While I was attending Summit High School, I briefly worked for Burgdorf Realtors and then a small art gallery. Too much alphabetical filing as an office clerk and then too much pressure moving super expensive gold-leaf frames inspired me to different employment. So I settled into over two years of employment working for a small, local, family-run stationer and office supplies store.
Perhaps it’s because I like creative ways of organizing tasks and schedules, artistically well-done presentations, and lots of variety when it comes to everyday tools such as pens and pushpins, I have to say I really liked most everything about selling office supplies. I even liked moving endless and heavy amounts of boxes full of reams of copy paper because it made scrawny, bespeckled me feel young and strong. The only thing I didn’t particularly like was the store swamping that took place every late August, when kids would come in to buy school supplies, many times paying with sweat-drenched scrunched up bills pulled out of the bottom of stinky sneakers!
As a stationer, we of course sold a good variety of high quality stuff … the nicely weighted, watermarked kind colored in bright white, beige, and a respectable looking light blue. This quality of paper was and I assume still is properly required for resumes, official correspondences with the company letterhead, letters of recommendation, and such. I’m quite sure that when I the associate pastor of my home church wrote a recommendation letter to Princeton Seminary admissions on my behalf, it was on some nice stock and not the standard sheets that live in photocopiers.
I’m reliving some of the 1980’s out loud here because the historic context of today’s passage from 2 Corinthians has to do with letter writing. Specifically, it’s about letters of recommendation. In the very socially stratified culture of the ancient Roman Empire, such letters had great power to cement deals between people and to build up human institutions. Like today, they would be sent from someone with a certain credibility and authority to attest to the character and qualifications of the person being recommended.
Such letters also came into play regarding leadership in the early church. They were carried by certain people who wanted to gain acceptance and authority and influence in ecclesial circles. I can’t say I know where or by what authority these certain people came from. And I can’t say what motivated them, though from our New Testament reading we can assume any number of them were sinfully self-promoting. I understand such individuals would especially show up where a Christian community was in conflict. They would arrive, some letter of recommendation in hand, and declare their authority as apostles – as followers of Jesus Christ carrying the Gospel to the world.
One such conflicted congregation that received this attention was in the ancient Greek city of Corinth. It’s been said that a moral cancer had been eating away at the vitals of this faith community[i] and that the “difficulties faced by the Corinthian church are legendary.” In addition to moral laxness, there had been fighting among various factions, arguing over spiritual gifts, abusing of the Lord’s Supper, and, to my main point this morning, following after interloping leaders.[ii]
Interloping is a fun word, isn’t it? By definition, interlopers are those who thrust themselves into the affairs of others. And this seems exactly the right label for those letter-carrying opportunists of the early church. We can say this because the person that planted the Corinthian church was none other than the Apostle Paul, who had lived there in Corinth about 18 months (Acts 18:1-18).
Given his clear status as the authentic apostle of Christ in the early church, the fact that the Corinthian Christians were a conflicted mess proved to be quite a problem. In addressing this, Paul had to do two things at the same time -- he needed to reestablish his credibility and authority as their church leader by finding a way to discredit the interlopers, and he also needed to pastorally empower the congregation and help them get themselves back on track to rightly loving and serving the Lord as he had taught through the clout of his holy calling.
His attempt to do is found in today’s lesson. These words reveal how he turned the entire cultural practice of letter-of-recommendation writing inside-out. He did so emphasizing that it is the Spirit of the Living Lord that directly recommended and commissioned him and thus his “letter” was carried in and shared from his heart, mind and soul. As the church planter, as their pastor, Paul made it clear that no human recommendation of apostolic authority counted and thus should be dismissed.
Then, shifting focus away from what could have been interpreted as egotistical posturing and self-glorification, Paul further turned things inside-out by including every person in the community. The faithful authority the Living Spirit of Christ had “written” on his heart was also being “written” on the heart of every member in the church community. All, he preached, are in ministry together, all are living letters of the Lord. All have the gifts needed to work together to recommend and mail the Good News of Jesus across their congregation, into their homes, and out into the culture-at-large.
Empowered today by this same teaching, how are you a letter written by Christ to be delivered everywhere you go? As Paul taught elsewhere in his writing to the Corinthians (2:5-11), how are you behaving in the concrete ways of forgiveness, comfort and love? How is your obedience in the Lord more than just a private affair and one that is known and read by many? Inspired by Paul, I need to ask -- in what ways have I helped you and can I further help you to deliver your Jesus mail?
It’s an interesting and fresh perspective to see our congregation as a holy mail room. It helps me take an inventory of all the faithful words and actions that come in and that go back out to God’s glory. And, you know, in a delightful play on words, it reminds me of our baptisms, where we are “signed and sealed,” not to mention “delivered” as Christ’s own forever! Amen.
[ii] Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Location 2450). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
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