A Letter from Afar

On June 28th, Pastor Christopher went to help his son move to a new coaching job in Florida and left a letter for the liturgist to read, hoping the congregation would get a bit of a sense of what it was like for the early church to hear a letter form someone like Paul.

Here is the letter, read after readings from 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 and Philemon.

July 25, 2024

To the United Methodist church at Fort Scott, Kansas., Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God every time I think of you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of my confidence that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ, Jesus…”  and this is my prayer:

that your love may grow in knowledge and insight, that you may discern, each of you and all of us together, what is best in God’s sight for the time and place we serve in ministry together.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we have been talking about questions and you likely have one! You are no doubt wondering where your Pastor is this day? I had very much been looking forward to being with you in worship again this morning, but circumstances have prevented that.

Happily, I have a far less serious reason for being absent from you today. As some of you may know, last year my youngest son, Aaron moved to Odessa, TX to be a graduate assistant baseball coach. As often happens in the business, the head coach that hired him there has decided to take another job, moving to Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. We are delighted that, after only working with him for a year, the coach has asked Aaron to stay on his staff as he moved to the new job and Aaron accepted.

So last week Robin went down and helped him pack up and come back to Fort Scott, planning to head to Florida in a couple weeks – then last Monday he learned he absolutely had to be there by tomorrow Monday, July 29th – AND that he’d need to bring a bed and some other larger items that were NOT going to fit in he and Robin’s cars. This news called for my truck (which, happily, is finally out of the shop) and my son asked me if I’d go with him to see the new place and help him settle in.

Despite my plans to wrap up our questions series, I decided I needed to be Dad this weekend instead of Pastor – he’ll be far enough away we won’t see him often, and as I shared recently, I am not always good about taking time off. So, I started looking for a last-minute sub to fill the pulpit. I wasn’t having much luck and was admittedly beginning to get a bit anxious about it…  and then I remembered a time in 2018 when I was unexpectedly stranded away from my church (ironically, while moving my eldest son to a new job) and the Spirit moved me to emulate Paul by writing a letter.

I thought the same solution might be good today and might give us some new insight into the Scriptures.

Like Paul, I am grateful for my coworkers in ministry who have made this possible. I am grateful that my brother and sister in Christ – Steve Harry and Carol Lydic – one a longtime member and the other fairly new to our congregation, if not the Fort Scott community – agreed to help me by becoming my messengers and leading today’s service.

I commend them to you as they share my words from afar as Phoebe and others often did for the Apostle Paul.

Earlier, Carol read from you from Paul’s letters – the conclusion of 1stThessalonians and the entire letter of Philemon. As Paul wrote to the churches, he lived in a world that was still primarily an oral culture, with a new class of scribes using the written word to convey and preserve ideas. A form of writing had developed – many of you are old enough that even in our society we would write letters to update family on our lives.

When I learned to write and type, letters had a format for address, date, greeting, body, and salutation. A few of you are young enough that you’ve only known the increasingly digital world in which email and now text and messages have their own, quite different, and quite brief styles and standards.

A letter in Paul’s time would have an opening in which the sender and recipient were identified, and greetings sent, a thanksgiving for the relationship and for blessings received from “the gods,” a body in which the substance of the letter – news, requests, instruction, and/or correction was given, then a closing usually including wishes for good health and coming visits. Paul expands on all of these aspects. The parts we often skip over in our services, the greetings, the thanksgivings – are crucially important to understanding the relationships Paul had and the reasons he wrote. Paul teaches a great deal about his answer to Christ’s question “Who do you say that I am?”

For Paul, Jesus is “Christ crucified” – the incarnate, fully human, and yet fully God. God who “humbled himself” and shows us the way of the cross, a way of transformed living that liberates us from the trap of sin and brings Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free together in a restored humanity and a restoration, an eternal life,  that begins here and now.  

In reading the New Testament Epistles, we should be aware that we are only hearing maybe half of an ongoing conversation – and that few if any of these letters were written with the expectation that we’d still be reading them as Scripture nearly 2000 years later. They were written and delivered without chapters and verses and they built upon earlier, face to face, conversations.

As we explore this today with this letter – you might note that we did NOT read one of the Gospel stories in which today’s question “Who do you say that I am?” is asked! That is because, like the letters Paul wrote, that story has already been told in person. Throughout the series we have read from Mark, Matthew and Luke’s telling of Jesus asking – of Peter proclaiming him the Messiah – and of Jesus responding with the challenge of the cross! So, we don’t have to tell it in the letter. We can just reference it. That story – in each of the gospels – is a pivotal point. It marks the move from gathering and equipping disciples to Jesus and his followers taking up their cross.

The New Testament is made up of 4 Gospels (an adaptation of a biography format,) Acts, a narrative, one apocalyptic vision (Revelation), one likely sermon (Hebrews), and all the rest - almost ¾ of the books of the New Testament – are epistles, that is letters. Letters written to churches and communities to exhort and to challenge – many of them by the Apostle Paul. Letters that gradually were gathered and preserved and eventually came to be considered Scripture themselves. All of these different texts were written to express who the author believes Jesus is, who God is, and in turn, who we believers are, and are supposed to be, as the body of Christ.

One of the things this diverse set of texts tells us is that having the right answer – as Peter does when he says “You are the Messiah!” – is not the end of the journey but really the beginning. The right answer is not yet complete – it has to be lived out. We have to decide, over and over again, what impact it will have on our lives. We have to take up our cross – yielding power, claiming liberation – growing in connection with God and with neighbor.

And if we aren’t following Jesus, we are following someone or something else. Humans are quite good at using religious language to follow worldly ways of anger, violence, division, and exclusion. We’ve talked about Jesus’ response to temptation and been challenged – last week we were asked ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord” and not do what I tell you? What we do matters – our words and our actions reveal the abundance of our hearts.

I’ve shared my own wrestling with the realization that I had not been acting in accordance with my professed values – I’d let anger and frustration guide me away from Jesus’ path. In doing so, I had not been bearing good fruit or good witness. In the scheme of things, what I did was fairly trivial – “just” an angry email – but it revealed to me that I’d stumbled. That I was seeking victory and control, not justice and resolution. I didn’t intend to become the illustration for the sermon series – but I am grateful at how the past few weeks have unfolded because, through God’s “amazing grace,” I think I am learning a valuable lesson and seeing the path more clearly. I hope the journey has been helpful to you as well.

Who is Jesus for you? How do you answer these questions?

In Luke 4, Jesus defines his call as:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Following Jesus leads us to do these things. To recognize our shortcomings and resolve to do better. To seek ways to make a difference in the world, not through power and control, but through the way of the cross, the path of both humility and human dignity.

The beautiful, inspiring words to our opening hymn "Amazing Grace." Were written by John Newton. He was born on July 24th, 1725 in London, England. Newton’s early life was spent at sea, including participation in the slave trade. It was during a time of great despair when he experienced a storm at sea that Newton experienced God’s grace beginning to change his life. He met and became friends with John Wesley, while living in Liverpool following his years at sea. He began a journey to ordination that included times of rejection, in part due to his past, but eventually became an Anglican priest.

Attributed to Newton are hundreds of hymns; among them are the first five verses of “Amazing Grace,” the words to “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,” “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” and “One There is Above All Others.” The words to each express both personal experience and biblical references. The tell us about Newton’s understanding of God and how his life was different because of it. Newton’s extensive journals not only record his association with John Wesley and others of the evangelical revival of the time, but also detail his earlier life experiences in the slave trade. By God’s grace, Newton experienced a change – and spent the rest of his life proclaiming the glory of the God who had saved and transformed him, contributing greatly to the abolitionist cause.

His life is summarized at the beginning of an epitaph he composed for himself:

John Newton, Clerk

Once an Infidel and Libertine…

Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith

He had long labored to destroy…

Newton realized his life was not proclaiming or honoring God. He found in Christ the courage to change, to challenge his society, and to inspire others to faith and freedom.

As we read Scripture, we can find a verse to justify nearly any position we want to take. While Paul urges Philemon (fillLEE-mon) to free Onesemus, (ON-ess-i-muss) as a brother in Christ and as a favor to himself, there are several texts that seem to take slavery for granted, verses like “Slaves obey your Masters.” Some of that is because the authors thought the 2nd coming was so imminent there wasn’t time or need to change society. Some of it was that the church adopted worldly ways and sought power and human favor. We have to discern.

When we read Scripture, we need to see it not as simple instruction but the story of inspired people wrestling with the questions of who we say God is and how we live it out. 

The same Bible slave masters in the American South in the early 1800s used to justify their power and position gave inspiration, through texts like Exodus and Revelation, alongside the Gospels, to the slaves who sought their own dignity and freedom.

Engaging with Scripture tells us who we say we are as well.

And sometimes, even in the pages of Scripture, those people – that is, we - fall short of the beloved Kingdom. Still, in the words of a beloved hymn, softly and tenderly… Jesus calls us to follow –

Paul’s benediction in 1 Thessalonians says: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.”

This past few weeks I’ve been reflecting on my own priorities; my own actions. I have given thanks for you, the faithful in Fort Scott and for the opportunity to continue as your pastor in this fourth year together. I have pondered where we are at and where the Spirit might be leading.

Am I truly pointing people to Christ, or have I made it about myself. Do I fall into the trap of thinking “only I can handle it?” and thus deny others opportunities and ownership or focus my energy on tasks others should handle? Do I excuse small, so called “trivial” things in my life, ignoring how they contribute to larger attitudes and, yes, evils?

I am thankful for all of you who do so much for our congregation and our community. And yet I also that our congregation – our committees and activities - are entirely too pastor driven. Part of my role is to equip the faithful – not make, or even necessarily be consulted, on every decision or action we take. I believe it is limiting our potential growth.

At the same time, due to a perceived “lack of time,” I have not been leading small group studies. So, over the next few weeks, I’ll be making some changes and issuing some challenges. I’ll be refocusing on my role and call as Pastor.

One thing I can share - as I’ve considered the world we live in, listened to what some other congregations in town proclaim, and considered the questions asked in this series - I’ve decided to do a sermon series and small group study over the book of Revelation. Too often Christians either avoid this book altogether, or they root themselves in its terrible visions, leading to what I believe is a distorted and dangerous projection of Christ as a violent general and faith as dominance. That understanding is at odds with the whole of Scripture – and even at odds with the point of the Book of Revelation.

In August and September, we will be unpacking that and offering an understanding of John of Patmos’ visions that lead to undying hope and the possibilities of renewal – on earth as it is in heaven.

As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”

CHAPTER TWO, VERSE 1…

(pause)…

Nah… we’ll wrap this letter up here and I’ll share more with you next week.   God is with us and we know the way he leads. Graciously, he allows us to respond, or not. This past few weeks, I have learned anew the peace that comes when we acknowledge our troubles and shortcomings but stay focused on Christ. I have recommitted myself to living the balance of work, rest, and play and living out my priorities, including family and teaching.

I am thankful for a congregation that understands and encourages that and hope that this unusual Sunday helps you understand Scripture, and your own journey, more fully.

Grace and Peace to you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – I will be back from Florida on Wednesday and look forward to seeing you again in person very soon.

Your brother in Christ, Pastor Christopher Eshelman