Saturday, 19 July 2025

How Big Is Your Jesus?

Colossians 1:15-29

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Many New Testament scholars tell us that the first part of our reading is a hymn or maybe just part of a hymn that Paul is quoting or even wrote himself.  He seems to be trying to make the point that all of God’s very good, awesome, wonderful, beautiful creation is integrally and intimately tied to Jesus – in him, through him, for him all things…all things…were created and hold together.  He’s not just talking about physical matter, the stuff we can see and touch, but also means things like the power to rule, relationships, and things we can’t see that influence other things.  In some way that we ain’t ever going to understand Jesus is integrally and intimately tied to everything.  Nothing exists apart from him.  Everything is in some sort of relationship with him whether it’s a personal, communicative relationship like we have with him or that he can turn a stone to bread if he wanted but doesn’t.  Everything in God’s very good, awesome, remarkably beautiful creation is bound to and answers to Jesus.

Let me tell you a bit about the way Paul understood reality.  We would call this his Cosmology.  He’s a Hebrew Bible scholar not a Greek philosopher.  The Greeks believed everything has just always been.  They believed reality was two-sided.  There’s an unseen spiritual world of divine energy that was very good and is all that really mattered.  And, there’s also the material world in which we live which is of lesser importance if not all out evil and which just needs to be left behind for better things in Eternity.  The gods who are themselves very self-involved and capricious have their way with this world and especially us.  Divinity to them was sheer, raw power such that an emperor could be called divine even a god for the power he wielded.

Hebrews were very different from the Greeks.  They had the audacity to say that God created everything and it is good, very good especially once you put humanity into it – humanity made in God’s image.  Genesis Chapter One stuff.  God in God’s love and good will wants matter and us and everything there is to exist.  God spoke the Creation into existence and God’s Spirit made it come about.  And God was very pleased with Creation.  

The Apostle John at the beginning of his Gospel says that Jesus is the Word that God spoke to bring everything into existence.  This Word was with God and was God and it was this Word who himself became human as Jesus of Nazareth to heal God’s very good creation of the very lethal disease of sin which causes us to act like those Greek gods whom we make in our own image and worship.  Paul is basically saying the same “Word” thing in saying that by, through, and for Jesus everything was created and in him it holds together.

With respect to how Paul understood the Cosmos, the world.  He’s very Genesis one.  God created light and then spoke a big bubble of order into the chaotic waters of darkness.  He separated the water that was in the bubble and made land come up.  Then, he put the lights in the sky, filled it with creatures, and finally made humanity and then took a day off.  To be humorous, he was a flat-earther and geo-centric; all the lights in the sky circled the earth.  

Paul also said there are unseen heavenly realms in the Cosmos one in particular called Heaven were the angels and other powers were and in which God would abide.  There was also a “below” realm which the Hebrews called Sheol which was a holding place for the dead as they await resurrection and somewhere in there was a place called Paradise where we are with Christ.  Oddly, Paul never spoke of a Hell or Hades so neither will I.  

In Paul’s world, God existed outside of Creation and stepped in and out as he pleased.  This changed when God the Son became human as Jesus which bound physical matter to God and so also the Holy Spirit indwelling Jesus’ followers.  This is New Creation – Creation bond to and indwelt by God.  So, God (the Father) created Creation and bound it to himself integrally and intimately in, through, by and for Christ Jesus (the Son) in the power of the Holy Spirit. The completeness of that bond is where Creation is ultimately heading.

Well, by today’s standards, Paul’s cosmology is pretty small.  It’s based on what can be seen with the naked eye and has more than a little of what could be called “mystical experience” thrown in there.  It’s just this bubble in the midst of water with land and sky and realms above and below which God in his love and will created.  God loves it so much that he bound it to himself as, in, by, through, and for Jesus Christ in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  

I used the word small there because today due to telescopes and microscopes we have a way bigger picture and understanding of the universe.  Most would accept that our universe banged into existence about 14 billion years ago.  The static we hear on radios is a remnant of that explosion.  When we look up into the night sky with the naked eye, depending on our eyesight, the average person sees between 2,500-5,000 stars.  In actuality, there could be as many as 200 billion trillion stars out there and many to most of those have planets orbiting them and an astronomical number of the planets are probably able to support life.  Hmmm. Inquiring minds want to know.

A man named Edwin Hubble in 1922 at an observatory just outside of Hollywood discovered that one of the stars he saw with his latest and greatest telescope was actually another galaxy, Andromeda.  When I was in High School in the ‘80’s the number of galaxies was hardly in the thousands.  In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope focused on a section of space hardly the size of a thumbnail and showed us that in just that little bit of space looking back 13 billion years there were roughly 10,000 galaxies.  Based on that little picture, there could be anywhere from 200 billion to 10 trillion galaxies in our universe.

There’s a new telescope up there now, the James Webb Space Telescope.  It can see a little further back in time than the Hubble Telescope can and it sees a few galaxies that apparently formed just 250 million years after the Big Bang.  Most astrophysicists say galaxies couldn’t have formed that early.  So, they are starting to say that those Galaxies are part of an older universe into which we Big Banged.  And some are even saying that it is entirely possible that our universe is what’s on the other side of a black hole that’s in another universe.  I’m not quite sure what to do with the black hole stuff.

Many people use the bigness of this universe as we know it to dismiss Paul and his understanding of the universe.  They basically say there’s no God big enough to deal with all that and instead they call it an accident.  Me, I look at the pictures that these telescopes give us of this big, beautiful universe and I can’t help but sing, “O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made…How great Thou art.”  It moves me to praise.  If it is as Paul says, and I believe/know it is, that everything is held together in Jesus Christ then this means that the love of God is as big as the universe and bigger, infinitely big.  How big is your Jesus?

Let’s talk about small things for a moment and then I’ll be done.  With microscopes we can now almost see atoms.  Atoms are made of even smaller particles and some of those particles are made of even smaller particles.  Basically, when we say particle, we mean a little blip of energy and somehow when particles of a different type interact with each other by means of a particle called the Higgs Boson, known as the God Particle, they form matter.  Physical matter is at ground zero energy.  

Atoms have a nucleus made of protons and neutrons bound together.  Electrons orbit the nucleus but they don’t circle it.  Rather they pop in and out of existence at certain distances around the nucleus.  Where they come from and where they go, nobody knows and the blipping in and out of orbit happens at or faster than the speed of light.  An atom is like a spectacular light show that at any moment may or may not exist.  I can’t tell you how in the world, those quantum physicists have figured that out.  They some smart cookies.  

Inside the atom’s area of influence, those electrons are so teenie-tiny that they are as proportionally as far away from the nucleus as the inner planets of our solar system from the sun.  This means that atoms, like our solar system, are predominantly empty space.  Gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the sun but it’s something called the Strong Force that keeps atoms together.  It’s called strong because if you break that bond, well, that’s what a nuclear bomb is.

Ponder what we are.  We are mostly empty space inhabited by a gazillion gazillion particles bound together to be electricity-filled fluid sacs that have consciousness and God-awareness.  We think, learn, feel, love, build stuff - we are really amazing!  Our bodies consist of roughly 37 trillion cells.  When you include the microbiome that each body has in and on it – bacteria, viruses, yeast, and fungi – there’s over 130 trillium cell-size bio-machines that have a purpose you don’t mess with or you get sick.  That’s more than the number of galaxies in our universe.  We are each like a little universe.

When you pull out a microscope and look at those cells and then the molecules that make-up those little cells, you see beauty.  The cells of a flower are more beautiful than the flower.  And to think that cells and the parts of the cell are like little living machines that have particular jobs to do…and people say it’s accidental!  The cells are made of molecules and stuff that are made of atoms.  That energy can be pulled together into matter that can become a living human being who does art and sings and stuff.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made!  “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”

From the very big of the universe to the very small of things at the subatomic level, all things were created by, in, through, and for Christ Jesus and are held together by him.  That’s how big Jesus is.  That’s how big the love of God is.  And Paul says also that in him all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell.  Through Jesus the infinite love of God abounds everywhere and in everything. Finally, Paul says that the mystery of all times is Christ in you.  This great big, infinitely big Jesus and all his love is in us.  “Jesus loves me, this I know.”  I’ll shut up now because I’m speechless.  Amen.

 

Saturday, 12 July 2025

Live Lives Worthy

Colossians 1:1-14

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One of the most powerful moments in motion picture history is the ending of the movie Saving Private Ryan.  Private Ryan was an American soldier in WWII post D-Day.  He needed to be found and extracted because he had become the only surviving male in his family.  So, the Army sent in a team of men to get him out of the combat zone.  They all died getting him out.

The final scene takes place in Normandy Cemetery in France at the grave of the soldier who led the mission, Cap. Miller.  Now an elderly man, Private Ryan kneels at the grave and reflects on Cap. Miller’s dying words to him, “Earn this.”  Ryan says, “I’ve thought about what you said every day of my life.  I’ve tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes I have earned what all you have done for me.”  He stands up and his wife comes up to him and notes the name on the cross-shaped grave marker.  He says to her, “Tell me I’ve lived a good life.  Tell me I’m a good man.”  Not really understanding what’s going on, she simply touches him on the cheek and says, “You are.”

Private Ryan stands emblematic of the soldiers who came home from the War and the burden they carried to live a life worthy of the men and women who paid the ultimate price, who died instead of them.  My grandfather was one of those who lived.  He came home and got into law enforcement and retired as chief of police in Waynesboro, VA, a city about the size of Owen Sound.  He was a good man.  He made “Benson” a name to be proud of.  When I look into myself and wonder about how I’ve lived my life, it’s his gravestone that I find myself kneeling at asking if I’ve lived a life worthy of the name he left behind.  

If I might rant a bit; we have all been reaping the benefits of the world that men and women like my grandfather came home from the War to build.   They saw firsthand just how evil that otherwise good people can be.  I mean, how does a person justify to themselves being a guard in a concentration camp.  Sadly, time has passed and that generation and its values are now passed.  I think we as a culture are no longer appreciative of the sacrifices made for us to live the lifestyle we live.  We have forgotten that people had to kill or be killed by people who were deceived and deluded by Fascist authoritarians who disrupted global security and well-being because they lusted after power and simply did not care that people had to suffer and die for them to grow richer.  We have forgotten that war only serves to make the very wealthy wealthier.  There are no longer eyewitnesses to the atrocities of that war: the Holocaust, nuclear bombs, bombing of whole cities and civilian populations done by all sides, the starvation, children traumatized in fear.  That war in particular had a historical lesson that we apparently did not learn: that it is better for nations to work together for the common good of all rather than to seek their own national interests at all costs or worse, being the vehicle through which a handful of sick puppies seek power and wealth by trying to turn the world into a dystopia.  We’ve lost our sense of having to live worthy lives…that sense of "Earn it"…and have replaced it with a sense of entitlement that will not end well.

Well, anyway, sorry for that rant.  But then again, if I were really sorry, I would have deleted it from the sermon and never said it.  So, I guess it was a bit premeditated and it must serve a purpose in this sermon.  I’ll get on with that.

Paul in this letter to the Colossians is writing to a group of Christians he did not know, to a church he did not plant.  I would conjecture that the church was likely planted by and being pastored by a man named Epaphras who may or may not have been an understudy of Paul’s.  For some reason, Epaphras came to Paul and told him of the Colossian Christians and of a particular problem they were facing that was brought to them by some false teachers who appear to have been teaching that you weren’t fully Christian unless you got circumcised and kept the Law of Moses.  Epaphras probably thought that a visit or at least a letter from Paul, the Apostle, would help stamp it out.  

So, to these Christians whom he has never met Paul wrote this letter and highlighted right at the beginning the most important things they need to concern themselves with.  First, in the entirety of this section of the letter we get a glimpse at the world according to Paul.  Just like after WWII there was a global sense that the world is now free from some pretty dark and sinister forces, so also Paul paints a picture that God has intervened in his very good creation in, through, and as Christ Jesus and his death and resurrection to deliver and heal it from the power of darkness, a healing being made manifest as churches – Holy Spirit enlivened human communities.  The Colossians were one of these many small gatherings springing up all over the world in response to the royal edict (or Gospel) being heralded from town to town that Jesus, the Son of God and the Messiah of the Jews, had defeated sin and death and is the world’s one true Lord and Saviour.  This victory was felt and seen through the presence and work of the Holy Spirit whose primary work was bonding and shaping these Christians into a community of strangers from all walks of life who loved one another unconditionally, as if they were family, because they all knew themselves to be beloved children of God the Father just like Jesus.  By the presence of the Holy Spirit, they were experiencing an inheritance that was eternal.  Paul tells them that God had rescued them from the power of darkness and transferred them into the Kingdom of his beloved Son.  In and among them, God was bringing about New Creation, a new world order one could say, in and through Christ Jesus and those who follow him. 

With the exception of the Letter to the Galatians, Paul began his letters by stating some things that he was thankful for about the church that he was writing to.  If you pay close attention to what he’s thankful for, you will usually find the solution to the problem he sought to address.  Two things Paul brings up as the antidote to this false teaching in their midst – Paul says he is thankful for their loyalty to Christ Jesus and their love for one another which is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in their midst.  They will discover God’s will, God’s desire for them, not by keeping the Law, but by attending to their loyalty to Christ Jesus and to their love for one another.  “Live lives worthy of the Lord” is the imperative Paul gives that sums it all up.  That’s what it is to be fully Christian.

 Live lives worthy of the Lord is very applicable to us and our world today, especially we who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  In this world where the greatest source of discontent appears to be people not getting the things they feel they are entitled to, live lives worthy of the Lord is the antidote.  Love others as Jesus loves you.  This discontent is at the heart of how people can be so easily misled, indeed radicalized, into populist authoritarianism that’s just one more unkept promise and lie fulfilled away from the Fascism that my grandfather laid his own life on the line to combat.  

The world is in a very precarious place at present.  We are at a pivotal point when we who call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ, who know his love and the peacefulness of the Holy Spirit, who feel the tug of loyalty to him…we need to step up and “Earn it!” – Live lives worthy of the Lord.  We must pay particular attention to how we express our loyalty to him.  Paul here mentions only one way, one word – love.  He used that pesky word for love that’s known in the Greek language as agape.  It’s not romantic love.  It’s not the love of friendship nor is it the love of family.  It is unconditional, selfless, indeed sacrificial love for others.  We must put aside our political affiliations and our cultural values be they liberal, conservative, or something else and attend to our loyalty to Jesus.  

I’m sure you’ve heard of WWJD, the acronym for What Would Jesus Do.  That’s a good place to start, but I invite you to take that to a higher level with WIJD – What Is Jesus Doing?  Discern what Jesus is doing in every situation we find ourselves in.  I can guarantee that it will likely be compassion-based, heartfelt understanding of a person’s situation and needs.  It will involve honesty and kindness.  A sense of what to do and the resources for it will be there.  There is a harsh realization on each of our parts that we need to come to: I might be the only Jesus someone sees.  Therefore, in all things, am I living a life that is worthy of him.  Amen.

  

Saturday, 5 July 2025

The Work of the Kingdom

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Luke 10:1-20

As you might remember, I went to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada back at the beginning of June. One of the matters we dealt with and probably the most pressing was (and these are my words) the imminent death of this denomination if we do not make some drastic changes right now. We appointed a commission, for once not a committee, that has the authority of the Assembly to act to effect certain changes. The changes appear to be mostly structural and among them will be the establishment of regional resource centers that will help congregations with everything from Sunday School resources to legal advice. I don’t know. Time will tell.

I have some thoughts on the matter if you care to hear them. Jesus and the early church ushered in the inbreaking of the Kingdom or Reign of God. The early Christians met mostly in homes. When they met, they nearly always ate together. They were known for their love, generosity, and how everybody was an equal. The institution we call the Church with its buildings and paid clergy has existed ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the late 300’s AD is indeed largely palliative. It unfortunately has served as the religious impetus of European/North American Imperialism, Colonialism, and Westernization, as well as the Morality Police of Western Culture. We need to remind ourselves that the institution we call the church is very different from the gatherings of the early church. What we call the Church in our culture is not synonymous with the Kingdom of God that we heard about in our reading from Luke. Sometimes the two overlap. Sometimes Kingdom things happen in churches. Sometimes church activities are manifestations of the Kingdom. But, please, do not confuse the two as being the same. Terrible things have happened when we have done that.

At many points over the centuries the Kingdom of God has broken in and the church served it resulting in things such as the civil rights movement, the abolition of slavery, hospitals, public education, worker’s rights, and soup kitchens and food banks for example. The Kingdom of God does not exist as an institution but rather it is embodied by everyday people like us. It manifests in places like the kitchen of my best friend’s mother, Mom Landis, who gave a sense of home to this somewhat orphaned child. The door was always open and there was always something on the stove to eat for whoever stopped in and a Bible not far away giving evidence that she actually read it. Mom Landis went to church but the Kingdom of God could be found at her kitchen table. What we call the Church and the Kingdom of God are not synonymous.

Back to our denomination, we’ve commissioned ten people to come up with how to save a whole denomination from imminent death. We’ve got the commissioning part right. If one interprets what we did in the light of the reading from Luke, commissioning people is a good place to start. The translators used the word “Appointed” here but commissioning is the better word, I think. To commission is to empower to act with the authority of the commissioning body or person. In Greek, the word literally means to make visible. What Jesus did here was to empower his disciples to make his Kingdom visible.

If it were up to me to call the shots for the denomination, I wouldn’t have commissioned just ten people with the authority to tweak the structure of the denomination. I would rather go to every congregation and start commissioning disciples of Jesus to go and make the kingdom visible. And now, to quote Al Pacino’s famous courtroom line from the movie Scent of a Woman, “I’m just getting warmed up.”

Let’s humour Jesus here for a minute and try to imagine doing in our community what he did back then. I would divide you up into groups of two and section off the neighbourhoods of this town into as many sections as there are groups of two. You would leave your homes and go to that neighbourhood with only the clothes on your back, wearing no shoes, and no money. You will be barefoot and hungry and sleep in the street unless someone takes you in. You will look like the poorest of the poor. You will have to rely on the hospitality of the people in the neighbourhood.

While you’re on the street, don’t greet anybody. Don’t say “hi” or “how’re you doing”. Just keep announcing, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Come and follow and believe this good news.” If people stop to talk to you just ask them what they need prayer for and pray for them. When the prayer is answered, tell them, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you”.

If someone invites you to their house, go with them and when you get there proclaim “Peace be to you”. Peace is rest. It’s the laying down of burdens. It’s well-being. When welcomed into a home, stay in that home. Don’t house hop. Eat what is set before you. In this day of dietary restrictions, food allergies, and overwhelming choice that may be the hardest thing to do. Pray for your hosts particularly for their healing. When they are healed, tell them, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” You may be interested to know that in Greek there are two words that can be translated as salvation and both are synonymous with healing. Again, stay in that house. That home may wind up being where the gathering meets.

The idea here is that the Kingdom becomes visible when in loyalty to Jesus we take the risk of being completely reliant on God; when we open ourselves to utterly accepting the hospitality of others and that’s not easy as proud and self-sufficient as we are. The Kingdom of God becomes visible when we pray, especially when we pray for healing. When the Kingdom is present, Peace is felt and people gather.

I realize I probably just scared the socks off of every one of us, myself included. What I just described though not from the twilight zone is definitely beyond the comfort zone. I think I have fairly well described church planting, which is what this denomination really needs to do if we Presbyterians want to be around in 25 years, but we probably don’t have to go to the extreme of living in the street hoping someone will invite us in. Yet, we need to rethink Church planting. The goal isn’t to wind up with a building, or even paid clergy, and certainly not a denomination. The goal should be making Jesus’ Kingdom visible. Work which involves hospitality, gathering, and praying for real needs.

I can think of something that congregations can do that takes advantage of the fact that we have buildings. Something that involves hospitality and gathering, could involve prayer. All our churches have kitchens. Pick a regular night, monthly or weekly, for a potluck or a regular morning for coffee or even breakfast or put a pot of soup on ( a big pot). Get the word out to the surrounding neighbourhood. Just let the church fellowship hall and kitchen be a place the immediate neighborhood can gather and see what comes of it. Southampton’s been doing this for a couple of years now. Cornerstone in Tara has a Friday coffee as well that is doing remarkably well. These things aren’t resulting in new faces in the pews, but new faces come to the kitchens, friendships are made, and Jesus’s Kingdom is there. Amen.