a sermon on Philippians 1:1-11
preached on June 29, 2014, for the retirement of Rev. Jane Donnelly

One of the most immediately surprising things about the letters of the apostle Paul to our modern ears is that he seems to get his beginnings and endings all mixed up. Nowadays, whether they be for business or for pleasure, whether sent as email, typed and printed, or handwritten, we sign our letters at the end, not at the beginning. So to hear Paul’s name first, even before the names of the people he is addressing in his letter, throws me off a bit. But when you get down to it, it’s a perfect situation for a day like today, this day when we celebrate a particular ending in the life and ministry of our friend and colleague and pastor Jane, because the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.

Jane and I are separated by just a few years of age—I think I counted it up once, and it seems like it might have been six or seven years between us!—but we had the privilege of beginning our ministries as pastors within just a few months of one another. Though we did not know each other before I moved to New York City in 2005, it has been a real honor to journey together over the past nine years, attending the Early Ministry Institute, working as members of the presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry, sharing our stories and wisdom in our pastoral reflection group, and spending many holidays in her home when I couldn’t be with my own family. As much as we began together, it is now an incredible privilege for me to be a part of this ending—this ending that like those in Paul’s letters is mixed up with a new beginning.

After we get beyond his mixed-up beginning and ending, Paul’s letter to the Philippians offers us three incredible and important messages for this day of beginnings and endings. First, he offers us the theme of thanksgiving and joy. The whole letter to the Philippians is filled with expressions of these wonderful gifts, and it is right and good that all our beginnings and endings be filled with them, too. Paul has much to be thankful for here: the faithful witness of the Philippians; the hope that they share through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the gift of these sisters and brothers holding him in their hearts amidst his struggles and imprisonment. His thanksgiving, then, overflows into joy—joy that lifts his heart, joy that sustains him in the midst of the challenges that he faces, joy that fills his prayers each and every day.

Those prayers are the second theme that inform this ending and beginning for us today. In his greeting to the Philippians, Paul makes it clear that his distance from them has not kept him from holding them in prayer. For Paul, prayer is the key way of maintaining his relationship with the Philippians when he cannot remain present with them. In his prayers, he offers thanksgiving for their faithful witness. He prays for love to be continually shared with him and others. And he prays that they might emerge from the trials and tribulations of the life of faith “pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Any distance, then, that emerges for us today because of this ending and this beginning is made so much less because we know that we will keep one another in prayer.

So as we approach this ending and beginning today, Paul offers us one final important reminder by lifting up the importance of the end. Paul isn’t particularly known for extended reflection on the end times, but he never leaves that idea totally behind. Here he twice reminds the Philippians that they are not just looking at each day ahead—they are ultimately looking toward “the day of Jesus Christ.” His thanksgiving and his prayers are all focused on this goal ahead, on the work that God is doing in the Philippians that God will finish before the end, on the wholeness and completeness that God will bring into being as the end brings with it a new beginning. So Paul encourages the Philippians too to keep their focus on this bigger goal, not just to keep things going as they are now until the end comes but seeking every day to be a part of the new beginning, the “harvest of righteousness,” that God is bringing through Jesus Christ.

So this strange mix of endings and beginnings from Paul, shaped by thanksgiving, prayer, and an even bigger ending, seems all too fitting for today. This day seems like the perfect embodiment of the beautiful words of T.S. Eliot:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

As we celebrate the ending of this phase of ministry for Jane and Bay Ridge United Church today, we know that the past nine years have been shaped by all these things, by deep thanksgiving for faithful witness, by prayer for continued faithfulness and shared grace, and by hope for an even bigger ending and an even greater beginning. But as Eliot says, this end is the start of our new beginning together—a continuation of the new things happening in the life of Bay Ridge United and Fourth Avenue churches, a next step in the ministry of our friend, colleague, and pastor Jane, a new beginning for all of us as we journey together with all our sisters and brothers in this time of change and transition, this end and beginning that show us how God has been at work around us and open us to how God will continue to make all things new in our world.

While we may not know the fullness of what is ahead for Jane, for these two churches, or for any of us, Paul’s thanksgiving, Paul’s prayers, and Paul’s hopes for God’s new creation ahead remind us that we walk together, always carrying these gifts from these beautiful words with us along the journey. Again, I think the words of T.S. Eliot offer a glorious reminder of the hope and prayer that are ours in the days ahead:

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one. (“Little Gidding,” from Four Quartets)

So on this day of strange endings and beginnings, may God’s presence sustain us on the journey ahead, may God’s grace surprise us in all our exploration, and may God’s love surround us at all our endings and all our beginnings as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.