All the Freedom... Reflections on Colossians 2

After the beautiful Christ hymn of Colossians 1, we round the corner into the second chapter and get clues about why the letter was written. The church in Colosse seems to be facing divisions in their church.

v.8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe , and not according to Christ.

Paul goes on to say that their identity as belonging to Christ does not require any religious hoops or purity tests or special diets or certain festivals.

v.17, “These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking…”

Then, as now, it was tempting to define who is in and who is out.

As one of my favorite Richard Rohr quotes says, “We want a religion where we can win.”

I listened this week to a podcast called First Person, interviewing Dan White, a pastor from the East Coast who resigned from his church after being diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

He said that he had always had divisions in his church but the 2016 election,

“threw battery acid on the whole reality. Where people would never have felt comfortable calling another brother or sister in Christ, you know, a horrible name like a Marxist or a white supremacist or a baby killer, I mean, these things just started to — they were just flowing off people’s tongues… I mean, just flip through any cable news station and you — whether it’s left or right, you can feel the intensity of how we demonize someone else. We have a little ground to speak generously and kindly, and also see people as people.

And that’s why I spoke earlier about the disappointment pastors are feeling, is that I think we realize social media, and cable news, and the political partisanship that’s just gripped us has done more forming and shaping on our congregation than our own sermons have.

I think that’s contributing to the mass burnout that’s happening.

And it’s — burnout isn’t just, like, you’re working too many hours. There’s an existential breaking that’s happening. Is what I’m doing actually working? Is it fruitful? Are people really transforming to love people that are unlike them, or only just to love their own kind or their own political voting bloc? On and on and on.

I think that’s — I think this last two or three years has revealed things we didn’t know were there, that we didn’t really want to know were there. And so that’s why pastors are struggling with it so much.

I don’t want to make this about pastor burnout — I am so grateful to serve here in a congregation that is as concerned about these divides as I am and I know many of you share my concern and are actively working to bring about reconciliation in our world.

But Dan White’s story did strike me as a bit of a canary in a coal mine. The divisiveness that we are experiencing, that we impose on others, that we are caught in between are toxic. They wear on our personal health and our collective health.

So many are experiencing burnout because we are not building bridges to the common good but walls to keep each other out.

So, what do we do?

Here’s what Paul says in verse 18:

“…hold fast to the head (meaning Christ), from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.”

Paul’s answer to the Colossians is to become rooted in Christ.  That is where we find our freedom

As we navigate ideologies and opinions and perspectives, we keep returning to Christ where we find our true self “hidden with Christ in God,” as Paul says.  As we listen to Christ within us, as we cultivate a life with God — we grow in our capacity to act from that deep center.

A life in Christ is not a place to arrive, it is the the great paradox: Life with God is both where we are and where we are going. It is our starting place and our destination.

This past week, Diana Butler Bass, who spent a few weeks in residency here about 5 years ago, wrote about the divisions in our nation, and particularly about the danger of Christian nationalism that poses a very real threat to peace and democracy.

Admitting her own fear and helplessness, she asks the question: “What can stop this?”

And here is how she answers it:

I do know one thing that might help — Christianity itself. Only Christians can finally and fully reject the bloody theology that has so often resulted in calamity and that threatens us now.

Oddly and rarely, Christianity has risen above its bad blood to achieve its alternative vision of peace with amity. For every violent emperor, bad pope, twisted crusader, and abusive preacher, there have always been protesters, subversives, resisters, truth-tellers, healers, and saints.

Whenever Christianity practices goodness and justice, it almost always emerged from the latter group — the quiet, the powerless, the prayerful, the questioners, the mystics, the heretics, the wise, and the wanderers. It is a Christianity that leans toward love, afloat in the waters of grace, and not a religion obsessed with blood. It knows that purity is not the point.

That’s what will help unhinge this madness — risky goodness. Attentiveness to where theology can go awry. The only antidote to theocratic Christianity is the brave, kind, persistent, merciful, and insistent faith that stands with and for human solidarity and comity.

Each of us has places where we’re called to be brave, kind, persistent, merciful and insistent on the way of Jesus in the world. I invite you to listen for that calling.

Staying rooted and grounded in Christ may be what saves us from our own tendency to division.

Staying rooted and grounded in Christ is the way we stay loving and compassionate in the face of deep division and conflict

Staying rooted and grounded in Christ is the path of true freedom.

(preached at Valley Presbyterian Church, August 14, 2022)