Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth. When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”
Oh Oliver. If only your manner of going was the same as that of our Lord. Jesus is simply surrounded by a cloud and then he is gone.
If only I could shake the thurible at you and surround you with a cloud of incense only for you to appear from a similar puff of heaven over in St Michael and All Saints freshly minted as their new Rector.
Jesus does not seem to have had to go through much admin in his departure.
He didn’t need to think about handing over his keys – he’d already given them to Peter some time ago.
He didn’t need to book the removers to remove all his stuff in a wagon – foxes have holes and the birds have their nests but the Son of Man never seemed to have a need for a place in which to put all his mid-century modern furniture and his other half’s Hornsea pottery mugs and strange Apple computers that I will never understand, so there was nothing to take with him in the cloud when he moved on.
He didn’t need to clear out his office. He didn’t need to clear out his desk. He didn’t need to give up his email address. He didn’t need to hand over his University Chaplain’s keycard. And he didn’t need to change any of his login details for anything.
He was just … gone.
Oliver – it turns out that you and Jesus are not in fact the same.
And you are having to do something this evening which Jesus, when he moved on never seemed to do.
You are saying goodbye. Our Lord, rather surprisingly, never did. It is one of the most significant things about the Great Commission that he gave his disciples. He told them what to do but he never said goodbye. Somehow he knew something that they didn’t yet know- that he would be with them always.
This is the day that you have been working towards for some time now. And although I know that you are looking forward to your new role in Edinburgh with great anticipation – for it is the thing that you want to be doing and need to be doing, I also know that you’ve been anxious about today for it does mean saying goodbye.
Goodbyes are tough and I know that there is much that you have come to love in Glasgow and much that you and Joe have loved here.
I don’t know what you knew about the city before coming here. Maybe you looked it up.
The city has several slogans that have been attached to it. The first that we know of us the motto.
The motto of the city is “Let Glasgow flourish”. The full thing is “Let Glasgow flourish by the the preaching of thy word and the praising of thy name”.
Well, you’ve lived up to that. You have helped this cathedral in this city flourish.
Your job when you came here was to help me and to help this congregation to build itself up. It has not been the rebuilding that we expected to do. For just months after you arrived the world fell apart and we were no longer building the congregation up from a strong and stable base but building it pretty much from scratch all over again.
And I’ll never forget you saying to me with absolute confidence on the day that the first lockdown was announced, “Don’t worry, I know exactly what we need to do…”
It has taken considerable effort to rebuild this congregation and to build the new ministry that we have shared at the University of Glasgow. You were not in fact the Son of Man, the ruler of the Universe, the King of Kings or the risen and ascended Lord, but you were the perfect person to help us to do so much. You and I have had an unusual working relationship and along with others who are here this night and people who can’t be here, I’ve much to thank you for in helping us flourish, much of it by your confident preaching of God’s word and your passion for praising God’s name in worship.
Another of the slogans that Glasgow used for many years was “Glasgow’s Miles Better”.
That slogan never said exactly where Glasgow was miles better than. (But I’m pretty sure we all know the answer to that).
Oliver, I rejoice in your positive outlook. I rejoice that you can look at the church and think that it can always be better. And that you want to offer to God the very best that human beings can offer. You are not frightened of trying to do things well and of offering gold quality worship.
As you have done that here others have come to join you in doing the same. As you do that in Edinburgh, others will join you in doing it there. It is who you are.
I thank God for your commitment to doing things well as a mission strategy and hope that is a prayer-borne infection that others will catch from you.
Oliver, you can’t just zoom off in a cloud like Jesus. You have goodbyes to say tonight, you have things to do in order to get yourself to your new responsibilities. But before you go, know this. You have done what you came here to do. You have built this congregation up. You have loved us and we have loved you for coming here to share this strange and bewildering five years with us.
You have shared the love of God with us. And that love will remain here amongst us and help us flourish in the future. God doesn’t say goodbye,
But the time has come for you to go and share the same love of God with others.
Oliver, God is calling you to a congregation that I have much love and affection for. My sadness at you leaving here is tempered by my joy and delight that you will be the priest at St Michael and All Saints’ Tollcross.
They need you. And you need them too.
Oliver. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.
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