John M. "Jay" Brackin, III, 1959-2000

I met Jay Brackin when he was a student at Wesley Theological Seminary. He came to work with me as a seminarian in Berryville, beginning an association and ongoing conversation that continued over the years. Jay loved the liturgies of the church, and lived his life and ministry empowered by what Christ offers us in Baptism, the Holy Table, and in the Word, read, sung, preached, and lived out in the world.

Jay was born in Staunton, Virginia, on January 16, 1959, the son of John M. Jr. and Margaret (Burns) Brackin. He completed his undergraduate degree at Washington and Lee University and the Master of Divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary. He was elected to probationary membership in the Virginia Conference in 1989, and elected a full member and ordained elder in 1997. He served Batesville, Sherando, Wesley Chapel (Chuckatuck), and Broad Street (Portsmouth), where he was serving when he died on March 17, 2000, following heart surgery.

When we gathered at Broad Street United Methodist Church on March 20, 2000, to give thanks to God for Jay’s life and work, we centered our celebration in the things that have mattered most for the church across the years. I was especially moved by the visible connections that were represented that day. Bishop Pennel was able to join us for a special word of witness. The Portsmouth District clergy, with their superintendent, Dr. Donald H. Traylor, and many other conference clergy came to honor a colleague and brother. The members of Jay’s congregations gathered to give thanks for his influence in their lives. Central United Methodist Church in Staunton, Jay’s home church, was represented by those whose presence spoke of that church’s influence in Jay’s life, and their pride in a local son. All of us gathered with Jay’s family and found strength in the fact that these vital connections were being gathered up into an even larger reality — the whole church singing out in praise to God, gathered at the Lord’s Table, claiming the promises of Christ. Our sense of loss was real, but we rejoiced in what God had given us and will give us for the days ahead.

A member of Jay’s congregation at Wesley Chapel, Carolyn Melchor, had described Jay so beautifully in a description of one of the "pilgrims" in her Chuckatuck Tales:

There was a Parson, ruddy-cheeked and wyde,

Whose friends were many, though he had no bryde.

He bearde was fulle and blacke, his smile benign,

With small, straight teeth which sparkled in a line.

Despite his asthma and a few more ills —

Which meant a steady diet of sprays and pills —

His manner still was kind, his laughter merry

As it rang throughout the sanctuary.

With special talents did our Lord him bless

To help intensify his holiness:

Ful wel he liked to maken melodye

While singing anthems or the liturgy

In lovely, tenor strains; likewise, he’d got

A gift for making sermons on the spot,

So that he didn’t, as some preachers may,

Have to plan bifor what he would say.

The bread and grape of the communion table

He liked to serve as oft as he was able;

In matters of the dead and matrimony

He loved to interject much ceremony,

And on Palm Sunday he’d been known to fling

From palms some water at us while we’d sing.

In fact, though protestant, post-reformation,

A Methodist, but longing all the while

To swing an incense burner down the aisle.

This gentle, learned man of Celtic strain

Loved our Creator more than roots love rain,

And also films, so at least once a week

We’d likely glimpse at dusk a small, white streak,

His Honda CRX, swift as an arrow

And him within it, flying toward the Naro.

I am grateful for what Jay Brackin means to me, and to all in those vital connections that he lived and loved. We commend him to God’s eternal care in the words of St. Benedict:

We seem to give them back to you, O God, who gave them to us.

Yet as you did not lose them in giving,

So we do not lose them by their return.

Not as the world gives, do you give, O Lover of souls.

— Daniel L. Garrett