Colossians 3:1-11
Proper 13 (18) - Year A
For those who don’t live in an either/or world, there is no putting to death those parts of us we would disown if we could. We can hedge them round, but those boundaries need to be constantly attended.
It is tricky enough to attend to what we want to do without adding in control issues about what we do not want to do. Here we have the first two of the United Methodist General Rules: Do No Harm; Do Good. What is presumed is some Engagement with G*D.
Escaping some forecast wrath to come used to be a big motivation. This fits well with the lower part of the spiral development model. It is not fitting so well with the Yellow and Turquoise stages.
Imagine for a bit what might be an organizing question for the present day. If not escape, what?
Would enhancing gratitude be an attractor? This, as differentiated from repression of self? If not something in this arena, what then.
I’d like to establish a contest to come up with a significant organizing questions for 2013 and 2014. I don’t have a prize in mind, but this is really one of those contests where the satisfaction is in the participation, not the result. Do send those cards and letters in.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/08/colossians-31-11.html
If you have come to seek, with Jesus, a Presence/Freedom of G*D, then seek. There will be choices to be made about what to attend to during this Neverending Story. Our choice might be attracted by a pull to such a Presence or it might be driven by a fear of wrath to come.
Whichever way you come to the Story, there is a need to jettison such unhelpful pausing points as anger, malice, slander, and abusive language.
These behaviors further separate what is intended to be moving in similar directions. These behaviors keep our desired renewal at bay, so we continue to divvy up our past as though it were fatalistically tied to our future. In so doing "Greek" and "Jew" are eternally divided from one another. "Barbarian", "Scythian", "Slave", and "Free" continue to circle one another with great wariness, each looking to their own advantage.
- - -
idolatry is greedy
delving into every possible source
of satisfaction
never finding enough
a good gift of sexuality
is devoured until only
fornication is left
to sell cars
an ideal of purity
is thoroughly doused in
unrelenting cynicism
until it forgets itself
enthusiasm for a joy of life
becomes so bored
passion flares
accepting only one side
so gifts ideals enthusiasms
wear down in the face of bottom lines
including the bottom line of death
leaving only greedy idols
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
Oops! Too many things on the desk. I was still looking at the Philippians passage from Palm Sunday rather than the Colossians reading for Easter.
Perhaps we could appeal to there no longer being a distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised, slave and free, Palm Sunday and Easter. No, distinctions are still important, even if not important enough to kill over.
Given the Holy Week process how do we get rid of such things as anger, wrath, malice, etc.? Crucify them, crucify them! is certainly one approach.
Another way is too look at the new way of living without them, just focus on the new life after they are gone.
This is one of the places Christianity falls down – too much duality, polarity. It's either preemptive crucifixion or resurrection accomplished. It would be interesting to read this in light of Holy Saturday where Jesus is creedally sent to the dead that they might also be raised from the dead.
How, really, do we shift from bad habits of exclusivity that may have been initially helpful to short-term survival, but no longer are, to a habit of inclusiveness that can respond beyond immediate survival? This journey is what all self-help resources are about, but miss. This passage points to the issue, but doesn't help us resolve it any more than simply going back to Galilee does.
Better identification of helpful steps would be of greater use than waiting for revelation or trying to jump to a result without walking a way to it. Easter may demonstrate how difficult it is for us and our forced hope for a resurrectional deus ex machina.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
To change the direction of our attention from spacial to chronal(?) we might talk less about "above" and more about "ahead". This gets us out of static understanding of a static, sitting Jesus and moves us toward a dynamic, walking-with-us-toward-revelation Jesus.
This has the added advantage of moving us away from fear as our motivator (wrongness/idolatry, wrath/disobedient).
In moving ahead we find renewal that changes relationships to bring us together as all and in all. To stay with the "above language has us leaping up to pick answers, propositions and creeds from the sky as though they were final answers and we were millionaires set apart.
Set your life on that which is ahead, for you have been renewed and you, like Christ, reveal G*D.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html
How do we tell that renewal is taking place? A key element is that of how differences are dealt with.
Renewal affirms different gifts.
Renewal promotes different visions.
Renewal knows hope and help are on the way.
Renewal builds up using the right gift for the right time.
Renewal weds polarities to paradox.
Renewal anticipates healing.
Renewal values uniqueness.
Renewal leads to more renewal.
What is it that gets in the way of renewal? Use of another. Choosing less that the best. Rabid intensity. Shortcuts. Entitlement.
These show up in less extreme ways through self-serving anger, revenge, haste, lies and non-specific language.
So what is a child of GOD to do? If it is not obvious, we are still in a foreign land slopping pigs.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html
If we were to intersect this passage by Paul with the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus we would get a different feel for the import of this passage.
The first part tends to set us in the direction of splitting body from spirit and claiming spirit takes priority. All this talk about above, not on earth, hidden, and glory tend to separate us from ourselves and to try to get us to do the behavioral injunctions in the last part of the passage at a surface or temporary level (just until some revelation of Jesus - second coming in some perspectives).
If we were to bring the Sermon on the Mount to bear on the first part - so we are setting our minds on such earthly issues as poverty (whether communal or spiritual), mourning, peace-making, being persecuted for doing good - when we get to the no lying part (no anger, wrath, malice, slander, abuse) we would know that there is a depth of integrity that we need to attend to that will take all we have to give and then some. These are issues that are not going to go away soon - they are intimately tied up with who we are becoming right here in Paradise and not just practicing for some future Glory.
The Message comes closer here as we try to reveal Christ present, not wait for Christ to come. We are called to become better, not out of fear of G*D's anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abuse, but because it is where our blessing, happiness, journey is going.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/colossians-31-11.html