Pastor Tom's Community

When I was concluding my first pastorate, my mother asked me, “What are you going to preach on your last Sunday?”

Then she added, “Every preacher I ever heard stepping down from one pulpit and moving on to another preached, ‘Finally, brethren.’”

So I looked it up.

Paul said it more than once.

“Finally, brethren…”

But what did he mean?

He was not always saying, “This is the end of everything.” Sometimes he was saying, “Here is what matters most before I close this letter.” He was gathering up the threads. He was leaving the people with the next faithful thing. He was recognizing that, for this particular congregation, in this particular form, his words were coming to a close.

That is a sobering thing.

I have left a few places to go to a few more places.

Sometimes the transition was clean and ceremonial. Sometimes it was gradual and complicated. Sometimes it felt like passing the torch. Sometimes it felt like laying something down before I knew who would pick it up.

We moved from a long-term stable location to a rented location. We scaled down. We passed responsibility to others whose message, gifts, and presence were more directly fitted to the community around them.

Then we moved again, this time into a much smaller place, where the audience was mostly children.

Then COVID came.

And somehow, in the middle of disruption, a new mission field opened.

Online.

Not as a substitute for “real” ministry, but as a place where real people were gathering with real wounds, real questions, real fatigue, and real hunger.

The burned out.

The worn out.

The ticked off.

The disenfranchised.

The people who needed to come in their pajamas.

The people deconstructing.

The people reconstructing.

The people simply falling apart.

And also the people beginning again, forming small communities, little churches, prayer circles, study groups, and sacred spaces on limited resources and great hope.

So when do we finally get to say, “Finally, brethren”?

I am not sure we do.

Not completely.

Not while there is still someone to encourage.

Not while there is still someone to bless.

Not while there is still a Joshua to strengthen, a Timothy to mentor, a scattered flock to gather, or a weary soul to remind that grace has not expired.

Paul had many “finallys.”

Each one mattered.

Each one was real.

Each one gathered the urgency of the moment and said, “Before I go, remember this.”

Maybe that is all any of us can do.

We do not always know when the last sermon is the last sermon. We do not always know when the final conversation is final. We do not always know when a season has ended until we are already standing in the next one.

But we can live prepared to say what matters.

Finally, brethren, rejoice.

Finally, brethren, pray.

Finally, brethren, stand firm.

Finally, brethren, encourage one another.

Finally, brethren, strengthen the next one.

Finally, brethren, keep the faith.

We do not know Paul’s last sermon.

We know his letters. We know his appeals. We know something of his courage. We know he poured himself out until there was nothing left to preserve.

And I wonder.

On the day they led him where they would lead him, after all the arguments had been made and all the appeals exhausted, did he look into the eyes of his executioners, glance toward whatever crowd had gathered, and whisper one more time:

“Finally, brethren…”

Not because the gospel was finished.

But because he had said what was his to say.

And now it was someone else’s turn to carry it forward.