My adopted family

It is sad to be back in the situation I found myself in as recently as summer 2010, when this blog began - saying farewell to a church I have been serving as pastor. Once again there is the impression that the arrangement wasn't working out; once again the dismal feeling that nothing would change unless I made the first move. Last time the move was to temporary unemployment, this time early retirement.

Not that I have any wish to retire. It is simply an acknowledgement that pastorates are hard to come by and I am older than the age normally thought desirable. When I first heard God calling me to the ministry, though, I understood it to be for life. It was quite dramatic. I was in France for the third year of my degree course at Uni. You had the choice of studying at a university overseas supported by a grant, or taking a post as an English assistant at a school and being paid. It was a no-brainer: most of us went as English assistants. A staff member at the school where I worked the most hours was a practising Catholic. He invited me over for a meal and we must have talked about religion. I can't remember any of that conversation. All I can recall was him suddenly asking, "Why don't you become a pastor in your church?" Suddenly my eyes were opened to the lifelong challenge and interest it would prove to be! I have never looked back from that day to this. How can I now just lay it aside at 60?

Yet the depressing experience of having to leave a pastorate that has lost its point has come round once more. So again the last Sunday morning service comes round, with the goodbyes and the anxious enquiry, "Where will you go?" Well, first of all, to stay with my adopted family for a few days. That is my instinctive response when life changes happen. They will welcome me and give me the space I need to adjust and move on.

How come I have an adopted family? I have no living relatives left of any closeness. A child of my parents' advancing years, I was bereaved of my father in 1983 and my mother in 1997. All other kin have died out. Perhaps it is natural for a single man to seek out a household of kind folk who see him as part of the family. A farming couple in Oxfordshire, where I spent the longest and happiest days of my ministry, willingly fulfil that role. Theirs is a home from home for me, and a base from which to visit the numerous friends I still have in that area.

The adoption has never been formalised. No papers have been signed and it is even hard to know which of us has adopted the other. But "adoption" is a word we are all happy to use for the arrangement. Indeed, even the next generation of the family is supportive too, a state of affairs which I find deeply touching and a real blessing.

Adoption is a word with clear resonance in connection with the Christian's relationship to God's Son Jesus Christ. Galatians 4 compares children who have privileges in a Roman household with slaves who have no standing there. "God sent forth his Son ... to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (Galatians 4:4-6 ESV).

To be able to claim the position of son or daughter with a heavenly Father who would otherwise be your implacable judge is a rare privilege. I glorify God that it is possible through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. I also thank Him that being in a sense adopted into a human family is a constant reminder of what He has done for me. It gives me greater confidence and poise as I face the next uncertain chapter of my life.