In one of its former incarnations, this space was taken up with thoughts about the upcoming readings in the Revised Common Lectionary. Today, that old spirit is taking over here.
Specifically, the hymn from Colossians (the spell-check inherent in this blog-device does not seem to believe that 'Colossians' is an acceptable word. Sigh. It does accept Colombians, however, which is a friendly amendment that might make everyone's sermon more interesting this weekend). The passage extols whom we understand Christ to be--firstborn, head of the church, etc. It's interesting how little of that bears on contemporary piety. It's not that some of us couldn't go through and talk about the Christology described here--we could, surely--but would anyone care? It doesn't seem very relevant. The teaching device here isn't nearly as poignant as the parables that Jesus seems to prefer, or the poetry of the psalms, or the insane details of Revelation. In other words, the style of this passage runs counter to most church life these days. If we are going to hear anything from it, we're going to have to work at it.
So I pick two small parts that have special relevance for us. The first is this bit about "in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell." What, exactly, does that mean? It's a pretty abstract image--God's full presence there in Jesus, and let's just never mind the heresy it seems to suggest about a fleshy outside, with a crunchy and delicious divine interior. Somewhere lurking in the the background is a theology connected to the temple, the arc, and the space between the cherubim--it's not that God isn't present elsewhere, it's that God is somehow especially present in this particular place, namely, Jesus.
But I think what strikes me about it is that God is 'pleased' to dwell there. Do we imagine, much, that Jesus is 'pleased' with our bodies, our physical selves? Go stand naked in front of a mirror and decide whether God would be pleased to dwell there. Is God pleased to dwell somewhere with stretch marks? How about love handles? Does God find much pleasure, which is what it means to be pleased, in me before I've brushed my teeth?
In other words, consciously and un-, we all secretly doubt that God likes bodies very much. They're either good as sex-objects on bulletin boards or properly hidden in stylish clothing. Or, depending on the koolaid we've had to drink, they're holy temples that are redeemed as such only by never doing anything normal and bodily--like balding, sagging, or growing old. And yet, in one of us, a Middle Eastern man of dubious parentage, a man we know didn't wear deodorant, and whose his feet were in desperate need of a pedicure--there God fully dwelt and was pleased to do so. Basically, my point is this: we all suck at recognizing the goodness in bodies. God seems to find them pleasurable anyway. Perhaps we need to revisit how we think about them. If God finds pleasure in them, perhaps we should, too, without trying to make them less like bodies.
And second, Jesus reconciles all things to himself through the blood of the cross. We often struggle with and hassle ourselves with the blood of the cross being a reconciliation--and that's fine. But I'm more interested in a throw-away line--reconciling "all things". Weird, if you pause to think about it. All things? Or more accurately, things?
Jesus' reconciliation happens for all things, which presumably includes but is not limited to: hydrogen, the orange seeds currently on my mouse pad, Herman Melville, grains of sand in Indonesia, Alpha Centauri (both the actual star and the video game), and my memory of how lemonade tastes. That is to say: all created reality is brought into this process of healing and growth through Jesus' work. That's the kind of king that Jesus is, the kind of king celebrated on Christ the King--a king who saves all not through a military campaign but through sacrifice, who reconciles every part of this created reality, including (presumably) those parts of reality about which we know nothing.
So: we are not different from this world, and it is all of it that has entered new relationship to God. If we think that's weird, it's probably because we fail to see our interconnectedness to this reality and dream, instead, that we are unique rather than blessed. And: when God, in Genesis, invites humanity to have dominion over the world, to be kings over the world, perhaps this is the kind of kingship God had in mind. We are not set apart from the world to dominate it; we are set here to exist in servanthood to it. Bluntly: global warming isn't a problem because it might affect our flourishing, although that might be true. Global warming is a problem because is shows that we've abdicated our throne for the hard seat of a petty tyrant, and the only difference between the world and a us is that we currently hold the conch shell.
