Showing posts with label Colossians 1:1-14. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colossians 1:1-14. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Sunday, July 10, 2016
What the World Needs Now: Christ!
Colossians 1:1-14
A woman with whom I was once briefly acquainted told me that she worshiped at her church every Sunday. She loved what she called “the inspiring sermons” given by her pastor each week and, though she never got involved with the church, thought that the people there were friendly enough. “I’m a Christian,” she told me.
But one of the first things she ever asked me was when my birthday was and when I told her she said, “Oh. So, you’re a Scorpio. Interesting.” I didn’t know the woman very well, so I didn’t pursue the subject. But what I found interesting--horrifying, really--is how she could consider herself a Christian and, at the same time, put any stock in astrology.
I was certain that her mixing of belief systems was what lay behind what, over time I could see, was her vapid, meaningless Christian faith.
We live in an age in many people, like that woman, strive to mix belief systems so that they can have the version of God they want to have. Or, the version of religion that leaves them with no God.
This phenomenon is nothing new. It’s what scholars call syncretism. It all seems so open-minded, doesn’t it, taking one from column A, one from column B, add a dash of this and that?
The problem for Christians, of course, is that the One we confess as God in the flesh, Jesus, has insisted that He is the only way to life or truth or God. Jesus even insists that it’s only through Him that we have the power to live lives of love and purpose.
The issues raised by that woman are precisely the issues engaged in the short New Testament letter, Colossians, that we’re going to be considering today and over the next three weeks.
Colossae was a town in Asia Minor, roughly today’s Turkey, located about 100 miles southeast of the more well-known Ephesus. Unlike the Galatian Christians, who thought that they needed to add adherence to Old Testament law to their faith in Christ, and to whom the apostle Paul wrote maybe twenty years before he wrote this letter, the Colossians Christians, were mixers and matchers of all manner of idol worship and religious practices.
Because of this syncretism, the faith of the Colossians Christians was quickly devolving into a Christianity without Jesus. We’ve seen this sort of thing, haven’t we? Churches in which members confess Jesus as Lord in their creeds while dismissing Jesus as only a good man, the Bible as only a book, or the Gospel as just one way to God?
Many of today's Christians, like the Colossian Christians to whom Paul wrote, are often syncretistic. Paul wrote the Colossian Christians for two reasons:
The world needs love, for sure. The sad events of this past week in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas confirm that.
And Jesus Christ is the only certain source of love. That’s what Paul wants us to know.
Take a look at our lesson, Colossians 1:1-14, please.
After greeting the Christians at Colossae on behalf of Timothy, his young assistant, Paul says beginning in verse 3: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.”
Notice that here, Paul uses three key words: faith, hope, and love. This is not the only time that Paul has spoken of faith, hope, and love, you know. In 1 Corinthians 13, what's often called "the love chapter," Paul concludes, saying: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
But what did Paul mean by those words faith, hope, and love? And what is Paul telling us in today’s lesson about those three things that might be different from what he wrote to the 1 Corinthians?
Faith, of course, is trust in God. Christian faith isn’t a philosophical proposition, it’s a relational term. As Christians, our faith is in a personal being, the God we know in Jesus.
When we have faith in--believe in--Jesus, we trust in Him in all the ways Scripture refer to God. Jesus is our rock, our redeemer, our Lord, our Savior, and our King, among other things.
We trust that whatever Jesus leads us through, no matter how hard, as long as He is leading, it’s OK. Through Jesus, we follow God into eternity.
We trust that He forgives our sins, helps us face things we could never face in our own strength, and helps us see the light of God’s love even when the world has gone dark.
That’s faith.
Love isn’t necessarily having great feelings about somebody. As I’ve said before, it’s impossible for me to imagine that as He suffered on the cross, Jesus had sentimental feelings about the people who taunted Him, spat at Him, mocked Him, and crucified Him. But He loved them. Love is what motivated Jesus to die on the cross for us.
He exhibited it even as He was drawing His dying breaths. Ge prayed for those who murdered Him. (Let that one sink in for a moment!) “Father, forgive them,” Jesus prayed from the cross, “for they do not do what they are doing.”
Love is the commitment to do and be the best for God and others, even when we don’t feel like it.
That’s love.
Hope is the most important thing that Paul talks about in these opening verses of Colossians.
Paul isn’t talking about hope the way we do when we say things like, "I hope it doesn't rain tonight." Or, “I hope that we’ll have a good turnout for the Family Film and Fun Nights.”
That kind of hope is fine, of course. But hope as Paul speaks of it here has to do with following Jesus and knowing that no matter how things go in this fallen world, we have a hope that cannot be destroyed.
I visited a gravely ill man in the hospital. "It's OK for you to pray for my healing, pastor," he told me. "If God does heal me, it means that I'll be around a while longer. If God doesn't heal me, it means I'll be with Him in eternity. It's a win-win."
All who turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their God and King live each day in the hope that one day, we will live in direct fellowship with God in eternity. No matter what happens to believers in Jesus, nothing can defeat them.
That's hope.
Paul had never visited Colossae. The church there was started by another member of his ministry team, Epaphras. But he tells the Colossian Christians that he thanked God for the faith and love evidenced in their lives, a sure sign that they were drawing hope from its only source, Jesus.
Please slip down to verse 9. Paul writes: “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”
Paul tells the Colossian Christians what he prays for them.
He doesn’t pray for their health.
He doesn't pray that God would bring them wealth.
He doesn't ask God to give them success.
He doesn't pray that God will give them ease.
He doesn't even pray for the well being of their families.
Paul almost never prays for things like these. And he never asks that others pray for him for such things.
Instead, Paul says that he prays that Christians in Colossae...
By their tight connection to Jesus, Paul was praying, the lives of the Colossian Christians would reflect the very light of the world, Jesus Christ Himself.
Do you see what Paul is praying?
He’s praying that the Colossian Christians will grow as disciples: followers of Jesus, people whose every thought, action, impulse, and word reflect Jesus, God enfleshed.
This week, I’d like to ask you to take verses 9-12 of our lesson as your own personal prayer.
Pray them for your family.
For Living Water.
For the North American Lutheran Church.
For yourself.
As you turn Paul’s prayer petitions into your own prayer petitions, eventually expressed in your own words, pray that God will help you and help the Church to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Listen: America needs Christ and the Church as it never has before. The world needs Christ and the Church as never before.
And, God has given each of us who bear the name of Christ a critical role in helping others to know and follow Jesus Christ.
There's a little story told about a scene in heaven that unfolds right after the risen Jesus gave the eleven remaining apostles the Great Commission. In the story, an angel is standing with God the Father witnessing this commissioning. "Jesus is giving the responsibility of spreading the Gospel and His love, making disciples, to those eleven guys?" the angel asks. "Is that the plan, Lord?" "Yes," God responds, "that's the plan." The angel can't believe it! The eleven didn't have an impressive track record. "What," the angel asks God the Father, "is plan B?" Says God: "There is no plan B."
When it comes to living, praying, and spreading the transforming love of Jesus Christ, it's our move, Church! That's God's plan. In the face of the world's darkness, it's up to us to spread the light!
Listen, please: Disciples in whom the love, grace, power, and sovereignty of the God revealed in Jesus Christ is present and growing are the only means by which America, the world, and people everywhere are going to live in the faith, hope, and love that only Jesus Christ can give.
Please make Paul’s prayer in today’s lesson your prayer each day this week.
I guess the logical response to my request is, “Why? Why should I bother?”
Why shouldn’t people just cast about for the mix and match combination of religious beliefs that makes them, you, and me feel comfortable and in control, like the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this message?
Paul answers that question in the last two verses of our lesson: “For [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
To honor the God Who has rescued us from sin, death, and hell; to honor the God Who has changed our eternities through Christ, I ask that you pray that God will help us and help all for whom we pray to be faithful disciples, to grow as faithful disciples, who live our faith with authenticity and who love others as Christ has loved us.
How can we give less than our all to the Lord Who has given everything to us? Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]
A woman with whom I was once briefly acquainted told me that she worshiped at her church every Sunday. She loved what she called “the inspiring sermons” given by her pastor each week and, though she never got involved with the church, thought that the people there were friendly enough. “I’m a Christian,” she told me.
But one of the first things she ever asked me was when my birthday was and when I told her she said, “Oh. So, you’re a Scorpio. Interesting.” I didn’t know the woman very well, so I didn’t pursue the subject. But what I found interesting--horrifying, really--is how she could consider herself a Christian and, at the same time, put any stock in astrology.
I was certain that her mixing of belief systems was what lay behind what, over time I could see, was her vapid, meaningless Christian faith.
We live in an age in many people, like that woman, strive to mix belief systems so that they can have the version of God they want to have. Or, the version of religion that leaves them with no God.
This phenomenon is nothing new. It’s what scholars call syncretism. It all seems so open-minded, doesn’t it, taking one from column A, one from column B, add a dash of this and that?
The problem for Christians, of course, is that the One we confess as God in the flesh, Jesus, has insisted that He is the only way to life or truth or God. Jesus even insists that it’s only through Him that we have the power to live lives of love and purpose.
The issues raised by that woman are precisely the issues engaged in the short New Testament letter, Colossians, that we’re going to be considering today and over the next three weeks.
Colossae was a town in Asia Minor, roughly today’s Turkey, located about 100 miles southeast of the more well-known Ephesus. Unlike the Galatian Christians, who thought that they needed to add adherence to Old Testament law to their faith in Christ, and to whom the apostle Paul wrote maybe twenty years before he wrote this letter, the Colossians Christians, were mixers and matchers of all manner of idol worship and religious practices.
Because of this syncretism, the faith of the Colossians Christians was quickly devolving into a Christianity without Jesus. We’ve seen this sort of thing, haven’t we? Churches in which members confess Jesus as Lord in their creeds while dismissing Jesus as only a good man, the Bible as only a book, or the Gospel as just one way to God?
Many of today's Christians, like the Colossian Christians to whom Paul wrote, are often syncretistic. Paul wrote the Colossian Christians for two reasons:
- (1) To point to Jesus, the fullness of God, the only God, the only way to God.
- (2) To call the Colossians to live the kinds of lives of love and passionate engagement with the world that only Jesus can set loose in us.
The world needs love, for sure. The sad events of this past week in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas confirm that.
And Jesus Christ is the only certain source of love. That’s what Paul wants us to know.
Take a look at our lesson, Colossians 1:1-14, please.
After greeting the Christians at Colossae on behalf of Timothy, his young assistant, Paul says beginning in verse 3: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.”
Notice that here, Paul uses three key words: faith, hope, and love. This is not the only time that Paul has spoken of faith, hope, and love, you know. In 1 Corinthians 13, what's often called "the love chapter," Paul concludes, saying: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
But what did Paul mean by those words faith, hope, and love? And what is Paul telling us in today’s lesson about those three things that might be different from what he wrote to the 1 Corinthians?
Faith, of course, is trust in God. Christian faith isn’t a philosophical proposition, it’s a relational term. As Christians, our faith is in a personal being, the God we know in Jesus.
When we have faith in--believe in--Jesus, we trust in Him in all the ways Scripture refer to God. Jesus is our rock, our redeemer, our Lord, our Savior, and our King, among other things.
We trust that whatever Jesus leads us through, no matter how hard, as long as He is leading, it’s OK. Through Jesus, we follow God into eternity.
We trust that He forgives our sins, helps us face things we could never face in our own strength, and helps us see the light of God’s love even when the world has gone dark.
That’s faith.
Love isn’t necessarily having great feelings about somebody. As I’ve said before, it’s impossible for me to imagine that as He suffered on the cross, Jesus had sentimental feelings about the people who taunted Him, spat at Him, mocked Him, and crucified Him. But He loved them. Love is what motivated Jesus to die on the cross for us.
He exhibited it even as He was drawing His dying breaths. Ge prayed for those who murdered Him. (Let that one sink in for a moment!) “Father, forgive them,” Jesus prayed from the cross, “for they do not do what they are doing.”
Love is the commitment to do and be the best for God and others, even when we don’t feel like it.
That’s love.
Hope is the most important thing that Paul talks about in these opening verses of Colossians.
Paul isn’t talking about hope the way we do when we say things like, "I hope it doesn't rain tonight." Or, “I hope that we’ll have a good turnout for the Family Film and Fun Nights.”
That kind of hope is fine, of course. But hope as Paul speaks of it here has to do with following Jesus and knowing that no matter how things go in this fallen world, we have a hope that cannot be destroyed.
I visited a gravely ill man in the hospital. "It's OK for you to pray for my healing, pastor," he told me. "If God does heal me, it means that I'll be around a while longer. If God doesn't heal me, it means I'll be with Him in eternity. It's a win-win."
All who turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ as their God and King live each day in the hope that one day, we will live in direct fellowship with God in eternity. No matter what happens to believers in Jesus, nothing can defeat them.
That's hope.
Paul had never visited Colossae. The church there was started by another member of his ministry team, Epaphras. But he tells the Colossian Christians that he thanked God for the faith and love evidenced in their lives, a sure sign that they were drawing hope from its only source, Jesus.
Please slip down to verse 9. Paul writes: “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”
Paul tells the Colossian Christians what he prays for them.
He doesn’t pray for their health.
He doesn't pray that God would bring them wealth.
He doesn't ask God to give them success.
He doesn't pray that God will give them ease.
He doesn't even pray for the well being of their families.
Paul almost never prays for things like these. And he never asks that others pray for him for such things.
Instead, Paul says that he prays that Christians in Colossae...
- will be filled with the knowledge of God’s will,
- will be given give the wisdom and understanding that the Holy Spirit can give us for everyday living,
- will lead lives worthy of association with the name of Jesus,
- will experience the seeds of Christ’s grace, forgiveness, and love bearing fruit in lives of love and good deeds done for others,
- will know God intimately,
- will be strengthened by the One Who calls all followers of Jesus away from thinking and living like the darkness of this world. The darkness of this world to which the Bible often refers is the very darkness that we have seen in recent days in video clips from Louisiana, Minnesota, and Dallas.
By their tight connection to Jesus, Paul was praying, the lives of the Colossian Christians would reflect the very light of the world, Jesus Christ Himself.
Do you see what Paul is praying?
He’s praying that the Colossian Christians will grow as disciples: followers of Jesus, people whose every thought, action, impulse, and word reflect Jesus, God enfleshed.
This week, I’d like to ask you to take verses 9-12 of our lesson as your own personal prayer.
Pray them for your family.
For Living Water.
For the North American Lutheran Church.
For yourself.
As you turn Paul’s prayer petitions into your own prayer petitions, eventually expressed in your own words, pray that God will help you and help the Church to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Listen: America needs Christ and the Church as it never has before. The world needs Christ and the Church as never before.
And, God has given each of us who bear the name of Christ a critical role in helping others to know and follow Jesus Christ.
There's a little story told about a scene in heaven that unfolds right after the risen Jesus gave the eleven remaining apostles the Great Commission. In the story, an angel is standing with God the Father witnessing this commissioning. "Jesus is giving the responsibility of spreading the Gospel and His love, making disciples, to those eleven guys?" the angel asks. "Is that the plan, Lord?" "Yes," God responds, "that's the plan." The angel can't believe it! The eleven didn't have an impressive track record. "What," the angel asks God the Father, "is plan B?" Says God: "There is no plan B."
When it comes to living, praying, and spreading the transforming love of Jesus Christ, it's our move, Church! That's God's plan. In the face of the world's darkness, it's up to us to spread the light!
Listen, please: Disciples in whom the love, grace, power, and sovereignty of the God revealed in Jesus Christ is present and growing are the only means by which America, the world, and people everywhere are going to live in the faith, hope, and love that only Jesus Christ can give.
Please make Paul’s prayer in today’s lesson your prayer each day this week.
I guess the logical response to my request is, “Why? Why should I bother?”
Why shouldn’t people just cast about for the mix and match combination of religious beliefs that makes them, you, and me feel comfortable and in control, like the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this message?
Paul answers that question in the last two verses of our lesson: “For [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
To honor the God Who has rescued us from sin, death, and hell; to honor the God Who has changed our eternities through Christ, I ask that you pray that God will help us and help all for whom we pray to be faithful disciples, to grow as faithful disciples, who live our faith with authenticity and who love others as Christ has loved us.
How can we give less than our all to the Lord Who has given everything to us? Amen
[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]
Sunday, July 11, 2010
All You Need is Love...All You Need is Jesus
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Colossians 1:1-14
This past week brought the seventieth birthday of Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles. Several days before his big day, an interviewer asked him what he might like people to do to celebrate. At noon on that day, Ringo said, he wanted everybody to hold up their hands in peace signs and say, three times, “Peace and love.”
It’s absolutely silly, of course. Humanity has known for centuries that “all you need is love,” but having that knowledge and even engaging in gestures like Ringo Starr suggested in order to remind us of it will do nothing to make us all the loving people who, in our heart of hearts, we really want to be and who we often pretend to be to the outside world.
There’s a lot of hatred in the world, much of it done in the name of God, some of it done specifically in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s not only tragic and sad, it’s sinful and demonic.
When I speak of hatred, I don’t have in mind just the sort of hostility we may harbor for someone we feel has betrayed our trust or hurt us. Those Cleveland Cavaliers fans who now say, as one was quoted as saying in the Columbus Dispatch this past week, that they’ll hate LeBron James forever, harbor a deep passion (I would say a way too deep passion) about LeBron, the NBA, and sports, in general. You see, at some level, those now professing their hatred for LeBron James once passionately loved him, his sport, and the promise of a championship that he seemed to carry away with him to the South Beach of Florida.
That kind of hatred is born of love and disappointment. We see it all the time. A jilted lover can harbor a deep hatred for her or his ex, precisely because of the love they felt for that person. An assembly line worker who has thirty years on the job who suddenly finds his work shipped elsewhere or eliminated altogether, can feel hatred toward the company precisely because he loved his job, its income, its routine, and all that it brought into his life.
But there is another kind of hatred, one that is far more widespread than the hatred of overt hostility born of love and disappointment. It’s the hatred of indifference, of looking out for number one without regard to others. It isn’t hostile, mind you. It simply doesn’t consider others.
This kind of hatred was seen in the Garden of Eden when Eve tried to beat the rap by blaming the serpent and Adam did the same by blaming Eve.
It's seen in two fictional characters created by Jesus, the priest and the levite who passed by the wounded man on the road in the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson. These characters felt no hostility toward the wounded man; they didn’t know him or even try to know him. They were simply so absorbed in their own agendas that they didn’t ake him or his wounds into account.
We’re rightly outraged and mystified by what we might call “passive hatred” we see, hear, and experience in our real-life world. And yet I personally have to admit my own culpability for this very sin.
A few weeks ago, Ann and I were walking across the parking lot of a Starbucks when a woman pushing a child in a stroller approached us. She said that her baby’s father was being released from jail the next day and she needed money to move to a different place where he couldn’t find her. Was she telling the truth? I don’t know. But I didn’t give her a chance to repeat her story. I dehumanized her by simply refusing her request and moving on. The image of that woman and her child has haunted me since.
This is an example of the hatred of indifference and I confess it to you, really, with shame. I should know better.
But it pleases me that I recognize it for what it is: a sin, a violation of the great commandment that we love God totally and love our neighbors—all our neighbors—as we love ourselves.
The reason it pleases me that I recognize this indifference as sin is that it shows that, despite my imperfections and flaws, a powerful seed has been planted within me. It’s the seed of the gospel—the good news of new and everlasting life that belongs to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ. The messiah Jesus brings those who trust in Him forgiveness of sins and ushers us into His kingdom here and now. I don’t think that I would recognize the subtle hatred of indifference as a sin of mine if Jesus weren’t working within me, working in spite of my faults and frailties to make me part of His new creation.
Today we begin a short sermon series on the New Testament book of Colossians. Colossians is a letter written jointly by the apostle Paul and his assistant, the young pastor Timothy, to a church in western Asia Minor, what is today western Turkey, in the town of Colossae. Paul was imprisoned, probably under house arrest, at the time of the letter’s writing. Some think that he was imprisoned in Rome; others say he was held in the nearby town of Ephesus. Whatever the case, the letter was probably written in the early-60sAD, several years before Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake.
By the time Paul and Timothy sent this letter, Colossae had fallen on hard economic times. Its major industry, the production of dark red dyed wool, had nearly died out. Colossae sat in the Lycus Valley, near the Meander River, and was largely forgotten by the greater Roman Empire beyond it.
But Colossae and the Lycus Valley weren’t forgotten by God! (Anymore than any of us are ever forgotten by God. God is never more than a prayer away, something I have learned again beyond all doubt in recent weeks.) Paul had sent a member of his ministry team, a Colossian named Epaphras to start a congregation in Colossae. There, under the daily pastoral leadership of Epaphras, a congregation composed of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles, like us) had taken root and grown. But it wasn’t just an organization that had taken root and grown. Paul says that the very word of God’s truth, the gospel, had born fruit in them and was displaying itself in their love: in love among believers, in love of the believers toward others.
In the original Greek in which Colossians, like the rest of the New Testament, was written, the word that Paul and Timothy use for love is agape. In secular Greek writing, the word agape for love was rarely used until the second and third centuries. When the early Christians used it, they had a very specific understanding of love in mind.
But Jesus is more than an example of agape love. Seeing representations of His death on a cross—while it may build up our faith—won’t necessarily have any more power to turn us from the hatred of indifference to agape love than will holding up peace signs and saying, “Peace and love” three times.
It’s only when we trust—when we have faith--in Jesus and give Him access to our hearts, minds, and wills each day that He can plant the seeds of His love in us and make us and every part of the world we touch different, better, more human, more divine.
In the opening verses of Colossians, our second lesson for today, Paul exults and thanks God that Jesus’ word is growing in the Colossian Christians and showing in their lives of tough agape love! That's what happens when the Good News of Jesus takes hold in people's lives.
A few years back in our former community, a strip joint opened. Some churches got together and demonstrated, protesting the existence of the place. They were concerned that it would breed prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse. But they did more than demonstrate. Demonstrators befriended the dancers, found out about their lives, and set up schedules so that while the women were working at night, volunteers from the churches babysat their kids. Why? Christ’s agape love lived within those Christians. They refused to be indifferent or hostile to people who, just like them, needed Jesus Christ living within them.
And this is no isolated incident. Tony Campolo is a Baptist pastor and a sociologist. I tease that he's so cool, he could be a Lutheran and Campolo, in fact, often speaks at our Lutheran gatherings. One evening before a presentation in Hawaii, he and a colleague walked into a diner that turned out to be the gathering place of prostitutes before and after they went out onto the streets. Campolo struck up a conversation with these women. When it was clear that he wasn’t interested in buying what they were selling, they asked questions about him and his work. He explained that he was a Christian and a pastor.
As they talked, Campolo learned that it was the birthday of one of the prostitutes. No one would send her a card or give her a cake and she would spend the evening in her humiliating trade. Campolo found out that this woman and the other prostitutes all would return to the diner at 3:00 in the morning. So, he and his friend went to a bakery to buy a cake. They bought streamers and hung them in the diner. When the prostitutes returned, they were stunned, especially the one whose birthday it was. "What kind of God do you believe in?" she asked. Campolo answered: “The kind of God Who throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 in the morning.” The God we know in Jesus Christ is the One Who fills us with His tough, self-giving, in-spite-of agape love to share with the world!
I thank God for the strong agape love I see and experience in the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church.
I thank God that I am privileged to be your pastor.
I thank God that I'm given a front row seat on the kingdom of Jesus I see growing in you each day.
And, I thank God that He has made me a grateful beneficiary of your agape love for me, imperfections and all.
My message for you today is as simple and as direct as the one we find Paul sharing with the Colossians in our lesson this morning: Keep trusting in Jesus and keep allowing Him to grow His self-giving, in-spite-of love for all, not just in your sentiments and attitudes, but in everything you do, in every decision you make, and in every word you speak.
All the world needs is love. And that love is found only in Christ Jesus. Amen!
Colossians 1:1-14
This past week brought the seventieth birthday of Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles. Several days before his big day, an interviewer asked him what he might like people to do to celebrate. At noon on that day, Ringo said, he wanted everybody to hold up their hands in peace signs and say, three times, “Peace and love.”
It’s absolutely silly, of course. Humanity has known for centuries that “all you need is love,” but having that knowledge and even engaging in gestures like Ringo Starr suggested in order to remind us of it will do nothing to make us all the loving people who, in our heart of hearts, we really want to be and who we often pretend to be to the outside world.
There’s a lot of hatred in the world, much of it done in the name of God, some of it done specifically in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s not only tragic and sad, it’s sinful and demonic.
When I speak of hatred, I don’t have in mind just the sort of hostility we may harbor for someone we feel has betrayed our trust or hurt us. Those Cleveland Cavaliers fans who now say, as one was quoted as saying in the Columbus Dispatch this past week, that they’ll hate LeBron James forever, harbor a deep passion (I would say a way too deep passion) about LeBron, the NBA, and sports, in general. You see, at some level, those now professing their hatred for LeBron James once passionately loved him, his sport, and the promise of a championship that he seemed to carry away with him to the South Beach of Florida.
That kind of hatred is born of love and disappointment. We see it all the time. A jilted lover can harbor a deep hatred for her or his ex, precisely because of the love they felt for that person. An assembly line worker who has thirty years on the job who suddenly finds his work shipped elsewhere or eliminated altogether, can feel hatred toward the company precisely because he loved his job, its income, its routine, and all that it brought into his life.
But there is another kind of hatred, one that is far more widespread than the hatred of overt hostility born of love and disappointment. It’s the hatred of indifference, of looking out for number one without regard to others. It isn’t hostile, mind you. It simply doesn’t consider others.
This kind of hatred was seen in the Garden of Eden when Eve tried to beat the rap by blaming the serpent and Adam did the same by blaming Eve.
It's seen in two fictional characters created by Jesus, the priest and the levite who passed by the wounded man on the road in the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson. These characters felt no hostility toward the wounded man; they didn’t know him or even try to know him. They were simply so absorbed in their own agendas that they didn’t ake him or his wounds into account.
We’re rightly outraged and mystified by what we might call “passive hatred” we see, hear, and experience in our real-life world. And yet I personally have to admit my own culpability for this very sin.
A few weeks ago, Ann and I were walking across the parking lot of a Starbucks when a woman pushing a child in a stroller approached us. She said that her baby’s father was being released from jail the next day and she needed money to move to a different place where he couldn’t find her. Was she telling the truth? I don’t know. But I didn’t give her a chance to repeat her story. I dehumanized her by simply refusing her request and moving on. The image of that woman and her child has haunted me since.
This is an example of the hatred of indifference and I confess it to you, really, with shame. I should know better.
But it pleases me that I recognize it for what it is: a sin, a violation of the great commandment that we love God totally and love our neighbors—all our neighbors—as we love ourselves.
The reason it pleases me that I recognize this indifference as sin is that it shows that, despite my imperfections and flaws, a powerful seed has been planted within me. It’s the seed of the gospel—the good news of new and everlasting life that belongs to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ. The messiah Jesus brings those who trust in Him forgiveness of sins and ushers us into His kingdom here and now. I don’t think that I would recognize the subtle hatred of indifference as a sin of mine if Jesus weren’t working within me, working in spite of my faults and frailties to make me part of His new creation.
Today we begin a short sermon series on the New Testament book of Colossians. Colossians is a letter written jointly by the apostle Paul and his assistant, the young pastor Timothy, to a church in western Asia Minor, what is today western Turkey, in the town of Colossae. Paul was imprisoned, probably under house arrest, at the time of the letter’s writing. Some think that he was imprisoned in Rome; others say he was held in the nearby town of Ephesus. Whatever the case, the letter was probably written in the early-60sAD, several years before Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake.
By the time Paul and Timothy sent this letter, Colossae had fallen on hard economic times. Its major industry, the production of dark red dyed wool, had nearly died out. Colossae sat in the Lycus Valley, near the Meander River, and was largely forgotten by the greater Roman Empire beyond it.
But Colossae and the Lycus Valley weren’t forgotten by God! (Anymore than any of us are ever forgotten by God. God is never more than a prayer away, something I have learned again beyond all doubt in recent weeks.) Paul had sent a member of his ministry team, a Colossian named Epaphras to start a congregation in Colossae. There, under the daily pastoral leadership of Epaphras, a congregation composed of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles, like us) had taken root and grown. But it wasn’t just an organization that had taken root and grown. Paul says that the very word of God’s truth, the gospel, had born fruit in them and was displaying itself in their love: in love among believers, in love of the believers toward others.
In the original Greek in which Colossians, like the rest of the New Testament, was written, the word that Paul and Timothy use for love is agape. In secular Greek writing, the word agape for love was rarely used until the second and third centuries. When the early Christians used it, they had a very specific understanding of love in mind.
- Agape love is self-giving love.
- Agape love is also in-spite-of love, given and acted upon in spite of how one may feel about the person to whom they’re loving at the time.
- Agape love is about actively looking out for others, even when you don’t know them or when you don't approve of their behavior or know that God doesn't approve of their behavior.
But Jesus is more than an example of agape love. Seeing representations of His death on a cross—while it may build up our faith—won’t necessarily have any more power to turn us from the hatred of indifference to agape love than will holding up peace signs and saying, “Peace and love” three times.
It’s only when we trust—when we have faith--in Jesus and give Him access to our hearts, minds, and wills each day that He can plant the seeds of His love in us and make us and every part of the world we touch different, better, more human, more divine.
In the opening verses of Colossians, our second lesson for today, Paul exults and thanks God that Jesus’ word is growing in the Colossian Christians and showing in their lives of tough agape love! That's what happens when the Good News of Jesus takes hold in people's lives.
A few years back in our former community, a strip joint opened. Some churches got together and demonstrated, protesting the existence of the place. They were concerned that it would breed prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse. But they did more than demonstrate. Demonstrators befriended the dancers, found out about their lives, and set up schedules so that while the women were working at night, volunteers from the churches babysat their kids. Why? Christ’s agape love lived within those Christians. They refused to be indifferent or hostile to people who, just like them, needed Jesus Christ living within them.
And this is no isolated incident. Tony Campolo is a Baptist pastor and a sociologist. I tease that he's so cool, he could be a Lutheran and Campolo, in fact, often speaks at our Lutheran gatherings. One evening before a presentation in Hawaii, he and a colleague walked into a diner that turned out to be the gathering place of prostitutes before and after they went out onto the streets. Campolo struck up a conversation with these women. When it was clear that he wasn’t interested in buying what they were selling, they asked questions about him and his work. He explained that he was a Christian and a pastor.
As they talked, Campolo learned that it was the birthday of one of the prostitutes. No one would send her a card or give her a cake and she would spend the evening in her humiliating trade. Campolo found out that this woman and the other prostitutes all would return to the diner at 3:00 in the morning. So, he and his friend went to a bakery to buy a cake. They bought streamers and hung them in the diner. When the prostitutes returned, they were stunned, especially the one whose birthday it was. "What kind of God do you believe in?" she asked. Campolo answered: “The kind of God Who throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 in the morning.” The God we know in Jesus Christ is the One Who fills us with His tough, self-giving, in-spite-of agape love to share with the world!
I thank God for the strong agape love I see and experience in the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church.
I thank God that I am privileged to be your pastor.
I thank God that I'm given a front row seat on the kingdom of Jesus I see growing in you each day.
And, I thank God that He has made me a grateful beneficiary of your agape love for me, imperfections and all.
My message for you today is as simple and as direct as the one we find Paul sharing with the Colossians in our lesson this morning: Keep trusting in Jesus and keep allowing Him to grow His self-giving, in-spite-of love for all, not just in your sentiments and attitudes, but in everything you do, in every decision you make, and in every word you speak.
All the world needs is love. And that love is found only in Christ Jesus. Amen!
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