Resignation

            Drops of sweat trickled down my back. I shifted my weight and looked up from my sermon notes. Normally, by this time, people were sneaking glances at their watches, coming out of a coma. Not today. Every eye was glued on me.

            “And so,” I said, trying to control the waver in my voice, “four weeks from today will be my final day as your pastor.” There was an audible gasp. 

After twenty years of pastoring the same church, I had become as predictable as the sanctuary furniture. They would have been less surprised if the pulpit had burst into flames. 

This was my flock. These were my people. I dedicated their babies to God. When they were sick, I went to the hospital to pray. I officiated their weddings. I stood beside the graves of their loved ones, reading Scripture and speaking words of comfort.

Back in seminary, I had dreamt of staying at the same church until the day I died. That kind of radical commitment sounded romantic. Now, here I was, bailing out. 

It would have been easier if I could have told them God was calling me to a new church or a seminary professorship. But there was nothing on the horizon. No plans. No job. I wasn’t leaving them to go somewhere. I was leaving them to go nowhere.

How could I explain this to my parents, who were members of my church and often told me how proud they were? What about my three children, whom I had brought up in the faith? Then there was Julie, my wife of twenty-five years, who had stuck with me though thick and thin. I was terminating the only way we had to pay the bills. 

I told people I was like Abraham. When God called Abraham, he didn’t tell him where he was going either. Abraham had to take a leap of faith. That made me sound heroic. I didn’t feel heroic. I felt like I was being shoved off a cliff. 

Ten years earlier, I had begun to feel suffocated. I was tortured by nightmares of being buried alive. I woke with a jolt to a spinning room and had to sit on the side of my bed until it stopped. I fought waves of depression. I knew I needed to resign. But how could I? To do so would be to destroy the foundation I had built my life on, to turn my back on everything I had achieved.

And also, being a pastor isn’t  job you’re supposed to quit. The whole premise is that God has called you. If you stop being a pastor it’s proof you never should have been one in the first place.

I had always felt a little uneasy about my calling. You’re supposed to go into the ministry like Moses, kicking and screaming, telling God he has the wrong man for the job. But I had wanted to be a pastor more than anything. Now, I was getting out the way you are supposed to go in: against my will. An irresistible power left me no choice. 

I was betting that the power was God and that somehow, it would all be okay. If I had know what that power was and where it would lead I would have been terrified. And I would have done it anyway.