Out From the Shadows

Exodus 5:1-2, 4-9

Colossians 2:13-23

Most of us have had to unlearn something.  If you move to a new job in a different organization, they will likely have different processes.  You were used to doing things one way.  But they need you to go about it in a way they’ve developed.  So you have to unlearn what you’ve learned so you can operate in a new context.

For one of my courses during seminary, we had to write papers in which we argued for a position and dealt with objections.  The goal was to imagine the three best and strongest objections to your own position.  To deal with them fairly, but to argue why you hold to your position nonetheless.  It was an exercise in generosity towards your conversation partners.  You learned to assume the best about those with whom you disagree.  I hadn’t yet learned to argue in that nuanced and sympathetic way.  I had learned to characterize differing positions as unthoughtful and obviously wrong.  So I had to unlearn that way of writing.

 

Many of us have learned that going to church goes hand in glove with participation in the wider culture.  Hand in glove with the wider economy and with the political structures we inhabit.  But paying attention to the shape of the good news suggests that it’s not quite that easy.  There are some things to unlearn.

In order to listen in on the good news in the letter to the Colossians, it will help to take a step back.  If you take a wide-angled view of the stories of Scripture, you see that one constant question involves how to live together as God’s people in the midst of larger forces.

The Exodus story has God using Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt.  The Egyptian empire was an economic powerhouse, but it relied on violently enforced slavery to keep the economic engines running. 

Then before long, Israel wanted to be like the other nations with kings of its own.  And even Israel began to act like a cruel empire.  And God’s judgment fell on them when they were taken into exile.

During the years of exile, Israel became a people exploited by the powerful empire of Babylon.  And then God delivered them again.

And when Jesus arrives, he arrives during a period when Israel was under the captivity of the brutal and violent Roman Empire.  And Jesus carries with him the stories of Israel struggling to be faithful in the grip of large, sprawling, military-sponsored economies: Egypt, Babylon, and now Rome.

Like all the empires before, and all the empires since, Rome proudly marketed itself as the official provider of peace, security, and wealth.  Throughout the vast territories Rome had conquered, the image of the Emperor was everywhere.  You saw the image of the Emperor in the market square, in the theater, the gymnasium, in the temples, and on the coins which bore his likeness.  His image was painted on the walls of homes, on utensils, on jewelry, on signet rings, and on clay lamps.

The story reinforced by all these images of Caesar was that Caesar was savior and lord of the people, the hero and deliverer, the forgiver of sins, the agent of peace and prosperity wrought by his military conquests, and the image of God.

The passage we read last week – the Christ hymn of Chapter 1 – was a treasonous and dangerous way of talking about the risen Christ.  The hymn confesses that the Son “is the image of the invisible God” – not the Roman Emperor.  The hymn names Jesus Christ as Savior and forgiver of sins – not Caesar.  The people that God is forming cannot be identified with a powerful military and economy.  Rather the followers of Jesus are God’s people, Jesus is the “firstborn” of all creation and “firstborn” from the dead.  And finally true peace is not the violently secured peace of the Roman Empire.  It is the peace accomplished by God’s merciful willingness to endure the violence of Rome.  God made peace through the blood of Jesus, “shed on the cross” (vs. 20).

So the question woven through all of Israel’s history, and through the whole Bible, is still the question woven through this letter.  How can we live together as God’s people in the midst of larger forces around us?  How can our lives shine with a light that’s different from the light of powerful politics, powerful militaries, and powerful economies?  Are we just puppets?  Or do we have our own way of dancing?

You see, if Christian faith teaches you anything, it teaches you to be wary of empires.  It teaches you to be suspicious of the claims of the dominant ruling class to provide peace and prosperity.  And that means that Colossians, along with the rest of the Bible, calls us to be critical of the larger forces around us.  We live in the world’s most powerful economy, supported by the world’s largest military.  And we are the world’s only true superpower.  Yes, the world is global now.  But that system – global capitalism – is our export.  And no one benefits from that system like we Americans do.

One of the reasons God freely endures the shameful and humiliating version of death favored by the Roman Empire was to help us see powerful empires for what they are.  All empires – Egypt, Israel under the Kings, Babylon, Rome, and now the United States – all empires are violent regimes bent on sustaining themselves no matter the costs or consequences.  They foster cruelty, injustice, and inequality.  They provide a system of peace that’s wonderful for a few but a hell on earth for others.

My point isn’t that we should trade in democratic capitalism for something else.  I suppose it distributes goods better than many other systems.  My point is simply that it suffers from the problems of injustice and violence that characterizes all powerful, life-shaping empires.  And it’s not the sort of things that deserves our primary loyalty or our basic trust.

Our reading today explores the meaning of Jesus’ cross this way (v. 15): on the cross, God “disarmed the powers and authorities, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”.  The image here is, ironically, that of a successful military campaign, with the conquering army leading a procession of the defeated enemies.  Now how did Jesus’ death “disarm” the powers?  How did it shame them and defeat them?  Only if you see that Jesus’ death by Roman crucifixion once and for all shows up Rome as an empire of violence and injustice.  On the cross, God breaks the spell and the myth that our lives are secured and blessed by the powerful militaries and economies of the world.

And here’s the good news.  God has freed us to live together in new ways.  No longer are we to live by greed, competition, violence, and a lust for first place.  We are free to practice kindness, fairness, justice, and generosity.  We are free to form a community where there are no distinctions between slave and free, male and female, this or that.  Everyone matters.  There are no worthless slaves among Jesus’ people.  Everyone has dignity as God’s beloved children.

And we find our energy in life from the confession that the risen Christ is the reality of our lives together.  He is more real than the stock market.  He’s more real than any political system or political party.  The satisfaction and joy he brings is more real than the pleasure we receive from buying and having.  He is God’s fullness.  And our everything.

But it’s hard to live in this light.  And we often find ourselves playing in the shadows instead.

When we were dead in our sins, God made us alive with Christ.  God forgives our sins and removes any charge of condemnation against us  (vs. 13-14).   If we simply mirror in our own lives the violence, jealousy, fear, and lust for power that drives the global economy, we would continue to harm ourselves and others.  But in Christ God has freed us from that.  We’re no longer slaves to the dominant empire.  We’re not lackeys in the global economy.  We’re imaginative, creative, and critical followers of Jesus Christ.

Our reading this week is really a warning that even followers of Jesus are tempted to walk in the shadows rather than the light.

In the shadows, people only play at the religious life.  They have all sorts of appearances and trappings of religion.  But it’s all surface.  Christ hasn’t penetrated down into the depths.  And so there is manufactured a powerful and manipulative set of expectations and rules.  These were at work in Colossae and they’re at work here in our congregation and in our community.

Shadow religion is obsessed with rules (v. 16)  It’s a superficial and small substitute for the path of freedom offered to us by Jesus Christ.  There are symbolic codes, cues that everyone is expected to conform to.  There is an over-simplification of life.  Focusing on superficial rules is an attempt to erase the mystery and complexity of life with God.  What is an exciting, open-ended journey with others into growing love for God and others becomes something much smaller: a life of obeying rules and observing lifeless rituals.  In this sense, church-belonging and church-going can be a dangerous enterprise, especially when a veneer of religiosity can function to distract us from the call to live together as God’s people freed from all powers by the cross of Jesus Christ.

Shadow religion is disconnected from Christ’s fullness (v. 18-19).  The Colossians trusted the risen Christ, but only as one power among others, only as one angel among others.  They hedged their bets by continuing to rely on a variety of other loyalties.  But by doing this they became vulnerable to a life lived appeasing the various powers that rule popular imagination.  If you never unhook your life and loyalties from the various and competing powers and values that offer to shape our lives, you never really live into the freedom available to us in Christ.

Shadow religion is unfree (vs. 20-23).  The letter quotes one of their familiar sayings, “Do not handle!  Do not taste!  Do not touch!”  These are warnings about the dangers of your body, the dangers of food and sex.  What’s being held out is a life of bodily discipline.  You should punish your body and deprive it of its desires in order to gain access to God.   The thinking goes like this: Christ may have helped me, but there’s lots more I need to do to be acceptable and to belong.  In this posture, our lives and hearts remain tethered to the guilt and manipulation of our old loyalties.

Today we’re reminded that the joy and delight of the good news is also a task and a struggle.  We have been rescued from danger and from our past lives so that we can contribute to a new kind of community.  God’s promise to us is not something small and private, as if our own individual happiness were what matters most.  No, God invites us to adoption into a new family gathered around the risen Christ.  And God offers us a path to the deepest kind of peace and joy.  But it only comes to those whose loyalties are to Jesus Christ, and not to the larger forces of empire and economy. 

There is pain and confusion in separating ourselves from the powerful myths that shape our lives.  It’s hard to unlearn what we’ve learned.  After all, we too benefit in all kinds of ways from living in a powerful empire.  But the life made possible for us when our loyalties are to Jesus Christ is a far better life.  This freedom and this joy are God’s gift to us.  Cherish it and enjoy it – even if that makes you a little less useful to powerful empires.  Amen.