Sermon Text: Hebrews 13:7-8
We Remember Our Leaders with Thanksgiving
1. Well done, good and faithful servants
2. We will miss you
3. The Lord himself will be with us
Today, I think we can safely say, is a bittersweet day—for you, Pastor Raasch and Pastor Zank, for me and for all of us, the people you’ve so faithfully served. Bitter, or maybe sad is a better word, because there are goodbyes and farewells to say today. You won’t be here to stand in front and lead your people anymore, and we won’t have you here regularly to sit at your feet and hear the Word of God that you were called to preach and teach. Yet, it is still a sweet day for you and for us because we’re happy for you—you get to retire, to step back from the sermons and weddings and funerals, and the “go,go,go” of being pastor to 1600 people all these years and take a few breaths in a row, and maybe just go fishing, Robb, and go to the camper, Joel. And if the phone rings, you don’t have to answer it. You’ve run the race of ministry well and now you’ve come to the finish line where here today we get to cheer you across that line and celebrate.
So on this bittersweet day, we’ll do exactly what the writer to the Hebrews told God’s people to do in verses that guide our sermon today, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Hebrews 13:7-8. Today, we remember you, our leaders, with thanksgiving to God. And we don’t remember you just to butter you up all day or make you into idols, but we remember you because first and foremost you spoke the word of God to us, proclaiming it faithfully.
As your associate these last 7 years, I got to see firsthand the painstaking manner in which you approached that great task of speaking the word. Pastor Raasch, after a week where every phone call or door knock in the office, whether from members in need of ministry or from your greenhorn associates, might redirect your attention, there was still a sermon to write, your most important task. Late in the week, I’d go home, maybe go out for dinner, and while returning home, I’d drive past the office where one light and one computer were still on, Pastor Raasch preparing his sermon or his Bible study. And yes, how many times did I hear you loathe yourself for the time it took you to prepare that sermon, as if you were in the wrong profession, but your people did not loathe that time. They cherished the Word of God from your mouth, well-prepared and finely seasoned.
Pastor Zank, I’d see you struggle to set aside a week just every now and again where you might again have the privilege to preach God’s Word to your people from the pulpit, all the while the griefs and pains and trials of not just one congregation, but an entire district of the Lord’s people were calling your phone number. And believe it or not, I think it’s quite rare that people call their district president just to celebrate how great things are going in their life and congregation and ministry. No, it was your ministry to absorb it all and guide hurting people through it. And still, Pastor Zank, you painstakingly wrote down and cared about every word you wrote in a sermon, a prayer, or even a children’s lesson, for the last 40 years up until now. I’ve often heard you describe writing a sermon like giving birth, as if you knew what that’s like, but it’s a strenuous process to bring the word out. Speaking of childbearing, here we can’t forget the debt of thanks we owe your wives and your families for the countless hours and evenings they spent without you while you attended to ministry, for our sake.
The two of you men labored so strenuously to prepare the Word you preached, not for accolades, but because you realized those words were not your own, but the words and promises of Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. And His words coming from your mouths, which the Lord had cleansed and atoned for and made competent for ministry, are the very words that God uses to make people wise for salvation, through the faith they create in Christ Jesus. So today as you say farewell to us and we to you, just as the Apostle Paul did with his leaders and his people, we commit each other “to God and to the word of his grace, which can build us up and give us an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32). That’s the word of grace you spoke to us.
Secondly, today we remember and give thanks for you because of the outcome of your way of life, because you lived your lives by the word of God that you preached, and in doing so, you set an example for us all to imitate. 40 years of ministry, and 30 years of it in the same place, is a lot of time and opportunity for sinful natures to rear their ugly heads—to let egos clash, to cater to factions, to want to rule everything with an iron fist, or to not watch your life and doctrine closely. With so many people, and personalities, there’s a lot that could go wrong over that amount of time, and yet by God’s grace, it didn’t. Those pitfalls didn’t happen, and in large part due to your faithful leadership.
Of course, you men and your families know your failings and struggles more intimately than any of us, and by God’s grace, he has washed away your sins, first and foremost as his own precious little lambs, and secondly, he credited his work as Good Shepherd to you as under-shepherds who watch over his flock. He has worked in spite of your mistakes and flaws to make your ministries a blessing, and a time of peace and stability for God’s people here.
As I consider your ministry and the outcome of your way of life, perhaps the characteristic that in my mind has most come to define your service together is your humility. 7 years ago, when I was assigned to Mount Olive, a congregation that had both the district president and the circuit pastor, who had been serving here 20+ years together, I’d say there was a good part of me that was struck with a holy fear. “I’d better find out what the picture is, and get with the picture fast, toe the line.” But in these years at Mount Olive, you’ve mentored me, and you’ve knelt down to listen and lead as servants rather than rulers, following in the pattern of the One who came not to be served but to serve.
In these 7 years, despite a pandemic and building and remodeling projects, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of you argue. Today, I figured you might finally argue over which servant you were in the parable, the one with 5 talents or the one with 2 talents. But if I know you both, you wouldn’t be arguing for the top spot, you’d each be claiming you were the 2-talent man. Today I can settle it for you. We thank God that he blessed our congregation with two 5-talent servants who used their gifts and abilities faithfully.
Now I know from the time I’ve spent learning from you that neither of you would’ve chosen that gospel text for today to give yourselves a pat on the back, so I chose it for you. Your ministries embodied the truth of a different parable Jesus told about servants serving a master, servants who did what their master told them, and when they had done everything they were told to do, would say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” (Luke 17:10) And because you have lived and served in humility, we in turn, get to say to you today, “Well done, good and faithful servants! Come and share your master’s happiness.” (Matthew 25:21).
Today, we remember you with thanksgiving to God. We happily say, 1) Well done! Next, we say, 2) we will miss you. Our second lesson today showed us the scene of the emotional farewell between Paul and the Ephesian elders. They entrusted each other to the Word, they wept and hugged, and said goodbye, and all this with leaders that Paul had spent… only 3 years as their pastor. Today, you both and many here can say, “Try 30 years! This is a hard goodbye!” We do have one advantage though, that they didn’t have. The Lord had revealed to Paul that he would never see any of them again, which is what grieved them most. But, Lord willing, that’s not the case for us. You won’t be strangers, still pretty local, unavailable for future weddings and funerals, of course, but we can catch up from time to time, and in the meantime, 2) we will miss you.
Finally, today we’ll spend a few moments talking about what we’ll do without you. In our first reading from Deuteronomy 31, at the age of 120, God brought Moses’ time of leadership to an end. Now you guys aren’t that old, but the two of you added together are older than Moses, and you’ve each served the same amount of time as Moses, 40 years. (Although he started at 80 and you guys are retiring at 67, but we’ll let that go). Now the people were going to be faced with a challenge—what are we going to do without Moses? And for us a similar challenge—what are we going to do without Raasch and Zank?
Gawel and Priewe, they still haven’t even been around that long. Hackbarth and Brauer, we’ve barely even met them yet. A new team, lots of unknowns. It makes me just as scared as all of you! Whose door am I going to knock on when I need Pastor Zank’s listening ear? Who is going to know what to do when, 5 minutes before new member class, I turn the handles on the old bathroom sink faucet and then get confused because righty- tighty, lefty-loosy is not working, and I run up the stairs yelling, “Robb, I’m gonna flood the bathroom!” And he promptly goes down and turns them off no problem. I guess 7 years is enough to know how to turn the lights on and off around here, but not the sink faucets yet. What will we do without your combined 60 years of knowledge about this place?
We could all get scared and turn into a puddle of mush, or we could all try to assume the power and push our opinion or agenda and splinter this family into a thousand pieces. But all of that would be to bury our heads in the ground, along with the talent and the ministry that God has entrusted to us, which for the sake of the gospel, we cannot do! So Moses, as God prepared his retirement, told the people and Joshua, their next leader, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” And then one verse later he repeated almost the exact same thing over again in case they were too panicked to hear it. “Be strong and courageous…The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you! Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged” (Deu. 31:6-8). That’s the answer for God’s people.
What will we do without Moses or Raasch or Zank? Praise God for the seeds that each of them planted and watered, but God is the one who has been making them grow all along. From the days of Moses and Joshua to the days of Raasch and Zank, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and he is the one who is with us and with you and will bless us in whatever the next chapter holds. Today is a bittersweet day, sweet as we remember you with thanksgiving, bitter because we will miss you, but 3) sweet because the Lord is with us all. Amen!