Famous Last Words, Part 2

Post Author: Michelle de Beauchamp and Alison VanBuskirk Philip

This sermon series focuses on how the end of a scriptural book is not an end, but sometimes leaves the door open for change or a new beginning. What better time to explore endings, completions, and closures in scripture and faith than the end of the liturgical year, the month spanning Reformation Sunday to Christ the King Sunday? For All Saints’ Sunday, we chose this ending from 2 Corinthians because even though Paul had a difficult relationship with the worshipping community at Corinth, he did not cut them out, but left the door open for reconciliation. Sometimes All Saints’ Day brings up feelings of loss and reminders of broken relationships for people. In this post-Covid, world many people did not get to say their farewells in familiar, traditional ways. This scripture can point us that with God’s love we can mend our relationships. From the creators of this preaching series, we pray that it would be a breath of fresh air for you and your worshiping community. You can read the previous week’s post here.

An empty labyrinth in a grassy clearing on a sunny day is viewed from under the trees around the clearing, with a partial view of the back of a bench in the foreground.

The Paths Between Us

November 6, 2022 – All Saints Sunday – 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
RCL texts: Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Job 19:23-27a, 2 Thess. 2:1-5, 13-17; Luke 20:27-38

Opening Prayer (Call to Worship)
written by Alison VanBuskirk Philip

God who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,
as we seek to worship, live, and relate faithfully,
order and re-order us,
encourage us and inspire us to encourage others,
and let our voices and actions harmonize with yours.
May peace be the kiss that seals our stories
and makes us ready to tell them,
to see you reflected in them,
and to recognize your beauty breaking through all along the way.
Amen.

Hymn Suggestion
In Peace and Joy I Now Depart (words by Martin Luther, tune mit fried und freud)

Light text commentary with preaching suggestions
written by Michelle de Beauchamp

These last verses of 2 Corinthians out of context sound like a nice little farewell of love and peace, when in reality it is a final try at mending a broken relationship. How many of us have tried and tried to keep our emotions in check when we disagree with a friend or family member? Do we keep silent or reach out? In our world and communities that are so divided today, this letter is very poignant and timely.

It was written sometime around 50 CE by Paul, and composed only a few months after his first letter to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians). After he sent his first letter, it is assumed Paul went back to follow up with a second visit to the Church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:5-7). When Paul writes this letter, 2 Corinthians, Paul is back in Ephesus. However he makes it clear he will not return for another “painful” visit (2 Corinthians 2:1). Paul is setting a clear boundary of what needs to happen from both sides to mend their relationship.

In 40 CE, Paul founded the Church in Corinth, which were a collection of small house churches. The people who made up the church in Corinth were very diverse socioeconomically and culturally. The church membership was primarily Gentile. Corinth was a wealthy port city in Greece, and the church in Corinth easily had access to new ideas and different teachers of the Way.

Paul was not happy with the church in Corinth because they were hosting other preachers that taught differently from him. Paul was concerned the churches in Corinth would not keep supporting the church in Jerusalem and his movement. Throughout this letter Paul is tactful with his words, trying to not explode in anger, because he does not want the relationship between them to completely deteriorate.

So throughout the letter, he begs the Corinthians to be reconciled to God and to him. He defends himself against his opponents, and he keeps appealing for funds to be sent to the church of Jerusalem. He ends with these last words of love and peace, hoping for a full reconciliation. Now it is up to the Church in Corinth to respond.

A preacher could take this in many different ways. One way is to focus on the idea of reconciliation. It takes two, well actually three (each party involved plus God), to allow healing. Sometimes in our culture, we put the pressure on one party alone to “fix” a relationship when it takes both parties and God calling us to restore a relationship. Moments like these are when we need to trust in God’s presence. We as preachers, and our church leaders as well, tend to overextend and overfunction to keep a relationship going. That is not healthy. Reconciliation is about restoration.That includes setting healthy boundaries like Paul. Sometimes this starts with how this letter to Corinth ends…with a prayer and a blessing for the other’s journey in life. Like Paul, we have to trust in the love and power of God to open our hearts and minds to reconciliation and mutual respect.

Lastly, this being All Saints’ Sunday, the preacher can talk about how through God’s grace, the saints of our own lives that have gone are greeting us and praying for us. In the end, our relationship through Jesus is restored with each other. God’s love and peace has the potential to mend our relationships, those still with us and those who have been separated from us by death. It’s about how we respond. Sometimes like Paul, we just have to give a holy farewell kiss goodbye to a frayed relationship, remind them that God’s love is with them, and that our door is open to allow healthy healing to commence. It is not an ending but an opportunity for healing that Jesus is calling us to.

Prayers of the People Petition
written by Alison VanBuskirk Philip

God, you are the Alpha and Omega.

Thank you for being with us in our beginnings and endings and everything in between.

Thank you for the words of encouragement you’ve given us in Scripture and the ways you invite us to encourage one another.

Thank you for community where we belong, where we sing with others in harmony, and where we learn about your story and the possibilities of our stories.

God of love and peace, you are our author.

May our lives sing your story.

Peaceful One, there is discord around us: in our families, our schools, our workplaces, our cities, our nations. Sometimes there is discord in your church. We lift up to you places of discord that are weighing on us today. Pause. Use us to be peace-makers. Use us to listen and understand, to respond and relate with grace and truth.

God of love and peace, you are our author.

May our lives sing your story.

Holy One, in Jesus you offer us grace, love, and communion. Let our relationship with him nourish and change us. Let our communion with him be the central thread of our lives, the thing we can come back to when we need to remember who we are and how we’re invited to live. We lift up to you people and places in our lives that especially need reminders of grace, love, and communion with Jesus. Pause.

God of love and peace, you are our author.

May our lives sing your story.

Amen.

Rev. Michelle de Beauchamp is an ordained Lutheran pastor in the ELCA with about a decade of experience. She currently serves as the senior pastor at Saron Lutheran-First Presbyterian Church in Hoquiam on the coast of Washington State. She is passionate about rural PNW ministry, and the development of Saron-1st’s Rose Center. When she’s not pastoring she loves spending time with her family, reading a good novel, hiking, gardening and writing.

Alison lives and pastors in Westfield, NJ. She is studying family systems theory with the intention of a future bi-vocation in ministry and marriage & family therapy. In her free time, she gardens, plays board games with her family, and studies the Enneagram.

Image by: Courtney Young
Used with permission