saying goodbye, endings and new beginnings

This coming Sunday sees Seyan's farewell service. We are grateful that he has been willing to come and share this service with us - if you are free, come and join us for our harvest service at 11.00 on Sunday.
We will take a moment at the end of the service to say farewell, to express something of our gratitude, and to commit Seyan to God's continuing care, as well as recommitting ourselves to God's care and service.
It will, I am sure, be a time of laughter, memories and some sadness. It is an important process, saying goodbyes. It's not easy. It means acknowledging parting, accepting separation, giving ourselves to a new way of life, and not one we might have chosen or planned.
But it is also a time to say thank you, to express affection, to commit ourselves to hope.
For it is in the context of hope that we say goodbye. We hope - we trust - that this new arrangement of where we all are and what we are all doing is one in which God is working, and through which blessing and possibility are made known, made real. We dare to hope this, even when it feels unchosen, and scary, because we believe in resurrection. Resurrection is so much more than "life after death". It is life unlimted by the small deaths that shape our every day - the goodbyes, the endings, the changes - all that threatens our own sense of control and choice. But the promise of resurrection is that the life that comes through and beyond all the deaths is a life that is in God, - rich, blessed and full. We don't need to wait for a heaven beyond the earth for that; we are in touch with it every time we dare to acknowledge the reality of parting, and trust that it is a hopeful process.