pointing to this crucified and risen Lord, alpha and omega, the one who is making all things new. May we take up our cross and follow him on the way of love.