Colossians

I’ve been trying to follow Thomas Keating’s advice: learn to be silent with God.

I’ve been trying to follow Thomas Keating’s advice: learn to be silent with God.

They use the conventions of Jewish resistance poetry to challenge Roman occupation.

They use the conventions of Jewish resistance poetry to challenge Roman occupation.

Do we really want God to live with us in a poisoned and degraded world?

Do we really want God to live with us in a poisoned and degraded world?

Anya Silver’s imaginative poems speak from nothingness into new creation.

We are God’s artifacts—beautiful, incomplete, and mysterious.

We are God’s artifacts—beautiful, incomplete, and mysterious.

To sing of Jesus Christ in Paul's terms seems strange and grandiose and a bit out of touch with the lives of ordinary people right now.

To sing of Jesus Christ in Paul's terms seems strange and grandiose and a bit out of touch with the lives of ordinary people right now.

All living things are touched by divine grace—and caught up together in movement toward union with God.

All living things are touched by divine grace—and caught up together in movement toward union with God.

Fun fact: when Paul tells his readers in Colossae to "put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)," it's an example of a common ancient rhetorical device called a "vice list." (This is not actually fun, but bear with me.)

If anyone can wax poetic about the power of a clean slate, it's Paul. In his mystical meanderings on the human body's relationship to the body of Christ, he doesn't ground his hope in the things that humans do (or don't do) in response to tradition, social pressure, or threats. He grounds it in the inclusive finality of Jesus Christ himself.

At first read, this Sunday's Colossians text landed for me with a bit of a thud between the rich narrative images of Genesis and Luke. But the text engages the themes of calling and vocation in important ways. 

Paul says the hidden life is a moral one, putting off vices like a set of dirty old clothes.

The biological concept of convergence lends credence to a Christian view of providence—and fits with a scriptural account of a story-shaped world.

On a shelf in our church library you can find a “Reading Guide” made by a fourth grader. It lists the types of books appropriate for different age groups and advises: “Remember--Kids (8-12) when you start the Bible, go at your own pace. It's a long book!”

Are the rest of us so different from our brothers and sisters in Libya or in Charleston? Are they heroes with whom we can never identify?