July 24, 2016
/Pentecost Proper - 12
Colossians 2:6-19
THE REV. CARISSA BALDWIN-MCGINNIS
Deep.
Deep in the center.
Deep in the center of the universe.
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth.
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth. The Truth is sometimes silent.
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth. The Truth is sometimes silent, and the Truth is in you.
Frederick Buechner wrote, “…you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. You are a world.” He was writing about those of us who preach and those of us who listen to preaching. We bring the whole world of our being to the speaking and to the listening. To find sacred truth, he teaches, the preacher must preach out of their totality, and the hearer must listen from the depths of their full life and spirit.
Studying the letter to Colossians is one occasion in which deep, soulful listening across the chasm of time and space is required, because in it is depicted the mystery the meaning of Christ in one of the most powerful ways of all Biblical offering.
In this letter we hear told of the total collision between a justice moment with the Jesus moment, out of which is born the theological concepts of cosmic justice and also a cosmic Christ. Today we hear about a Christ whom we receive and in whom we can root and build up our lives. We hear about a Christ in whom we can come to fullness. And we hear of a God “who is the head over every ruler and authority.”
This is not a Christ outside the world but in the world. This is a Christ who is said to have been transformed into everything we despise about ourselves and others. This is the Christform that supplanted the body, Jesus, somehow taking the form of all that we consider disgusting and then being nailed to the cross. The God of Colossians displaces Jesus from the cross and replaces with human wretchedness in a way that conjures up the flood story of Moses and the arc. The letter to the Colossians upholds that in nailing our trespasses to the cross, somehow God has defeated corruption at a cosmic level and for all time.
What does it mean to come here and be together against the backdrop of that kind of cosmic power and truth? What does it mean to read the Bible, or to be the preacher, or to sit in the pews and for a few minutes be the listener? Buechner would say that this is the act of letting our life experiences intermingle in overt and also completely hidden ways. We come to church both guarded and entirely vulnerable. We control what we share, but we bring all of who we are. It is not possible to leave part of oneself at home. We gather together in human form, messy, political, and yet in the theology of Colossians, completely well.
Deitrich Bonhoefferwrote that “In the presenceof a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.” These are the words of a man whose faith and world lens were very ‘Colossian.’ For him, the justice moment and the Jesus moment were one.
It is out of this cosmic collision, according to the letter, that we can grow a growth that is from God. It is out of this cosmic Christ that we can be reconciled to ourselves, meaning we can remove even the divisions we drive into our own psyche, heart or mind. We hate our bodies. We are ashamed of our children. We commit adultery. We commit murder. In the face of the cosmic Christ, even these sorts of divisions, offenses and traumas are inconsequentially superficial.
A wise and proven church leader said to me this week, “Evangelism is simple. It is God present.” The God from today’s reading is the God of mercy and forgiveness, a God said to have disarmed corrupt rulers and authorities in a way that has implication for all time.
Deep at the center of history was a moment of judgment that should have suspended injustice for all time. It cannot be catalogued with power enough to do it service. It might only be conveyed in poetry or more certainly depicted by silence. As Fredrich Buechner said, “Truth itself cannot finally be understood but only experienced.” And we experience it in community, in solitude and in public life.
Beuchner also asked rhetorically: “What is truth?” and he responded to his own question, “ Life is truth, the life of the world, your own life, and the life inside the world you are.”
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth. The Truth is sometimes silent, and the Truth is in you.
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth. And the Truth is sometimes silent.
Deep in the center of the Universe is the Truth.
Deep in the center of the universe.
Deep in the center.
Deep.