Conversation Point

Return to Sender

Have you ever received or sent a letter to the wrong address? I once discovered a missive destined for Missouri at a post office box in Connecticut. The zip codes were similar enough that no one along the way noticed the problem until I realized it wasn't my name on the envelope. In another situation, the people who lived in my house before me still receive some of their mail here, even after an almost ten year lag in the living arrangement. I read online a few weeks ago that a letter had been delivered after it had been sent forty-five years earlier. How many places did it land before finally reaching its intended recipient?

Misdelivered mail always seems rather sad, like a displaced person anxiously looking all around for some clue as to what to do next. Having a clear sense of where it has come from, it can't quite figure out what its next step should be. So it waits for a kindly soul to label it to be returned to its origination point. Once back home, the letter can be cleared of a smeared address, put in a fresh envelope or have added postage attached and be sent back out on its journey once again.
Perhaps there are days we feel as if we are letters gone astray. Do you ever feel so confused and befuddled as to your purpose in life that you just want to curl up in a padded envelope and be sent back to where you started so you can begin again? Are there days when you feel shredded and mangled by every encounter and exchange, so much so that you can't wait to be stuffed into a little baggie and returned home to lick your wounds? There may be other days when you know you can make it if you just get a little help from someone, friend or stranger, who is willing to direct you along to the next step, simply because they can and they want to. There are also probably a few days when yelling at the person or persons you feel are to blame for you being a lost letter in the first place might feel like the best option.

In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul wrote, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts (II Corinthians 3:1-4)." Paul's words directly address the issue of whose words we value when determining the character of the people we meet. Most often, then as now, employers want references, written proof of who we are, what our moral and work ethics are comprised of and how we have proven ourselves by our past behavior. Since whatever ill behavior we have displayed is not included in such offerings, the character of the person providing the reference on another's behalf is just as important to know as the potential employee. "Consider the source:" was never more appropriately applied then when searching to fill an empty slot in an organization. Letters of recommendation have also been used in a personal manner, to confirm someone's identity, who they know and where they come from.

While we are used to significant access to all types of information about each other's lives, Paul's Corinthian church couldn't boot up a computer and order a background check on each person they met or who wanted to be a part of this new faith developing in congregations all across the Greek and Roman Empires. So Paul tells the Corinthians, who most likely raised the issue to Paul in another letter or on a prior visit by Paul, to think about this concern a bit more. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Are we thinking so highly of ourselves that we have forgotten our mission and who calls us into being? Why do we need letters to prove who we are to each other? You are the letter that has already been written, written on all our hearts. Everyone can know and read this by who you are. Paul tells the Corinthian church he loves, a church which has had great challenges in working out what it means to be a faith community, that they show themselves to be a letter of Christ to the world, prepared by all of them. It is a letter etched on their hearts by God's Spirit, something much more clear, solid and lasting than words chipped into stone tablets. Having lived through the turmoil implied in his first letter to them, it wouldn't be a surprise for the parishioners at Corinth to feel a need to set some boundaries, clamp down and know where they stand, and to let everybody else know too. Accountability can feel like nine-tenths of the law.

We are not so different. When we feel mangled, maligned or mistreated we want to feel safe, know where we stand and set a new standard, a new starting point for ourselves. We want to feel whole again. But holding other people accountable to prove themselves to us in this process is as futile as the Corinthian church expecting letters of recommendation to solve their communication and relational issues. Accountability may feel like nine-tenths of the law, but living by the letter of the law is not what we as people of the Christian faith are about. Paul goes on to say that "Our confidence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (II Corinthians 3:5)."

Paul directs his people back to their Sender and their belief in the the Spirit who guided them in creating their community in their hearts. Returning to our Sender, that same Spirit, will help us refocus, help us remember who we are, Whose we are, and to whom we belong as a continuing community here on earth. Our hearts always speak the truth as the letter of God's grace.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 2:47 PM