Ted Johnston—Year C Proper 13

Anthony: Our first passage of the month is Colossians 3:1–11. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 13 in Ordinary Time, August 3.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. 7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 8 But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!

When we see a statement like Christ is seated at the right hand of God, we can too often think spatially, Ted. But there’s more to it, right? Tell us about it.

Ted: Yeah. Well, this passage, like the whole book of Colossians, is about the supremacy of Christ. And to speak of him as being seated is speaking directly to that and using thought forms that the audience that received this to begin with would be very familiar with.

I’m reminded that not too long, and not too many days ago, we celebrated Ascension Day, which is part of the liturgical calendar that sadly is often overlooked. But here in Colossians 3, Paul is clearly alluding to that as he refers to Christ seated at the right hand of God, which is indicating a key aspect of the reality of Christ, who Christ is, the eternal son of God, fully God, who via the incarnation, became and remains fully human, God in the flesh who lived, died, suffered, suffered and died and was buried, and on the third day, resurrected and 40 days later, ascended to the throne of God, where, in Paul’s thought form, he remains seated, which is to say exalted.

It is not seated, as in oh, let’s take a vacation. It’s talking about his exaltation, the granting to Jesus of all authority, which flies directly in the face of the one who claimed all authority, who was Caesar, that throughout the book of Colossians and elsewhere in his letters Paul pokes at, but Jesus has all this great authority as we’ll see in the book of Hebrews as we proceed.

He has that authority as our high priest who is compassionate and yet powerful and united to Christ via his humanity. Our humanity is ascended with him and therefore seated with him. We share in his power and authority. That is a stunning reality with respect to both Christ and humanity, a reality that was fundamental to Paul’s trinitarian, Christ-centered theology and his anthropology.

So there, there’s an awful lot right there in this passage that we could go on about, but that’s a little bit of a capsule of what he is talking about when he talks about Christ being seated.

Anthony: You mentioned, we are seated with him. Our humanity is, and in that way, we’re active participants of what’s happening to Christ, and Paul goes on to write in this passage that our lives are hidden in Christ.

Then he goes on to say that Christ is our life. Those are brief statements, but Ted, it seems to me there’s quite a lot theologically happening in those declarations.

Ted: That’s for sure.

Anthony: Help us understand.

Ted: Well, I’ll ask a question. Does my life perfectly reflect the reality that I’m seeing with Christ in heaven?

If I’m honest, I’ve got to say no. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the reality. Do people say about me, “Yeah. I see Ted seated with Jesus on the throne of God.” Yeah, probably not. But Paul, being a realist, knows that this is true of us and yet we don’t see it completely. And he would include himself in that and makes mention of that at times in his letters. He does not see himself as being perfected, but he does see himself seated with Christ in the heavenlies, where we share in his perfection.

And so, Paul is encouraging us to realize that truth, as remarkable as it is, as hard to grasp as it is. And he encapsulates that by saying that we are hidden in Christ. We don’t see ourselves, others don’t see us in his fullness, and yet we are in Christ. And by faith, we’re able to grasp that glorious reality of who we truly are in him. And what Paul is telling these Christians in Colossae and us by extension, is that we need to be grounded in that truth and let it define us and lean into that truth and allow it to change our minds and thus also our behavior.

And that is the essence of Paul’s trinitarian ethics, that we always acknowledge first who we are. That’s the indicatives. The declaration of the Gospel: it says, this is true, as crazy, as wild, as stunning as that seems. This is true. Focusing on that reality of who Jesus is and who we are in him, and let that reality guide and empower us to attend to the imperatives, the commands he gives here to live like Jesus according to the Spirit, to live the way of the new self, the new creation of who we are, truly are, and are becoming in Christ. And Paul uses that same logic throughout his letters as he’s dealing with problems that he’s seeing in these congregations that he is writing to and how relevant that is in our day too.

Anthony: One of the imperatives that you mentioned, if you don’t mind me asking a follow up question?

Ted: Sure.

Anthony: He said we must get rid of wrath. And yet in verse six we see that the wrath of God is coming. So, is God practicing something he’s not preaching? How … you know, somebody maybe that’s new to scripture and they see, I’m supposed to as a Christian to get rid of wrath in my life, but God has wrath. How do you reconcile those two things, Ted?

Ted: I think we have to be careful to not say: I don’t like that term, the wrath of God; so, Paul can’t possibly mean that.

Anthony: Yeah.

Ted: Paul’s giving a pretty definitive warning, but a warning is different than a proclamation of what is actually going to happen.

So there’s that. So, he’s not trying to guilt people into good behavior. He is not trying to scare the hell out of them, so to speak, but he is saying, look, this is a serious matter. But you can’t, you can’t deal with the issue of behavior through coercion, through shaming, through guilt. And so, he’s not intending to do that.

And I think one then has to have a broader view of what the wrath of God is. And he doesn’t address that here, but he does elsewhere that God’s wrath is fundamentally expression of the actual nature of God, which is love and all that he does toward us and for us is motivated by his love, is directed by his love, and that includes the times he needs to correct us.

And ultimately, God is going to remove from us those things that are contrary to the true reality of who we are in Christ. And so, if you want to term that an expression of his wrath, that’s okay, but you have to understand the context and you have to understand what God’s motivation is and the tactics, so to speak, that he uses.

And so, there’s a warning here. It’s like folks we’re talking about stuff that is really serious, and there were a lot of things going on in the church in Colossae that needed to be corrected. But ultimately his emphasis is on the indicatives, not the imperatives. The imperatives always follow behind the indicatives, and that’s really important to know.

Anthony: Amen. Amen and amen. And as I heard someone recently say, we can only grow as much as our willingness to be corrected in life and …

Ted: How true.

Anthony: It is a practical truth.

Ted: Yeah, that’s for sure.