Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
On the cover of your bulletin is a piece of art known as a word cloud. This particular one is called a Wordle. To make one, you put together a piece of text, this is Colossians 3:1-11, paste it into the Wordle generator, make a couple of style choices, and “Bingo!” your Wordle is created.
To create the design, Wordle takes out words like conjunctions, prepositions, and articles. If it didn’t, words like “and,” “but,” “about,” “a,” and “the” would dominate the piece. Then it takes the words used most often, makes them larger, and moves them toward the center of the design. In its way, Wordle shows us the most used, most important words in a piece of text. In Colossians 3:1-11 that would be God, Christ, Earthly, Things, and Life. “Honorable Mention” goes to Self, Also, and Now for their importance, but let’s look at these.
Paul wrote this letter to the church at Colossae. He wrote from his prison cell having never been there. This congregation was a church plant by a man named Epraphas who had filled Paul in on their plight. Modern church leaders think they have it tough, Paul was in jail and local pastors were seeking his advice. In this part of the letter, Paul was giving instruction and encouragement.
He reminded them that they have been risen with Christ! Since they have risen with the Lord they should set their minds, hearts, and hands to the things of the Lord. They should “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” not on earthly things.
Oh, and what a list of earthly things we have. He tells the Colossians to do away with whatever belongs to their earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. Now here’s something tricky where the original languages come in handy. When this was read in worship today, Marie read “greed, which is idolatry.” Because of how English arranges itself, it sounds like greed is the only item on the list which is idolatry. When we take a closer look at the Greek, the word “idolatry” actually describes the phrase “whatever has to do with your earthly nature.” So greed isn’t the only thing on the list of “earthly things” which is idolatry, they are all idolatry. None worse than any of the others.
From here, people tend to ask a lot of questions, technical questions, about what exactly idolatry is. Here’s the easiest answer, anything that anyone puts between themselves and the Lord is an idol. Worshiping that earthly thing is idolatry. I mentioned the Rev. Bill Clarke to you a couple of weeks ago, the Pastor from First Presbyterian Church in Lamar, Colorado. He considered professional football an idol because of the way it is worshiped. Stay with me here…
Being raised in the Central Time Zone, and a fan of a Central Time Zone team, games begin at 12:00 Noon. I could easily go to church, pick up some Pizza-Pizza, and get home before the end of the first quarter. First Presbyterian Lamar started worship at 10:30 but because Colorado is in the Mountain Time Zone, the early game begins at 11:00 am. Folks who went to church and had lunch with the family might make the fourth quarter.
This was the 1990’s, John Elway’s first Super Bowl victory run, and people stayed home from church to watch the games. People who had tickets to Mile High Stadium in Denver were minor celebrities next Sunday, especially if it was a good game. People would take AMTRAK from Lamar to Kansas City to wear orange in the sea of red. To Bill, the NFL was idol, it came between the congregation and worship, between the people and the Lord.
Idolatry, it’s not just the Baal’s anymore.
Paul not only wants us to do away with our earthly nature, the things that rest in our minds and in our hearts, Paul wants us to change our behavior. Since we are raised with Christ, new creations in God, setting our minds above earthly things; Paul now expects us to change our lives!
Paul wants the Colossians to be rid of ill will from your lips. Once again, the English would have think it was only filthy language that Paul wants rid from our lips, but no, it’s the entire laundry list. I suspect this was literal in the day, but now must be dealt with on social media. Paul not only wants that language from our lips, but from our fingertips, which calls for the need to be rid of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from Facebook and Twitter too.
So, in God, in Christ, our old selves are gone. Everything we were before is now gone. So what are we? Well, we aren’t Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. Thank you, Paul, The Artist formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, you have told us what we aren’t but not what we are.
In God and in Christ, we aren’t who we used to be, separated by our faith like Jews and gentiles. In God and in Christ, we aren’t who we used to be separated by the scars put on bodies by our faith like circumcision. In God and in Christ we aren’t barbarian or Scythian. Now that one escapes us because we don’t know their history, but the Scythians were a tribe of, for want of a better word, Black Sea pirates, worse than barbarians. Then whether we are slaves or free.
We look a little deeper into what Paul said here. First he said that the Colossians were no longer worse than barbarians and people worse than barbarians. He also said that they weren’t slaves. These people lived on the Black Sea, modern day Turkey. Many of these people were Roman citizens, most were free locals. I imagine they looked at this letter and asked “Paul, buddy, you’re the one in jail, we were never slaves?” Paul says they were raised, so we had to be raised from something? What they were slaves to was, wait for it, the people they were in the beginning of this reading. They were slaves to everything they put before God. They were also slaves to rage, anger, malice and slander.
For any Colossian who wanted to believe the misguided assumption Paul wasn’t talking to them, they must not have paid attention to the preceding sentence, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
These are people Paul never met, but he knew them. He spoke with them just like they were friends because they were. They were friends in Christ. He spoke to them like he knew them because in a way he did, they were all washed in the same baptism as the children of Christ.
I’ve often talked about our Lord’s vocal inflection. In the “Parable of the Rich Fool” as the NIV calls it, I imagine Jesus looking at this man and mourning “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” This is the way Jacob Marley cautions Ebenezer Scrooge, with pity that is filled with love.
We read this and we don’t see him as such a fool. This man is the essence of the Protestant work ethic. He’s a hard worker, not a freeloader. He’s not sitting around, he’s about to begin an expansion project and God calls him a fool? Yes, he is a fool.
In this parable there is no mention of family or heir or even a friend. God’s question about who will get what he has prepared isn’t mocking. It’s a real question. Who will get his goods? Recently the rock star Prince died without a will or family. Who will receive his wealth? Half of it will go to the lawyers who act as the points on the swords of the people battling over his wealth. As for this rich fool, who, indeed who, will receive what he leaves? Who will receive what he leaves? Ashes to ashes. Rust to rust.
The reason this man, steeped in hard work and careful planning, successful by every measure the world uses, the reason he’s a fool is that he’s alone. He’s a fool because he is surrounded by all of his wealth, and he’s all alone. In a world where he is judged a success he’s about to die alone, judged by his God who sadly declares him a fool. Say this for the Colossians, whatever they had, they had each other.
Life isn’t about tools and schools and programs and projects. It’s about living together. It’s about caring for one another. It’s about fellowship. It’s about community. It’s about coming together. It’s about living with, in, and by the words and life of Christ as our one best example. It’s about seeing what’s important, God, Christ, and Life; Life in God and in Christ. It’s about who we bring along for the ride. It’s about sharing all these things. All of that, all of that is worship. It’s not about our stuff.
So here’s our Wordle. God, Christ, Earthly Things, Life. Important either for what they should mean or important for what they shouldn’t. Jesus isn’t telling us not to work hard, he is telling us to balance our time and other scarce resources between God, family, and work. As for wealth, I like what John Wesley says, “make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” Work hard, be fruitful, be prudent, and be generous. I like that. And always put relationships before wealth. Wealth fades, but love endures. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment