In the mid 1990's, I was serving on the Bishop Borsch's staff as the Archdeacon for Congregational Development. This was work I deeply valued, performed reasonably well and was well regarded in. But I had become restless. I did not have a name for it but looking back, I recall now a conversation with a colleague who had been elected the previous year as a Bishop. He had said to me words to this effect: "Had I only known…" by which he meant his grief at the loss of a sense of a church community. Archdeacons are not as isolated as Bishops tend to be but in the eight years I served as an ecclesiastical bureaucrat; I had done no baptisms, prepared no young people for the reaffirmation of their baptismal promises (confirmation), and performed no weddings or funerals. I did balance budgets, argue with insurance companies over earthquake damaged sanctuaries, led strategic planning retreats, dealt with clergy sexual misconduct (including a trial in which a priest was sentenced to 12 years in prison for molesting youth), consulted in the search processes for new pastors as the interim Deployment Officer of the Diocese twice and tried to offer pastoral care and encouragement to clergy in plateaued, changing or declining congregations. In short, I was often struggling with discouragement, disillusion and despair among clergy and lay leaders in tough ministry situations but without the counter balancing joy of touching people's lives sacramentally. During those years, I typically was the guest preacher at a Sunday visitation because clergy in small, mission congregations rarely had other clergy colleagues to relieve them and thus – and fittingly so – I virtually never got to preside at an altar at the Holy Eucharist - a central role for presbyters of the Church. This lack of accessibility to the sacramental life would lead to a restlessness in the belly and a growing clarity that it was time for a change. The rightness of this decision was confirmed for me when I spent a year working part time as interim priest-in-charge at St. Francis Church in Simi Valley.

Over the course of that year, I entered into discernment with ten ministry opportunities; including an election for a Bishop in Utah. My family was beginning to get anxious. In some of those processes, my resolve was, if called; to "make it work." Some were positions I felt that I should have been excited about because they were prestigious positions. Some were less than ideal but I was told that they "had potential." In one, I was absolutely convinced that this was the place God wanted me to serve; the signs were unambiguous. But if this was what God wanted, God's people in that place did not concur and another was elected. I was not so much discouraged as I was confused. How had my prayer life led me so far astray?

When St. A's began their process; I asked to be added to the list. I had visited here for worship on more than one occasion and had been in a colleague group with the former Rector, Fred Fenton, for a time. This was job opportunity #11; the only position I had sought directly: I felt presumptuous.

The night I came home from my interview to our home in Silverlake, Marla asked me "So, how was it? Do you think you have a shot?" (Spouses can be so direct!) I so well recall saying these words: "I have no idea but I met some wonderful people. However it turns out, I really enjoyed our time together."

The finalists list was narrowed to three candidates and we were told which night the vestry would be voting to elect the new Rector. By 11 p.m., I was tired and prepared to turn in. Marla said: "You're going to bed?! What if the church calls?" I told her that it was most likely that the vestry had elected a candidate who lived on the East Coast and as it was too late to call them; the vestry would likely wait until the next morning and we'd hear their "regrets" later in the day.

After midnight, Marla shook me awake and told me that a vestry person was on the phone asking to speak to me. She was mistaken. It turned out to be the whole vestry on speaker phone. They asked: "We were wondering if you'd like to come and be our Rector?" In my stupor, I recall saying (and it's been confirmed by those who heard it): "You mean tonight?!" "No," came the laughing reply, "we were thinking of January."

In fact, I negotiated a start date of Feb. 2, because Feb. 2nd was our son's adoption placement-day and the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. It felt fitting and right to associate this new beginning with these other "initiations" in our lives. And thus my journey with you began.

Why am I telling you this story? There are two distinct "theologies" about the "call process." Some believe that God is intimately involved in the process. That the task of the search committee and vestry is that of discerning that person whom God has already called to the position and their task is to prayerfully discern that and then confirm it. The other "theology" suggests that this decision is a human decision, subject to all the fallibilities of human agency. God is maybe involved in some ways but is impartial about the outcome. This latter position is illustrated by a story told by my Credo colleague Renee Miller. (Thank you Renee.)

Homer (not his real name) was a seminary professor who always wanted to be a parish priest but whenever he was in a search process, he always came out a bridesmaid. After several bites of the apple, he made content to serve on the seminary faculty until one day; he was invited into a discernment process in a parish and to his surprise, was extended a "call." During this space of time, however, his seminary work had become immeasurably more satisfying and he found himself, to his surprise, torn. He prayed fervently: "God give me a sign. What would you have me choose?" After days of prayer, a clear voice came to him from God's own heart: "Homer, I don't care!"

The principle this story (I was told that it is a true one) illustrates is that God does not choose worthy people but rather makes worthy the people that are chosen.

I guess it depends on your theological perspective but I tend to gravitate to the former construct. I believe that God does have preferences and that we are called by God to be open and prayerful to see them.

Was God involved in my call to St. A's? I believe so – in that the process felt natural and somehow inevitable, given all things. At least there was no sense of coming here in spite of reservations or fears or of any resolve to "make it work." It felt appropriate.

This is not to say there was no anxiety. My first Sunday here, Feb. 2nd, 1997, I heard a voice in my head saying, as I stood up to preach my first sermon; "Who do you think you are? They're going to find you out. You've gotten beyond yourself this time for sure."

It was the voice of my father, playing in the back of my head on a hidden, interior tape player. My father, who was born in 1908 in Selma Alabama and whose family had experienced episodes of extreme Klan violence and intimidation, raised me as did men of his generation did their children – especially their sons – to be cautious, to not get "beyond oneself." "What," my father wanted to know "are you doing pastoring this predominately white, suburban congregation?" (You will be destroyed.)

I've discovered that all "minorities" have these internal tapes: racial minorities, women, gays. And the thing is this: the little tabs have been removed. There is no recording over this cassette tape of fear and unworthiness. But as I opened my mouth to preach, I heard another voice. It was the voice of God saying: "You are here because I placed you here. You are my person, my child, you serve them in my name and you are worthy." And although the voice of my father continued to play, I found that the voice of God, if I attended to it, could be turned up to almost drown out entirely the voice of shame and fear.

This sense of being called rather than hired is important in our Episcopal polity precisely because it recognizes God's place in all of this. This would not mean that my time here would not be occasioned from time to time by conflict or loss. This is not fairy tale or magic. In a Christian's walk there will always be the Cross because we are human, fallible and broken people. This was not to be a story about "perfection," but rather a story of "sufficiency" and "faithfulness." I know that those who served on the search team and the vestry in 1996 were prayerful people who did not choose the safe candidate but rather, I believe, chose the person whom they believed was God's choice for them and for the congregation at that time and at that stage of their life, even though our backgrounds were vastly different.

"What have these last 13 years been about anyway?" That question was asked of me by a vestry member at a vestry dinner party a few weeks ago. My response to that question was rambling as I reflected over our time together – of times of grace and ungraciousness, of missed opportunities and of faithfulness, of unexpected success and sad disappointment. But in the end, my overwhelming response to the question: "What's this all been about anyway?" was one of gratitude; a profound gratitude to have been allowed the privilege of entering so deeply into your lives, pastorally and sacramentally.

Over these years, I have presided over 22 adult and 98 children's baptisms, 34 adult and 24 children's confirmations, 43 straight and 5 same sex marriage ceremonies, 97 funerals and welcomed into membership, through our newcomer's classes, 259 new people. I've heard a few confessions (most intentionally), visited folks in their hospital beds anointing them for healing and presided over hundreds of celebrations of the Holy Eucharist.

This is all to say that I thank you for allowing me to share the road with you; to walk the spiritual path in your good company.

At our first men's retreat, our retreat leader Ken Kaisch observed: "The road to conversion is a short road – only about 18 inches – but it is the most arduous journey because it is the distance between the head and the heart." I suppose that week by week, at the Invitation to the Holy Table, when I, or another minister, say: "Wherever you are on the spiritual journey…" people hear a multitude of things. But as Ken reminded us, there is only one path (the path out of our heads and into our hearts) and there is only one destination (to the heart of God's own yearning).

If Baptism is the initiation of that journey (an incorporation into the body of people self consciously on the path), then Holy Communion is food for the journey and the other sacraments are sign posts along the way (e.g. if you've wandered off the path, then reconciliation calls us back from a sideway that leads to being hopelessly lost, unction for when we stumble and skin our knees etc.) In danger of straining this analogy beyond all recognition, I am just grateful to have shared this segment of the road with you; to have walked some miles of the sacramental highway. And it is crucially important that you know that so many of you have been inspiring fellow travelers and more often that you'd realize, guides along the spiritual path to me as well. I have been humbled by your faithfulness, dear friends.

"It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be." This quote comes from the Night Prayer in the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer and expresses well the full measure of God's grace for those things done poorly or simply "left undone."

Over these 13 years, much has been accomplished beyond all reasonable expectation. In spite of the Rector's anxiety, we have never once attempted any outreach project in which we have failed to meet the goal. Nor have we failed in our capital campaigns to care for or improve our facilities. You are good stewards of God's abundance. Your generosity is amazing.

And yet at the same time, I worry that we may have been seduced by too easy targets. Henry Knox Sherrill wrote:

"Too many people have great convictions about little things. What we need is to have great convictions about great things." It is human nature to play it safe; to be cautious and conservative. So if I have failed this community by not challenging us all to reach beyond what is safe and easy, I beg your forgiveness.

But a greater burden on my heart is those people I have personally failed or disappointed. Some people who found it impossible to continue the journey with us in this place because I was perceived to be an unreliable guide. Those who felt themselves to have been disrespected or unheard. Those who found in me a spirit of indifference or neglect. As I carry those people in my heart, I can only ask their forgiveness, if not their understanding, for my personal failings. I entrust them to the care of the only true guide, Jesus our Lord – the one who lights the path for us all.

"Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." (Exodus 17)

Along the way, I have been richly blessed by serving alongside some wonderfully gifted clergy colleagues and lay staff: Larry and Nancy Brown, Kathy Mackenzie, Joyce Stickney, and Laura Queen. Deacons Pat Hendrickson and Katie Derose. Seminarians Kate Lewis and Michael Bell. Sunday School Directors Margaret Thornhill, Lee Jones, Judy McBride, Elissa Tognozzi and Jennifer Pavia. Musicians Carmen Dragon and Paul Baker, Van Seward and Greg Schreiner and Music Director Bunny Thornburgh. Support staff Bill Wallace, Pedro Ruelas, Joe Paule, Minlee Taylor and Taran Murphy, and Jim Plummer and Leah Buchan. All these faithful stewards have been of immeasurable value to me and to our ministry here at St. Augustine's. Far too often have I been accorded good credit for their fine work. They each labored – or continue to labor – without due recognition or ample reward.

But I am ever and always eternally grateful to our office manager Carrie Price. Daily, Carrie has put up with my occasional foul humors and horrendously bad jokes. She has been long suffering and has always returned good measure for bad. We would not be half of what we are but for her professionalism, good humor, dedication and personal sacrifice. Nor would I be the priest that I am today without her calm and gentle spirit of encouragement and love. She was my co-worker but more than that, I am proud to call her my friend. I never deserved so good a partner but I am grateful to have received her good care.

"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to form a beginning
The end is where we start from."
– T.S. Elliott "Little Gidding"

On January 3rd, 2010, our Suffragan Bishop Chet Talton will be our guest celebrant and preacher on my last Sunday as your Rector. On that day, you and I will have the opportunity to thank God together for this journey we have shared.

Marla and I will say our final goodbyes.

By long standing Diocesan policy, neither she nor I will be visiting the congregation for any reason. We will be worshipping someplace else. We will not be having conversations with parishioners or staff about any aspect of congregational life and I will not be responding to pastoral or spiritual emergencies or needs. Marla will no longer be working in the bookstore.

We will be gone.

An interim priest-in-charge will be nominated to the Vestry by the Bishop and will serve until the new Rector is called. My theology, again, is that God's hand will be in this. Even now, someone's stomach is getting restless. Even now, God is working through this very human process to call the next Rector here.

When I work with clergy from around the country in my work with the Credo project, I often remind clergy that they are, regardless of their positions, "interims." We each stand on the shoulders of a very flawed and yet faithful priest who preceded us and a very faithful and yet flawed priest will secede us.

I am reminded of a note my predecessor sent to St. A's shortly after my election in which Fred, congratulating the congregation on my election, said of me that "I possessed all of his gifts and none of his failings." To this day, I am humbled by how gracious and generous a statement that was.

By faith, I know that the next Rector of St. Augustine's will be the man or woman of God's own choosing and will bring to you passion, energy, good humor and love. They, in their own way, will feel themselves to be unworthy of this calling save but by the grace of God –and they will stand on my very narrow shoulders as I stood on Fred's, and they will need your support and encouragement.

Friends, this has been a very personal goodbye by me and, far too much, about me. In part, this is my way of working out my own grief in responding to that renewed "restlessness in the belly" that tells me it's time to leave. But the sadness of leaving is grounded in the very nature of what a special place this is; how unique a community this has been and continues to be.

For it is a place in which the issues which tear other churches apart, have been resolved long ago. A place in which people of great diversity and variety: young and older, child and adult, poor and comfortable, well- and ill-housed, gay and bisexual, straight and transgendered, of many colors and backgrounds and languages; have found a welcome home. Our mission to "include all people as we share God's grace and challenge ourselves to be Christ's followers," for us this is a given rather than an aspiration. To paraphrase the testimony Charlene Huang give on Nov. 22nd: "My 3 children are growing up in a place in which things I've struggled with as an adult are here taken for granted. What awesome people they will be when they grow up."

My icon for this reality is the late Cheri Hill.

Cheri led a difficult life on the streets. She showed up here wearing a thick scarf wrapped around her head like a turban which she never took off. She liked to call me "pastor "and she had a gentle wit and an easy smile. She'd come regularly but occasionally would be absent. When she'd return, I would tell her that we missed her. She'd told me that she was unable to get a bath and that she would never come before the Lord "smelling bad."

I recall one Easter morning. The main sanctuary was filled to capacity but in the Chapel of the Resurrection stood Cheri; arms raised to heaven, fully extended in praise as the choir and congregation sang "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," tears streaming down her face. At the end of worship, I asked Cheri why she sat off by herself in the Chapel on that Easter Sunday. She told me that she did not want to take the chance of offending anyone on Easter by her shabby appearance or her odor but that she had to come to church on Easter to praise God.

I found out later that before Easter, she had been gang raped in the bathroom in the parking structure across from the church. She said that while she was being violated, she saw a vision of an angel of God in the corner of the ceiling who assured her that she would survive this; she would be alright. "Those men could have killed me but they did not because God was there." In the aftermath of violence and pain, Cheri praised God's sustaining love and gave thanks for a welcoming home here at St. A's.

Cheri died some months later. Her funeral was held at the Ken Burns Community Center. I found out that night why she wore the turban. It had not been a fashion statement. Her brother-in-law has struck her so hard on the head with a golf club that she had a permanent soft spot there which she had to guard against further injury. She had never complained about it to me.

The homeless men and women of the tough Santa Monica streets were shocked when a dozen or so church folk from St. A's trooped down 4th Street to join them in remembering the saint among us who had been Cheri Hill. And this "pastor" is grateful for Cheri who embodied "Easter resurrection" one year, who in her body was the place where, for me, Easter "happened."

That people like Cheri –and like you and like me – have found a welcome home here is because God's spirit has moved this whole community along the road from "belief" to "faith", from "head" to "heart."

And so I close this by thanking you for being you: a part of this wondrous community of faithful people who endeavor, day by day, to be followers- and not just "believers" – in Christ and to live in his grace and love – AND to make this love and grace pulsing and palpable to others.