Have You Heard about--? Colossians 1:1-14
Ordinary Time: first Sunday at a new congregation
Did you know that Ann Arbor is where the University of
Michigan is?
I grew up in
Indiana; until about February of this year, the university was about all I knew
about Ann Arbor and I barely understood even that. My big rivalry was Purdue versus Indiana
University (go Hoosiers!), not Spartans and Wolverines. I got my first master’s from Western Michigan
University in Kalamazoo and served a church in Bay City, neatly bracketing the
center of the state and not learning a thing about cities like Ann Arbor other
than there was a university and, apparently, a really good deli.
“To the saints
and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae,” begins Paul in this
letter probably written some 30 or 40 years after Christ’s resurrection. “In our prayers for you we always thank
God…for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you
have for all the saints”.
The speed at
which news travels in an internet-fueled, digital age is astonishing. When I heard I had been appointed to a church
in Ann Arbor, I immediately went to find the website, to call friends who might
know something—was I going to hear of faith, to read about love? What would I find? I know now that there is indeed the
university, but there’s also an art fair, farmer’s markets, quite a few parks,
and seemingly six hundred quirky coffee shops.
I have made it a personal mission to visit all of them.
And I have no
doubt that some of you have Googled me; well done, to use available resources, and
I’m sure several interesting things answered that search. Google may not be a direct descendant of Epaphras,
but it can suffice. Would I be a good
fit for the church you are trying to become?
Would I push in the wrong direction, or would I be “a faithful minister
of Christ,” making known “your love in the Spirit”? What have we heard about each other, Ann Arbor
First?
In the
Methodist tradition, our commitment to the itinerant system is one that is not
well-suited to modern sensibilities.
This pattern of rotating pastors through congregations in a strange mix
of matchmaking and professional guidance was made for young, single men with
the time and willingness to be transplanted to the communities that needed
them. It is a great deal of trust, for
me to be your pastor and you to be my congregation with only what we have heard
about each other to pave the way.
“In our
prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for
we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for
all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” This extended greeting of Paul’s sets up the
teaching which sets up the letter; the church at Colossae was struggling with
remaining true to the theological points on which it had been founded. Other teachers had come to their community
and said that actually, salvation came with more rules; actually, God needed
them to be choosier about who they counted in their congregation. I only need to have heard that you are a
Christian church in America in 2022 to know that you know what it looks like to
have to choose what kind of theology you’re going to follow and whether the
Christianity you represent is of one kind or another.
Paul’s response to the turmoil of the
Colossians is rather brief—the letter is only four chapters—but it is packed
with pastoral reminders to the community about who they actually are and who
they had pledged to become. The
remainder of chapter one is a sort of mini theological treatise, a hymn of
praise to God and God’s work through Jesus as the Christ in the long arc of
salvation. The other three chapters are
all about how God’s salvation is enough, and freely offered. There was nothing the Colossians had to do,
no extra secret set of rules they had to follow, for God to give light and
freedom, for the Holy to be present among them.
Brian J. Walsh writes that, “[T]he apostle says that the gospel is also
not far away. It is not something that you need to go looking for. Rather, in
almost personalizing language, it ‘has come to you’
(Colossians 1:6). The gospel has sought us out.”[1]
“You have heard of this hope before
in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is
bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit
among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of
God.”
“Bearing fruit” is such a buzzphrase
in modern Christianity, aware as we are of statistics like a Pew Research
Center poll last year stating that some 30% of American adults want nothing to
do with any religion at all,[2] a number that has steadily
risen over the entirety of my life.
There are hundreds of leadership books cleverly wrapping themselves in
fruit-based metaphors about how to make sure this church lasts or that church
survives. Such a concept was part of our
matchmaking—could I help lead this church to bear fruit as part of the pastoral
staff? Were you a church that was ready for
harvest?
Paul’s prayers and rejoicings to
Colossae, however, were not to them for their effectiveness or efficiency or
work for the gospel. “The gospel has
come to you,” he writes in delight. “It
is bearing fruit…so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from
the day you heard it”. The 17th
century Welsh theologian Matthew Henry wrote, “Wherever the gospel comes, it
will bring forth fruit to the honour and glory of God…We mistake, if we think
to monopolize the comforts and benefits of the gospel to ourselves. Does the
gospel bring forth fruit in us? So it does in others.”[3]
Here's the wondrous, glorious,
miraculous thing that I need to say at this pulpit to be recorded so we all can
remember it’s true on the inevitable days we disappoint each other as well as the
days we feel like we are doing this church thing well: the good news of God’s work in the world does
not bear fruit because of any kind of control or space-holding or well-written
book we have. God’s work bears fruit
because it is God’s, and we cannot stop God from being God in every corner of
this broken world.
What a gift! What a relief! God loves even when we do not, God heals even
when we do not, God restores even when we do not, God resurrects even when we
do not, God brings the sweet tartness of fruit to pleading mouths even when we
do not. No matter what you have heard of
me, I cannot stop the gospel from changing the world. No matter what I have heard of you, you
cannot prevent the grace of God from growing.
No wonder Paul gives thanks in his
prayers—the church at Colossae was living proof that God was still active in
the world not because they were the gold star church with the biggest programming
budget downtown but because the reality of grace could not be overcome no
matter what teacher was in charge. “In
our prayers for you we always thank God,” Paul writes, and he uses eucharistoumen,
from eucharisto, Eucharist,[4] the sacrament embedded in
this Church’s heart that still beats two thousand years later even though we most
certainly have not borne edible fruit from every congregation in every season. No wonder Paul writes of the hope of which
the Church has heard in the word of the truth.
This is not to say that we as the
Body of Christ can thus kick off our shoes, put our feet up, and let the Spirit
do what She does because fruit will apparently grow no matter what we do. Far from it.
Paul continues, “[S]ince the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying
for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in
all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the
Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you
grow in the knowledge of God.”
It is true that we can’t get in God’s
way enough to stop the power of the gospel, but we can certainly muddy the
waters. The religious and culture wars
happening here in the U.S. in our governments, courts, and schools around which
form of Christianity represents “real” Christianity are proof enough of the
importance of action in the name of the news we call good. “We have heard of your faith in Christ
Jesus,” writes Paul. I have heard of
your speakers and your wealth, of your blind spots and your gracious hearts,
Ann Arbor First. You have heard of my
fights with the Church around who is welcome and of the days I would much
rather be a teacher than a pastor. But
no matter what we have heard about each other, our prayers are for who we will
become together. I pray that we will be
filled with the knowledge of God’s will, that we will walk worthy of the Lord,
that we will bear fruit not because strawberries grow wild but because we have
dutifully and deliberately planted vineyards of sweet grapes. I pray that others may hear that Ann Arbor
has a university and an art fair and several good parks but it also has a
Church, an active part of the Body of Christ that teaches grace upon grace upon
grace with such fervent belief that it is an expected byword. I pray with thanksgiving for the ways in
which the Spirit is alive and well in Ann Arbor, church, because the world
needs hope laid up for it and brought to its grasping hands.
It will take strength, endurance, and
patience for people to speak of us in ways that other people hear. For all the fact that the church in Colossae
got this letter thousands of years ago, the reality of being human with other
humans hasn’t changed terrifically much.
We are still prone to arrogance, and greed, and fear, and distrust, and
exclusion, and legalism, and all the other things Paul wrote about. And—and we are still open to love, and
hope, and peace, and learning, and inclusion, and generosity, and grace
unmeasured, grace unending.
Have you heard, church, about the
good news? Have you heard that there is hope
in this time that might seem utterly hopeless?
Have you heard that we’re going to do this thing called faith together,
following the One Who dances in light and blesses the shadow, Who invites us
into the family?
May we have the strength enough to
learn together, the hope enough to stay true to the call, and the faith enough
to know we will fail, and we will grow, and the good news will still bear fruit. Let that be what we hear. Amen.
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