The Present and Cosmic Christ

Colossians 1:15-29

I’m going to start with a bit of a confession:

I tend to avoid the letters when it comes to preaching. In many ways, it seems like there is enough in the Gospels to consider for a lifetime and the Hebrew texts have fascinating characters and Paul… well there are some issues there. But I have chosen to challenge myself this summer, to look at passages I might normally respectfully pass by.

So here we are, in a letter to the church in Colossians.

To the faithful saints at First Congregational in Elkhorn, I bring you greetings from the saints in Milwaukee. Grace and peace, hope and courage to you, from the God who came near us, and lived with us, and the God who created and holds the universe together.

First Congregational UCC, Elkhorn, WI

And we need God to be both, and more, because sometimes we need the God who is ever-present and small enough to be with us, and sometimes we need the Great God who sets all things in motion.

Because sometimes it’s hard to have hope and courage.

Paul knew that sometimes it was difficult for the church to have hope and courage. He knew that they were and they would struggle. Colossae was an ancient city in what is now modern Turkey. On the edge of the mountains, the ⅔ mark between Istanbul and the Mediterranean Sea. It was wrapped up on the Roman Empire and things of the empire. Paul wrote to Philemon, the owner of the slave Onesimus, among other things, Paul wrote that he hoped he would make it Colossae soon to see them in person. Colossae had a growing church, and lived fully embedded in the Roman empire. The shadow that touched all their lives and all they did, was Rome and Caesar.

It’s possible to see everything you might need to know about life in the Roman shadow right here in the Christ hymn to the letter in Colossians.

It is thought that the verses 9-18 are an early hymn of the church that had been sung or spoken before the letter writer wrote it down. It calls back to Jewish literature of creation, of Wisdom, of thrones and power.

Let’s hear again the Christ Hymn:

Christ is the image of the unseen God and the firstborn of all creation, for in Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and invisible, Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers— all things were created through Christ and for Christ. Before anything was created, Christ existed, and all things hold together in Christ.The church is the body; Christ is its head. Christ is the Beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and so Christ is first in every way. God wanted all perfection to be found in Christ, and all things to be reconciled to God through Christ— everything in heaven and everything on earth—when Christ made peace by dying on the cross. (The Message)

This is what we call a High Christology, an understanding of Jesus that is more focused on the Cosmic Christ than on the life of Jesus.

One is not better than the other. But over the years, I have focused more on the living of Jesus and less on the Cosmic Christ. I am 100% behind telling people to sell all they have and give to the poor, but Jesus holding the universe together? Now that’s intimidating and not always feel practical.

But here’s one of the things about Paul: he was practical. When read in the light or the shadow of Rome, this beautiful high Christology, of Jesus at creation, adds another meaning to it.

What if used in this context, it was opposed to Rome? Offering hope in a time of occupation?

Jesus is the image of the invisible God, when we see Jesus, we know what God is like, at least a little bit. Caesar’s image was everywhere, on coins, writings, statutes. It was part of how Caesar made himself important, known, remembered, feared.

Christ is the image of the invisible God, is subtler.

While Caesar imperial mythology states that the Caesar is nothing less than the “son of god” because of the lineage and legacy, Christ is the firstborn of all of creation.

Rome was a world built on power, The emperor’s dominance and throne was built into the way the world as Paul and the Colossians understood it. It was the air that they breathed, he owned or controlled all things, usually at the end of a sword.

The letter writer tells us that in Christ all things came into being, all powers are subject to Christ, that Jesus, firstborn of Creation, First of resurrection will always be first.

Do you see how this becomes more than a hymn about high theology, about the Divine Cosmic Christ which is true about Christ, but not the whole truth?

And there’s more…

Caesar ruled the known world, as far as his armies could take him. He controlled the masses by controlling their movements, their religious practices, he feared the usurper so much so that they killed family members, military leaders, citizens, and occupants alike. He lined the highways with scenes of public executions. Crosses and bodies would stay up, to remind the people who might have considered changing the air they were breathing, that there was no changing Rome. That power was found in Rome

And here our song reminds us that Christ is before all things, in all things, and holds the universe together and does so with love, does so with healing and compassion. And when the powerful tried to stop the Jesus and the movement he started with violence and fear and hatred, Jesus did not lose, he did not give in, he did not play their game.

Christ of Maryknoll, Fr Robert Lentz, OFM

He took their symbol of destruction and made it a symbol of new life, of hope and peace and love. What they used to try and destroy, Christ used to unite. When the powers and the powerful encountered the Cosmic Christ in the person of Jesus who showed them that He, not them, hold the universe. They saw him as a usurper to the powers turns out, they were the usurpers to the God of the universe.

Here is one of my thoughts about scripture: Each portion was writing at a particular time, in a particular place, for a particular people. People of Israel living in diaspora of Babylon in 700’s BC, Jewish followers of Jesus as first-century becomes the second in Jerusalem, New followers of the way in Colossae some 30 to 60 years after Jesus.

What I also believe about Scripture is that it talks about what it means to be human and how we interact with each other, and the divine.

So sometimes, what spoke to those millennia ago, also speaks truth today.

We don’t use languages of thrones, dominions, or powers. But we do know power and the powerful.Our thrones might be senators, judges, maybe even presidents. It seems like we might know something about powerful people who build the world around them in their image, making their image and name prolific. Who think that they control everything, ruling with fear, and really, every generation or so we have a new set of symbol of oppression and fear and terror: crosses, lynching trees, immigration lock up--packed so full there’s no room to sleep.

Look, we know about fear. We know about fear being used as a tactic of control. We know, and have seen for generations, when the powerful have kept others as other. Whether it’s our ancient stories that speak of the evil Babylonians or Hittites or we remember what brought about the evils of World War 2 and how our nation responded.

It’s how even northern cities like Milwaukee participated in redlining and districting; fought to keep schools segregated.

The way we have treated every immigrant community that has come into the US since the Puritans landed, not to mention when the new empire met the native people of the United States.

There is much to recognize in the past, there is much to recognize that still exists in the world around us. Sometimes it is still the air that we breathe, so much so that sometimes we miss it.

I am an avid podcast listener. Most the time, I subscribe to more than I can actually listen to in any reasonable week. But there are those where folks to tell their stories of faith crises or destruction. Many are stories of people who looked at the faith they were given and that it didn’t match the world they were experiencing in the world around them. Maybe too aligned with the systems or the powers, unable to see the text as living, awaiting new discoveries.

I find these stories both fascinating, relate-able, frustrating, sad. it seems like some have let empire define their faith and define the world around them.

There have been times I have felt overwhelmed, I have struggled to make sense of a faith that many others see as hateful, judgmental, abusive, hypocritical.

Paul reminds us this is not who Christ is, this is not how Christ engages empire.

I know, It is easy to be overcome. It is easy to see that there might not be room for hope, that the powers are too great, that the shadow looms too large, that whatever our empire is today is going to own the earth.

Paul reminds us, it’s not true. This is the faith that Paul tells us about, this is the faith that is in the Christ Hymn: The is seditious faith that Jesus is Lord, no Caesar; a Holistic Faith that is redemption is a wide as all of creation. These reminders, these faiths, this trust that we put in the Living Christ and we are made mature in our faith, we are presented mature in our faith. We are given a faith that is capable for the long haul that even in the midst of darkness, even in the midst of empire, even in the midst of fear. Our mature faith is what helps us get up every morning, keeps us moving when we want to stop, even in the face of empire we might have hope, courage for all that is to come.

Here is the last difficult thing about the Epistles I’m going to mention today: While none of the Bible was ever intended to be an individual piece of literature, the letters, in particular, were written to a community, to a church. I don’t know about you, but I like the stories where I can find myself in one of the individuals or, if they are doing something wrong, find someone else in the text.

The letters aren’t like that. These are explicitly corporate writings, collective encouragement or correction.

So church, beloved community, Saints of First Congregational, Elkhorn:

It has been a week.

The kind of week I’d be grateful I don’t pay for cable because I would sit and watch all the news shows, even thought I fill my ears with podcasts on politics. And you, and me, and the person sitting next to you probably don’t have the same opinion on the world. But no matter where you stand on issues we are not empire people.

We are kin-dom people.

Called siblings and companions of the one loves all that is created, who knits all things together, and holds all that is created together.

Sometimes we need the God who knows the hairs on our head and holds us in our sorrows and sometimes, we need the god who reminds us that the way things are not how they are intended to be and not how they will always be.

So saints, have courage. Have hope in the shadow. Proclaim she seditious faith that Jesus is Lord, no Caesar nor the Empire, no government nor leader.

A Holistic Faith that is redemption is a wide as all of creation

Love all that is created.

May the faith that has been begun in you, grow to keep you.

Even in the struggles, in the in the darkness

Even in the shadow of the empire, know that it is not the only truth.

May the God who holds the universe together strengthen you for the long haul.