Remembering Steve

I’ve been thinking a good bit about Steve Montgomery in recent days. I’ve thought about his ministry, and how his life intersected mine.  I’ve wondered about Idlewild and what it means for a flock to lose a spiritual leader, even one who had retired.  I’m familiar with a loss like that, and while the context for my understanding is markedly different, the emptiness of loss never asks how it happened in order for it to be felt. Like a weighted blanket draped on the soul, it labors the capacity to breathe in the Spirit. 

Long ago and oh so far away, I was introduced to Steve by Scott Morris.  As is often the case, Scott had an idea, and this one was to bring together an ecumenical, interfaith cohort of progressively hearted clergy from the city for mutual support, the joining of voices as issues arose in the city, and for fellowship. For me, it was a profound gift to be in the room with these folks, and I’ll always thank Scott for the opportunity to be part of that. 

Steve was one of the guys I met straight away, and I was taken instantly by his curiosity, his laugh, the prescience of his theological insight, and his genuine sense of presence when he engaged in conversation. 

He also had a lengthy friendship and history with Scott, which for me held hope that I might I gain some insight into the enigma that was my then Associate Minister.  The enlightenment I gained was simply this - each held deep affection for the other. 

Our group met monthly for several years. We ate in each other’s homes. We went to Israel together.  We made a statement and facilitated a city-wide service in the wake of the Lester Street killings.  We voiced support for public education in the city as surrounding municipalities were standing up their own school districts. 

After I returned to St. John’s in 2014, I didn’t see Steve very often, a few times here and there.  The group had long since faded and reconstituted in other ways with other characters.  I knew of Steve’s retirement and was so glad he had achieved that moment of clarity to do so when he did. 

A couple of weeks before we shut down from COVID, I was surprised to see Steve come in the front door of St. John’s. He looked great. I was so glad to see him.  As announcements were being shared from the chancel, we stood in the narthex catching up. He said that in retirement, he enjoyed attending churches all over the city. “You’re my Methodist stop, Johnny.”

I shared with him the news that I was retiring from pastoral ministry and would welcome the chance to learn from him how it's done.  We hugged (back when we did such things) as he was making his way to a pew. At that moment, it hit me, “Oh shit, I better be good today!” 

I don’t know if I was any good, but I saw him taking notes.  Steve Montgomery was taking notes on my sermon.  Wow!  After the service I saw him in the “enjoyed it, preacher” line. He smiled, pointed at his bulletin on which I saw his handwritten notes, and said, “Thank you, Johnny. A challenging word.  Let’s talk before long about retirement.”

“I’d love to.”  I said. 

That was the last time I saw him or talked with him. 

Whether or not I was at my best that day, Steve surely made me feel as if my work mattered, that it was a valuable contribution.  That’s what Steve did. That’s who he was. Always learning, always curious. He made us want to be more than we’ve been, more fully what our faith can bring out of us. 

Memphis lost a powerful voice at a time when it’s most needed.  So we step in. We stand up. We carry that prophetic imagination on. 

And I’m the better for having known him—a better witness to the faith, a better listener, a better person. 

Peace, my friend. 

Living Into the Retired Relationship

So it's Day 3 of my retired relationship as a member of The Memphis Conference.  Some things I've discovered along the way  - as it happens, vocational changes during a global pandemic presents as an insurmountable challenge.  Over time, however, I've come to see it as an opportunity to remain engaged in the world to offer care as I can.  How that all gets worked out is still unfolding.  

I've spent some time looking back over the last year and the journey leading to this step.  I know some of my colleagues don't understand.  Some have conveyed disappointment in me, that somehow I've abandoned post.  Others just want me to be ok, and I feel that.  While not the reason I made this change, I do take some comfort in being in the final retirement class of The Memphis Annual Conference.  The Memphis Conference is the place from which I am hewn.  I come from this ground.  I am shaped and formed by the soul that lives between the waters of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers and of the Kentucky Lake. While I have some life in the Tennessee Conference as a child and as a student pastor, I'm not indigenous to the culture that resides there.  

I affirm the move toward making the Nashville Episcopal Area one annual conference.  I'd like to think my work at the conference level between 2012-2018 helped pave the way.  Although the new conference name?  I don't know.  Not that I have a better one, but for some of us of a particular fandom, TWK will never mean the Tennessee Western Kentucky Conference.  It'll always mean, "The Wrath of Khaaaaaaannnnnn!"

I have some time and energy now to reengage this medium and to expand upon it.  I'll be doing that both through the written word and through the creation of a podcast that will carry the moniker of this blog.  Just because I no longer have a pulpit doesn't mean I haven't things to say.

For now, I'm revisiting what led me to retire from active parish ministry.  And I'm sharing it as an example of one who's work toward recovery and wholeness pushed me to consider me.  As one who identifies as codependent, historically such a notion is as difficult as, say, maybe finding a job during a pandemic!

Sharing my process will not be linear.  But one must start somewhere.  The following is part of the congregational letter I shared to announce my intentions to retire.  This seems a fitting beginning.

January 14, 2020

To the “People Called Methodists” at St. John’s,

Grace to you and peace.  I’m so thankful for who you are as people of faith.  I’m grateful for your unrelenting witness for the inclusion of all God’s children in the Church, for your lived-out hospitality in welcoming all who come to you, and for your thirst for God’s justice in the world expressed in servant ministry.  I’m stirred and shaped by the care shown those seeking to live in recovery.  We all have a “God-sized hole” in our hearts.  I’m ever more aware of mine.

I’m honored and amazed to know that our lives have been intertwined since 2001.

I write to you today in gratitude and with a surprising peace as I share news about me and my future.  In short, I am in my final months with you as your lead pastor.  Upon the submission of a letter to the Bishop, I am requesting the retired relationship with the Memphis Annual Conference.

I’ve worked in the Church since 1983. I’ve served under appointment since 1987.  On July 1, 2020, I will have accrued 31 years of service for pension purposes.

The decision to retire has its beginnings last summer in the New Mexico desert when I was asked if I’d ever thought about doing anything else in my vocational life.  The truthful answer was no. It was not that I didn’t want to, I’d just never permitted myself to consider a life beyond the system and structure to which I’ve am bound.  So, I gave myself permission, and it has been at the heart of my discernment since.  I’ve consulted with trusted mentors, and I’ve listened to their counsel.  The root wisdom I’ve received was to do that, which gave my heart joy.

Since my reappointment to you in 2019, I’ve known this would be my final year at St. John’s. That, together with the question of what I would do next, led me to a decision that’s at the heart of how my vocation is practiced.  That is, I no longer desire to be bound by the itineracy. My entire life has been subject to the itineracy and the submission of my future each year to the discernment of my bishop and cabinet.  I grew up in a parsonage.  I took on that mantle myself.

The itineracy is a fundamental principle for United Methodist elders.  I affirm that.  And I’ve lived it or have been impacted by it for 55 years.  I seek to be free of it for the last chapters of my active work life.  There are other ways to engage the world, to try to make a difference.  If it’s true that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven,” then for this season of my life, I’ve come to clarity that this is the most needful thing for me.

Stop. Look. Listen. Learn. Understand

Thus says the Lord:

A voice is heard in Ramah,

    lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children;

    she refuses to be comforted for her children,

    because they are no more. Jeremiah 31.15

Since George Floyd was murdered, days of protest have accrued into weeks.   There is a cumulative anguishing cry of a people demanding that something be different.  As Sam Cooke sang "A Change Is Gonna Come."  It has to.  It must.

There are efforts by some to categorize and demonize those protesting in the streets.  That is done only for one purpose, to further marginalize their voices so as to perpetuate the status quo.  There's a different energy in the air these days.   Unprecedented events in unprecedented times call for unprecedented outcomes.

The number of people who look like me now able to proclaim that Black Lives Matter indicates the beginnings of a change of some import.  It's a change whose time has come, but a change that wouldn't have were it not for video cameras on mobile devices.  

There's something about observing someone with his knee on someone's neck that does a thing.  That's especially so when the one doing it has his hands in his pockets as life is pinched off.  

So yeah, there's the beginning of a change.  To be sure, it's not the whole of a paradigm shift, but it is the beginning.

Of this be clear, the principalities and powers that have built a system of racism and bias will not go quietly into that good night.  Persistence is key.   Simon Sinek's quote has resonance:

"Fight against something and we focus on the thing we hate. Fight for something and we focus on the thing we love."

For folks like me, white folks, what is our place?  What's our role?  What do we do?  How do we engage in something we may not fully understand.  What are we willing to fight for?

Quite simply, before engaging in the fight for change, we white folks need some training.  We need a whole lot of understanding.   We are in no position to determine what needs to happen. 

Those whose lives are at risk are our teachers.  Are you willing to learn?  To understand?  Are you willing to be confronted with things that will make you uncomfortable?  Can you resist the temptation to be defensive?

This learning is not merely an intellectual exercise.  It was in the academy that I first learned from James Cone's writings that white folks are in no position to drive the train.  So let's not try.

Let's Stop. Look.  Listen.  Learn.  Understand.

You may have seen this video.  I commend it as a point of beginning for white folks.  It's Emmanuel Acho's "Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man."  It's real.  It's honest.  It addresses questions that you may have asked.  You may not like the answers to the questions, but we can no longer fain ignorance.  It's powerful.  

Follow this guy.  Ask your questions.  

For all the names we are asked to remember, to remember not to forget,  let's learn and come to understand that what we're fighting for is something/someone we love.  Let us refuse to be comforted with what's happening in the world as well as what's happening inside each of us as we allow ourselves to be confronted.

Say Their Names

It’s one of the signs carried in protest.

It’s one of the chants rising from the righteously indignant voices screaming to be heard.

“Say His Name.”

George.

The exposure of power imbalances right there in our faces is jarring. Systemic racism, pernicious and insidious, is a daily reality.  It’s only when something is recorded that we can’t not see it.   For every discomforting video of an unarmed person of color being killed, can you imagine the number of lives whose last moments are memorialized only in the fleeting breath of the dying?

“Say Their Names.”

Breonna. Eric. Michael. Alteria. Antwon.

What do we do with this?  What is the Church’s response?  That question is one we always seem to raise in the face of what’s happening in the world.  But I’m beginning to wonder if the more pressing question is this – What do you want to do?

“Say Their Names.”

Walter.  Alonzo.  Keith.  Philando.

What do you want to do?  Do you want to ignore it?  Act like it’s no big deal?  Does what you know of the Kingdom of Heaven as described by Jesus align with what we’re seeing happen now?  Do Black Lives Matter?

“Say Their Names.”

Tyree.  Miguel.  Willie.

St. John’s has talked about all this before.  We’ve had guest speakers and powerful sessions.  We’ve talked about how badly we want things to change.   And here we are again watching the world burn and wondering what does the Church do?  What does my church do?  What do I do?

Let me suggest the first, most pressing opportunity is to be clear about being an ally for those crying in the streets.  Stand with. March alongside.  But mostly, listen.  And learn.  Here are resources just for folks, and mostly white folks, who want to learn what it is to be an ally.  To learn why the injustice is real as is white privilege.  Go there.  Read.  Be willing to be led by those seeking change so that we no longer need to be reminded to say their names.

La’Vantee.  Keith.  Janet. Ahmaud.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

16

Remembering today in light of what the world’s enduring isn’t hard, but there is a sense of preoccupation with the unknowns residing in the unprecedented.

And yet, the calendar always finds us in moments of reflection for those we remember.  

So today I remember Jimmy, not so much for who he was (which is the stuff of legend and tall tales, some of which are kinda true), but for the man I could have discovered as integral in my life during the last few years, which have been replete with transitions, failures, self-discovery, trauma, and loss.  

Most of my adult life with Jimmy, the question I lived with was what kind of brother I was or wasn’t to him.  

I’ve lived in the regret of the failure to hold that in the sanctity it deserves. 

And yet at some level, I always felt we understood each other, and that one day we’d come to embrace the gift that brotherhood is.  

Part of my work of rediscovery and recovery is to come to peace about what wasn’t and what can never be. Let me tell you, it’s hard f’n work.  And it’s work worth doing.  

He’d be 50 this year.  Since I’m more than halfway to 60, my zeal to rub that in is tempered. 

I find myself wondering not what kind of brother I would be to him right now. Instead, I wonder what kind of brother he’d be for me as I walk into the chasm of the unknown.  

And I think I know.  I know I do.  

We shared this trait, sometimes to our detriment...to stand with, to stand in front of if need be (nothing’s going to get you today, not on my watch). 

That’s what he’d do. Without thinking, almost instinctively, he’d stand a post to overwatch me. It was his way, it’s mine, too. 

“I got you.”

To have my little brother be my big brother these days would have been fine by me. 

For a while, at least.