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Paul's Letter to the Colossians - 3
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Colossians 2:6-19 (New International Version) Freedom From Human Regulations Through Life With Christ
6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature,[a] not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,[b] God made you[c] alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.[d]
16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Paul's Letter to the Colossians
On the day that I began writing this sermon I did some research at our local “No Frills” store. I am not sure when this change began, but I am old enough to remember the days when mustard came in one variety. Today a store which supposedly specializes in a stripped-down version of the shopping experience carries 12 varieties of mustards. Our local Loblaws has seven different mustards under the President’s Choice brand alone. To not offer a growing variety of everything from biscuits to burgers is an invitation to your customers to try out the competition. To have nothing but plain, old, yellow mustard is so last century.
It would appear having nothing to offer except for Jesus is spiritually passé also. An article this spring in the Austin, Texas newspaper, “The Statesman,” claims younger believers are blending the faith and practices of religion and are more likely than ever before to define themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”
“Laura Rios grew up Catholic, dancing in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and a symbol of Mexican identity. Now, at 32, dancing is still her main expression of the sacred in her life, though now she does it to honor her ancestors. Rios' Aztec dancing is part of her spiritual life, like the ritual tattoos she has on her arms and the poems she reads by the Sufi mystic Rumi. She's one of an estimated 30 percent of Americans who refer to themselves as "spiritual, not religious" according to a 2009 Newsweek poll—up from 24 percent in 2005. A Gallup Poll released in May showed that now 16 percent of Americans don't have a religious identity, which is up from about 2 percent in 1968.
“Rios is one of many Americans who blend belief systems such as Christianity or Islam with other sources of inspiration, such as Buddhist meditation, yoga or belief in reincarnation. The former Catholic said, ‘through friends and co-workers she learned about Buddhism and Islam and found herself particularly transformed by reading the Quran.’ For more than three years in her 20s, she was drawn to exploring the life of a Muslim, and she prayed five times a day and attended a mosque; but she said Islam didn't allow her to express herself through dance the way she wanted, and the restrictions of the religion led her back to her life of seeking. Although her parents and grandparents attended church as a way of life, she said, she found it hard to make the same choice.
“She said she learned that she felt most alive and closest to God when she was moving. ‘Dancing was the one thing that kept me spiritually intact,’ she said. ‘I always used movement to pray, through breakdancing and the dance that I did as a kid. Dance was my prayer. It was what my soul needed to feel connected to God. It was my spiritual warrior training.’
“Jason Steans, 37, says he grew up Protestant but as an adult found himself embracing a more general sense of spirituality based on the belief that ‘spirituality involves defining ourselves through the acts performed throughout our lifetime. We aren't just physical bodies—we are the total sum of the effect that we have on the world.’ For Steans, that effect can happen without the influence of church” (taken from the web site Virtue On Line).
So the question for all of us and the question for our mission as a church is this: is Jesus enough? Should we as individuals be exploring a greater variety of religious expression? You wouldn’t limit yourself to just plain mustard when dijon mixed with mayonnaise is available. Should we as a church simply admit that offering only Jesus was limiting and suggest other religions must also have something to offer?
These are not new questions. These sort of questions were being asked in Colossae. Paul’s answer to them was this: you can be a victim or a victor—your choice! That’s the idea I want to explore with you today.
Paul says to the Colossians, See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit. There is very much a military feel to our text for today. The word translated take captive was regularly used in secular connotations to refer to the capture of prisoners in a war and taking them away as part of the spoils of battle. Here Paul makes a very deliberate distinction about what is at stake. Those who are taken prisoner are still alive and put at the disposal of their captors. Paul is telling the Colossians that some of the teachers to whom they are listening are people steelers, trying to spiritually trap and enslave the Colossian Christians.
This is not the sort of language with which we are comfortable. North American main-line Christians are far more likely to think that while there are differences of interpretation between denominations and even between faiths that people of good will are all headed in the same general direction.
Paul would have us carefully examine that sort of thinking. Watch out, he says, for any spirituality based on human tradition, the elemental spirits of the universe and which takes you away from Christ.
When Paul speaks of human tradition, he is likely referring to various pagan understandings of human thought and development. I think in our day the most significant threat to the Christian is the idea that the church is optional. Of course, part of that argument is true.
Take for example the oldest of the Christian institutions, the Roman Catholic Church. Anyone looking at a ceremony from the Vatican, with church officials dressed in elaborate vestments and strange looking head-gear could easily conclude this had little to do with a teacher from first century Palestine.
But look in the opposite direction. If you were to be among the forty thousand or so who attend weekend services at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, you might be inspired and entertained but with so much glitz and glamour you could conclude that while this was certainly more contemporary than what happened at St. Peter’s, it also lacked a connection with the person you discover in the gospel records.
We need to be careful. The church is part of God’s plan. I think the primary reason for that is simple. God has entrusted the mission of Christ to those who are the body of Christ. The hand only works when attached to an arm. The mouth only works when attached to a face. A knee is a marvelous tool for climbing stairs but useless on its own. The church is not an option because God has given the church a job.
The next thing Paul warns about can be translated in two different ways. The scholars who compiled the NRSV translation chose elemental spirits of the universe. Have a look at the note: it could also be the rudiments of the world. The word there originally referred to “things in a row.” So it came to be associated with a child learning his or her “ABC’s.” Because it referred to this basic learning, it was also used to describe knowledge of the stars and other heavenly bodies and the supernatural powers that many of the ancients believed directed these objects.
Let me try something out on you. I am convinced Paul chose his words carefully. He would have known this word could be taken in more than one way. Perhaps what he was saying was something like this: you may think these theories about supernatural powers in the sky are something higher, something more sophisticated than what you have been taught about Jesus. The reality is you have gone backward; it is as if you based your whole life on the “ABC’s” you learned as a child.
What has happened, says Paul, is those who have listened to a pagan tradition and those who have gone back to their “ABC’s” have moved away from Christ. When one moves away from Christ, says Paul, you run the risk of becoming a victim instead of sharing in his victory. Let me finish up by explaining what I mean.
Have a look at verses 13 and 14 of our text. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. You remember what we are told in the gospels. The charge against Jesus was written on a small sign and attached to the cross above his head. Paul, if you will, is playing a bit with this detail in the story. To the Romans what that placard said was that Jesus was guilty of treason or sedition. But from the perspective of human salvation, if there was a charge nailed to that cross it was the charge against all of us—guilty of disobeying God—and by his death Jesus has set that charge aside. Life has been given to all those who have faith in Jesus.
As I read it, Paul then brings his argument full circle. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. “The picture, quite familiar in the Roman world, is that of a triumphant general leading a parade of victory. The conqueror, riding at the front in his chariot, leads his troops through the streets of the city. Behind them trails a wretched company of vanquished kings, officers and soldiers—the spoils of battle. Christ, in this picture, is the conquering general; the powers and authorities are the vanquished enemy displayed as the spoils of battle before the entire universe. To the casual observer the cross appears to be only an instrument of death, the symbol of Christ’s defeat; Paul represents it as Christ’s chariot of victory (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, v. 11, p. 202).
What is the picture then? Just this—Paul says the false teachers in Colossae are trying to persuade the Christians to be taken captive by those whom Christ has shown have been defeated.
Friends, what is ahead for the church in North Toronto? I believe the temptation will continue to grow stronger for us to consider offering something more than just Jesus. To be attractive in our world, we must offer a spiritual smorgasbord. You may think I’m exaggerating. In June, the Claremont School of Theology, which has ties to the United Methodist Church, announced that it will begin to offer training for Muslim and Jewish clergy this fall and hopes eventually to offer programmes for Buddhists and Hindus also. Here’s the problem with that. Whether or not we like the language, Paul says there is a battle going on for the spiritual well-being of us and the people of this community. To offer more than Jesus means we offer less than what God is ready and willing to give. To offer Jesus alone is to offer God’s victory, and to take up the cause of telling our world this victory can also belong to them.
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