On My Mom’s Retirement

And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

-Romans 10:15

If you know my mom, you know she loves shoes. She and her clergy friends are notorious for their shoe shopping when they are at preaching conferences. And she takes good care of her feet, which are little and cute. Growing up, some folks at St. Paul’s told me that I was going to be a preacher like my mom someday; I thought they just said that because I look like her and sound like her- Kate and Suzanne said no one ever told them that! But my feet are gnarly Sullivan feet, so, in that, we are not alike.

Of course Paul, the writer of Romans, was not talking about the fun red pumps mom had in seminary, or her cute pedicure now. He was saying that the act of bringing the Gospel is beautiful in of itself, and mom has been doing that as a pastor now for 40 years. She didn't grow up in the church; her parents would send her to Sunday School at Hereford UMC across the street from their house, and she heard her call in college at Dickinson. I was born when she was in seminary, she started serving churches part-time until she was ordained, and then she moved to St. Paul’s when my youngest sister Suzanne was a year old. Even though she was never really itinerant, she served seven churches under appointment: Stablers, Vernon. St. Paul’s, Mt. Vernon (Whiteford), Cambria, Ayres Chapel, and Norrisville, and she served the community throughout the Hereford Zone in Baltimore County, northern Harford County, and southern York County. 

I am so grateful to have grown up in the churches and community she pastored. I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but her ministry was influenced by process theology, so she focused on God’s constant presence with us, on a loving God who wants a relationship with us and wants us to recognize our interconnections with others and the earth, and on mystery and possibility. This lens spoke to me, but it was even more influential to hear the adults around me talking about how much a difference it made to them, especially when they were grieving. My mom grew the churches through funerals because, when people feel loved and accompanied, rather than judged and tested, as they did after going to funerals she officiated, they often wanted to come to church too. My mom said today that she hopes her legacy is one of love, and it certainly was for me. While other friends talk about church experiences of altar calls and purity culture, I learned in church that I am loved and worthy of love and so ought to love others too  (my mom once looked me in the eye when I was a teenager talking about sex and faith and said, even though I have rarely heard her cuss, "That purity stuff is bullshit.” Amen, Mom, amen). My mom’s ministry prioritized the voices of young people, not just sending us off to nursery or Sunday school, but involving us in worship leadership. Today my nephew Cooper led the Call to Worship. She also took youth groups on beach trips and college visits when their grown-ups couldn’t. She went with people to doctor’s appointments and helped them make funeral arrangements and hosted CPR and Narcan trainings.

And one of the ways she has shown love and shared good news that I have thought a lot about lately is the way she reached out to other pastors. She might never have been very itinerant, but she took her connectional ministry seriously by serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry and the District Committee on Ministry (which she’s staying on in retirement because she is their Snack Tsar…what a nickname!). And she takes it seriously by visiting colleagues in the hospital, or taking them meals, or letting their children finish their senior of high school at North Harford by having said child and their mom live in her house part-time when her colleague was moved to a new appointment across the conference! And she’s available to cover parental leave for you now, pastor friends!

I mean, don't get me wrong- my mom is not always easy to get along with, no matter how much I wax on about love and relationships. She is a tad stubborn and bossy. I learned, probably not as early as I should have, that your parent cannot be your pastor all the time. The passage I mentioned from Romans goes on to talk about contrary folk, which my mom could be. But I grew up hearing the good news of God's love for us at her feet anyway, and for that I am so thankful.

And, of course, it is not lost on me that, though the ministry of preaching resurrection was first done by women in the Gospels, many people are confused by women clergy like my mom. I remember overhearing her called “‘That Preacher Woman” at a local diner, like there was only one preacher *woman.* However, she was not the first woman at Norrisville, and so she used to joke there that we need to remind boys that they could be pastors too. So many of my women clergy friends talk about how hard it was never seeing a woman in ministry let alone a young mother, but that was my life. One of her former district superintendents told me he once visited her church when we were toddlers and one of us waddled up to her in the middle of a sermon wanting our diaper changed! My child has done the same to me! 

My mom never pressured me to become a pastor, even though she knew I was called when I was a kid. I didn’t say anything about being a pastor at first but then some seminary information came to the house for me and she saw it. Her reaction was not to overwhelm me with excitement but to offload on me all her clergy collars that she hadn't worn since our elementary school career days.

She didn't need a clergy collar or stole to announce her work anyway. She just embodied it; she embodied the good news of love to the grieving, the hospitalized and homebound, the poor-  to our community in northern Harford county. She will continue to do so in retirement. For beautiful is the one who brings the good news!