Colossians 1:15-20
15Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to Godself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Colossians
This is the second of four weeks that the second reading comes from the epistle to the Colossian church. Last week's blog gives some background on the church at Colossae and the letter to the Colossians.
Probably written by a ministry companion, friend, student, or younger brother (my favorite speculation) of Paul/Saul of Tarsus about three decades after Jesus' death and resurrection, in Colossians we find theology (the word about the divine), Christology (words about the Christ), and cosmology (words about the scope and reach of all creation) that anticipates the worldview of John's gospel close to a half century later. In the seven epistles he definitely wrote, the apostle Paul is about outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth; the cosmic Christ of Colossians moves beyond planet earth into immeasurable time and space.
Authority Sovereignty Rule
God gifted Israel with the Ten Words – decalogue – or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant after their rescue from imperial Egyptian slavery, before their crossed the river into the land God promised Abraham. The commandments are life-giving words that help us remain free as we honor our neighbors (whose neighbor we become) amidst temptations to idolatry and frivolity.
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth." Deuteronomy 5:6-8
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Exodus 20:2-4
Reformer John Calvin insisted human brains are idol factories.
Sedition – Resistance
Last week I recommended Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat. I got a "like new" copy on eBay for $6.56 that included shipping, but then the price escalated to $127 (yes, $127.00). It looks as if I wasn't the only one who noticed the commentaries on Working Preacher and on Center for Excellence in Preaching that referenced it and as a result, many many knew they had to own the book.
Over the past couple months in the January 6th Congressional Hearings, "sedition" and "seditious" have emerged as buzzwords. Sedition is speech or activity that subverts and intends to overthrow the authority and presence of established government.
For the past couple years I've been fairly active on twitter; among politically blue tweeps, resist, resistance, and resister are trending hashtags.
Resistance means acting directly against as well as doing nothing (passivity) to stop agents of death and violence. Some of those actors are governments like those of the Russian Federation, North Korea, and Hungary; purveyors of death include transnational corporations that exploit workers and disproportionately reward top level executives. Treating employees as subhuman in order to price output competitively low, leads to transporting what they produce ("products") to destinations where consumers live, which leads to excessive use of finite natural resources, environmental degradation, etc. Those are starkly obvious ones. You probably can name dozens more.
gods God Images
Imperial Rome and its colonies were full of coins stamped with the emperor's image. The Roman Caesar supposedly was the son of a god, bestowing on him a slice of divinity. Formal church history well may (it does) locate the confession of Jesus as fully human and fully divine in the Definition of Chalcedon from the ecumenical council that convened in the year 451, but this pastoral letter to Colossae declares Jesus divine four centuries earlier. A couple thousand years ago it was commonplace that you'd be talking or walking with a person who was half human and half divine. In Jesus Christ we meet a Savior who is fully human and fully divine.
Today's reading that describes Jesus as God's authoritative presence and the actual ikon / icon / image of the invisible God is so relevant to our contemporary political and economic concerns! How do you picture something that's invisible, that can't be seen? Do you remember Genesis 1:27 tells us God created humanity (us!) in the divine image—imago Dei? Over the centuries, theologians and philosophers have had diverse ideas about what aspects of humanity are divine.
Early Christians perceived – "saw, viewed" – Jesus as fully imprinted with God. In terms of the first century's (and this twenty-first's) status quo, these words from Colossians are seditious and subversive! They proclaim the person, power, and rule of Jesus Christ in terms that only are supposed to belong to the emperor. If Jesus is supreme, then caesar isn't.
If – because! – Jesus rules the cosmos and us as individuals, then Samsung, BP, and Shell don't. If Jesus is our ultimate authority, then the Russian Federation and the United States government aren't. Because Jesus is Lord, national flags and corporate logos aren't our central symbols. The cross of Calvary is.
I had a lot more notes I wanted to develop, but even using less than half the lectionary reading I'm out of space and out of time. I'll try to include my ideas over the next two Sundays.
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