Three C's of Colossians

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon is entitled Three C’s of Colossians: Church, Circumstances and Challenge. My focus is our Epistle (Colossians). … Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

In its vision of Christ, of his body the church, and of the mystery of God hidden for all ages, Colossians is truly majestic, and certainly a worthy representative of Pauline heritage.[1] The city of Colossae was an important commercial route in Turkey that connected Ephesus to Tarsus and Iconium, all centers of early Christian activity. It was a textile center noted for purple wool products. We should recall Lydia from our reading of Acts 16. Compared to other cities and towns in the region, Colossae was one of the least important. Jewish families from Babylon had been forcibly resettled there around 200 BC. Today, Colossae is a site for archeological digs. For the pilgrim or casual observer, there is literally nothing to see.

The church was probably founded by Epaphras, a native son of the city. He is mentioned in Paul’s letter twice. We read in chapter one that the people learned the Gospel from Epaphras, Paul’s dear fellow servant and a faithful minister of Christ. He told Paul of the church members’ love in the Spirit.[2] Paul mentioned Epaphras again in closing his letter: He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis.[3]

Under Epaphras, the church in Colossae grew and bore fruit. When Paul wrote of faith, hope and love in the opening verses and which he expanded upon later in the letter, he meant this. Faith in Jesus is a condition for being presented holy and blameless before Christ, and was one of the means by which believers were raised with Him.[4] Love is the practice within the church that holds the body together.[5] Finally, hope is something outside the believer.[6] Paul wrote of this hope produced by Christ’s death and resurrection when he wrote these words to the Romans, “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?”[7] A better translation is “How can anyone still hope for what he sees?”[8]

Paul realized that the Christ-event, Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection, already saved the Colossians, and indeed all believers in Christ as Lord. What happened on the cross rescued Christians from evil (moral and otherwise). Yet, Paul realized that its end is still something of the future. And the intercession of Christ Jesus at the right hand of God is why Paul can write that Christians must work out their salvation with fear and trembling.[9] God’s grace working in us reminds us that we cannot have salvation without the grace of God. Therefore, he reminds the Christians in Colossae and in every time and place that we must always hope because we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.[10]

We can never remove hope from the church. Faith leads us to Christ. Love holds us together in Christ. Hope motivates us to stay focused on what we cannot see, but believes is held out for us in heaven, eternal life in our Triune God.

Now, there is a second person from Colossae named in Paul’s personal letter to Philemon. That would be the slave Onesimus. The mention of him brings me to my second point, Circumstances.

So, Paul did not establish the church nor did he visit it. Then, why did he write to the Colossians? The purpose of Colossians was to bolster the faith of the community and to correct errors reported about the church. When Paul wrote, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces,”[11] he was concerned about false teaching. He further elaborated on the worship of angels and demands to observe food rules and festivals, new moons and sabbaths, as well as ascetical practices.[12]

This teaching arose within the believing community. Jewish and Greek elements were woven into Christian teaching. It was a complex syncretism that incorporated features of Judaism, paganism, Christianity, magic, astrology and mystery religions. Paul referred to some initiation rite and expressed his concern not only for the church in Colossae, but also Laodicea, which was the center of these mystery cults.

Paul strongly stated that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ,[13]  and that no other elements of the universe hold power over Christians because they have been delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.[14] So, believers in Christ do not need to worry about food or drink, for Christ through his death will present believers holy and without blemish before God the Father.

Now, a number of people have written with great certainty about the false teaching Paul addressed in Colossians, but they are guessing. There is nothing wrong with guessing, provided that all are aware of how much guesswork is involved. What we do know is that Paul’s opponents combined belief in Christ with Jewish and pagan ideas to shape a hierarchical system of heavenly beings in which Christ was subordinate to angelic powers to whom worship was due.[15] As Paul wrote, all things are mere shadows of what is to come, but only in Christ can we find reality.

So, what is the Challenge of Colossians for Christians today? Writing from a prison cell, Paul understood what was happening in his world. If we could place Paul in our world today, he would certainly address the same ethical and moral issues the Church has addressed recently – abortion, euthanasia, alternate lifestyles, marriages and family life, poverty, disease and evangelization. As I pondered this passage, I began to realize what else he might say.

To put this in context, let me go back to an email I received and my granddaughter’s visit. A week or ten days ago, I was reading an email from Jordan Peterson, the Canadian clinical psychologist. All of his messages begin with “Hello” and end with a discount on whatever it is he is selling. This particular email dealt with a question he is often asked, “What is the meaning of life?” A point he made in his message was to avoid suffering by dedicating yourself to the highest possible goal. He then added, “What is the prerequisite to the pursuit of the highest possible goal? Willingness to adopt the maximum degree of responsibility.”

I thought about this for a while and realized that for me that pursuit is being a saint. I don’t mean seeking sainthood in the Catholic sense complete with veneration, invocation, miracles and relics. I mean dedicating my life to following Christ and His teachings. I mean to be a member of the Church, the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.[16]

Isn’t that the highest possible goal for each of us? Isn’t that your goal? Pursuit of that goal looks differently for each of us. Life often dictates how we pursue sainthood because of age, occupation, health, wealth or family, but dedicating myself to Christ’s Gospel and assisted by the Sacraments is my highest goal.

That said, the second incident that contextualizes the challenge of Colossians for the Christian today happened on Tuesday when we took our granddaughter, Emma, to the Beaver Library to return and borrow books and videos. As she was browsing, I took some time to do the same in the sections for philosophy, psychology, religion and social sciences. What dawned on me was the number of books, periodicals, websites and other media that are available to us, and the importance we place on them. You don’t have to have studied philosophy and theology to know that more people will turn to psychology and social sciences to seek advice on how to understand the meaning of life or avoid suffering rather than seek it from the ancient philosophers, Paul, Augustine, Luther or the Bible.

My point is that while these other fields help us understand, they do not save. Unlike the Gospel and Cross of Christ, they do not deliver us from evil and into everlasting and abundant life. And yet, even steadfast Christians readily seek them sooner than the Sacraments and prayer to assist them deal with some situation or sin, with temptations and trials, with relationships and right living.

So, what is the challenge of Colossians for the Christian today? In a word, syncretism. While some say that syncretism in the Church in America is materialism, individualism and nationalism, others claim that is the integration of Buddhism and Confucianism into Christianity which resulted in the Unification Church. Other cultures have influenced God’s Word even before Jesus. We see the influence of the Canaanites in Psalms; of Persian religions on later Jewish writings due to the Babylonian captivity; and of Greek philosophy on Paul and Roman culture in Peter’s Letters.

When cultures meet and interact, they exchange religious ideas. The belief that all religions offer truth, or that different religions present different paths to God is syncretism. Syncretism operates on the assumption that combining certain teachings produces a better way of knowing and/or reaching God. Now, this is not to say, as we do from psychology and social sciences, that we cannot learn anything about ourselves as individuals, families and society. Nor am I saying that our religion is now pure or distilled because we are always in some sort of internal or external dialogue with other denominations when Covid, government restrictions or economic downturns impact how we worship and support the Church.

The worlds of ideas, religions and cultures impact my life, but when it comes to how I live, the only road I take is the one that leads to and through the Cross of Christ and His teaching for I am assured that heeding that call to come to Him through grace will lead me to God the Father. Aided by God’s Word, the Sacraments and prayer in solitude and in common, I hope to pursue my call to live as a saint among saints. All I ask of you is to join me, and when you do may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, New York: Doubleday (1997), 599.

[2] Colossians 1:7-8.

[3] Colossians 4:12-13.

[4] See 1:4, 23; 2:5, 7, 12.

[5] See 1:4, 8; 2:2; 3:14.

[6] See 1:5, 23, 27.

[7] Romans 8:24.

[8] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ, “The Letter to the Romans,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall (1990), p. 854.

[9] Philippians 2:12.

[10] See 2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 2:6-11.

[11] Colossians 2:8.

[12] Fitzmyer, pp. 877f.

[13] See 2:3.

[14] See 1:13.

[15] Brown, pp. 607f.

[16] Augsburg Confession, Article VII, “Of the Church.”