"Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified."

         In recording the journey to Jerusalem, Luke moves into travelogue mode, recounting in detail all the stops they made from island to island as they worked their way south along the coast of what is now Turkey. Verses 13 to 16 are kind of odd, mentioning every little stop along the way. It slows us down in our reading. We wonder what the point of all this is.

         In verse 16 Luke says that Paul was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem, and yet they seem to be poking along, island-hopping. And Paul gets off the boat and walks part of the time. Is Luke getting annoyed or impatient with Paul? Is Paul getting frustrated? Is he in a hurry and getting nowhere? Why does he overshoot Ephesus and make the elders come to him?

         I think Luke wants us to feel the impatience, the lack of progress on the journey, because something is brewing in Paul -- and when the Ephesian elders arrive, he is able to let it out. He is passing on the Asian ministry to them. He is saying farewell. It is not easy to do. It comes out with tears. But after following Paul like a pinball moving through these little islands, now the long speech comes out. It has been brewing in him for a while.

         Has that ever been your experience? You came to a time of needing to say what was most important to you, to face a significant life change or transition, perhaps to leave a place that was very dear to you. How do you say farewell? How do you give what is in your heart? How do you entrust to others what you have poured your life into?

         Some years ago now, John Nilson came to the end of his life when he was serving as pastor of Seattle First Covenant Church. During the summer cancer was very unexpectedly discovered in his stomach, and he was given just a few months to live. He might have resigned immediately and lived out his days. But instead he preached that fall a series of sermons, speaking what was closest to his heart. He summed up his life in Christ, he preached the Gospel one more time, he entrusted what he had been given over the years to his church.

         Later I learned that he was so weak from the chemotherapy and the ravages of the disease that he would store up his strength all week. On Sunday morning he would wrap himself in sweaters so the congregation would not see how much weight he had lost. A few trusted ones would come in and pull him to his feet and put his robe on. Then he would walk into the church, head high and erect. He would worship with energy, he would preach with power. Then collapse in his office. What a gift it was to his church to hear his farewell.

         Paul says to his dear friends, the elders of the Ephesian church:

                  You know how I lived.

                  You know how I served.

                  You know what I preached, and how I went about it.

                  Now I am going to finish the race, I am going to complete the task.

                  You will not see me again.

                  I am transferring my ministry to you.

                  Keep watch over yourselves and over the flock.

                  I commit you to God and to the word of his grace.

          Then they prayed together with tears and embrace, and the elders walked with him to his ship.

         If you knew today that your work in Christ was over, what would you say? How would you sum up your life of service to Christ? What would you say about your calling, about the race you had run?

         Last March I raised that issue with a few old friends as we sat around a table in Arizona. My own sense is that I have fallen short, that I have not done what I was called to do. I am aware of lapses, of weakness, of things undone. My tendency is to say, "If only I were smarter, braver, purer of heart, more outgoing in personality, more willing to give than to receive, then I would have done better."

         I picked up a bit of wisdom from the Jewish rabbi Edwin Friedman, who wrote, "Leadership is not in the end about expertise, partly because none of us in leadership positions can ever really know enough. We cannot master or become experts in all the materials and techniques. We simply can't know it all. But we can know who we are, and we can communicate that with authenticity to others."

         If our expectation is that we will keep up with the Apostle Paul, then we all fail. If in our pride we insist that we can carry out our calling with just more effort, less sleep, better whatever, then we all miss the mark.

         So Paul, in his farewell address, speaks in verse 32 of committing these Ephesian leaders to God -- that is, to a continuing relationship and knowledge of God marked by faith and obedience; and to the word of grace, that is to experiences of the richness of Gods grace which are surprising, unmerited and deeply renewing. Then he says, "This word or message of grace is able to build you up and give you an inheritance."

         I think what he is saying is that there is both an example to follow, an intentional life of learning and spiritual growth; and that there is a greater grace to receive, experiences that warm our hearts and even set us on fire.

         Paul gives us an example to follow in his life. He lived intentionally for Christ, and it cost him something, and with effort he carried out the calling he was given.

         How do we follow that example?

         I think we begin by making a commitment to the regular, devotional reading of scripture, with a set plan. It is so easy to cut back on this one. It is so easy to be pressured by life into letting the Bible sit unopened day after day.

         Along with reading the word is a life of intentional prayer. We cannot do anything without prayer. And our praying must go beyond requests for others. We must find time for quiet listening to God and for asking God for help and grace.

         We must come to admit that we need to schedule times for instruction in the practices of the faith. We have so many choices and demands in our lives, that we must sit down with a calendar and write in when we will worship, and when we will give ourselves to learning and when we will go off for times of renewal and retreat. Jesus says we are to be pruned in order to be faithful. In our culture, we are trained to be so anxious about missing something that might be to our benefit that we overscheduled our lives, we say "yes" to far too much. When we let God prune our lives, He is able to eliminate that which we do not need, though perhaps our culture screams the opposite.

         I think back to something I learned many years ago playing basketball. I learned that during the playing of a game, there is far too much going on around you, and far too much pressure on you, to do what you need to do properly. And there is nothing you can do to change that in the moment, in the game. The only thing that works is repetitive practice of each aspect of the assignment over time. Then you can do it in the pressure of the game.

         I ran across quotation from the 4^th century bishop of Milan, Ambrose. In a writing called "Duties of the Clergy" he says, "Am I to suppose that he is fit to give me advice who never takes it for himself? How can a person have time for giving counsel when he has none for quiet?" The intentional and scheduled practice of the faith is essential to finishing the race and completing the course.

         The second thing Paul says is that there is a greater grace to receive. There is a transforming grace of Christ, which is not about our effort or discipline. There is a truth that renews our thinking and attitudes that is healing and is a gift. There is a love of God that overwhelms us, that washes away our anxiety, our hurt feelings, and our unforgiving attitudes.

         In our own history as a revival people, there are so many stories of people who would stop their work and go sit behind a haystack to pray, or who found themselves in an extended time of illness and recovery and that is when God spoke to hem. We no longer have those haystacks. We have cell phones instead, and they never stop instant-messaging us. The immediacy of our lives can kill the spirit. We need hiding places, where we can pause without guilt, and receive God's grace.

         Let's create such a space right now. Let's sit quietly for a bit. There is no rush, no guilt, no need to run. Let's just sit with the Lord and welcome his grace.

         Amen.