Captive, Condemned, Disqualified
10:30 am, Sun, July 24, 2022 - J G White / FBC
Amherst
(Psalm 85; Colossians
2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13)
The people seem more scared to ask me anything than I am to answer. Finally, one fellow does speak up. He asks a
question. A theological question. A bit of doctrine. It is a brief question he
asks me.
“Where is the new covenant?”
How would you answer that?
I fumbled some sort of answer. I felt,
in the moment, this man was looking for just the right, exact words from my mouth.
I had no idea what! (He probably wanted me to say something like, “The new
covenant is in the blood of Jesus.”)
We have plenty enough of ‘do this, don’t do that; believe this, don’t say
that’ in the history of Christianity without adding more rules. But we keep doing
it. And it ends up being a competition: “I’m right, you’ve got it wrong!” This will
not work.
Whatever false teachings were being spread in Colossae in the first century,
this letter to the Christians there encouraged them to let no one lead them astray
in their thinking, religion, or spirituality.
To be grounded, rooted deeply in Jesus the Christ, is the key to staying
on track. It says, here, 6 As you
therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, 7
rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were
taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Then the author gets into a pep talk, to
keep the readers on track. In the face of opposition and pressure to turn away from
their new Faith, they are told ‘let no one take you captive,’ ‘do not let anyone
condemn you,’ and ‘do not let anyone disqualify you.’
[Captive to thinking]
Still today, we need not let anyone take us captive through thoughts and
theories and the latest human ways of explaining life. We read here: 8 Watch out that no one takes you captive
through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to
the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
Watch out that no one takes you captive. Eugene Peterson retranslated it this way: Watch out of people who try to dazzle you with
big words and intellectual double-talk.
For me, it is about priorities. I like thinkers. I like theories. I don’t
ever come up with any of my own, but reading books and hearing people talk on lots
of ideas fascinates me. At my best moments, I pay attention to Jesus in the room.
When it is all said and done, my conversation must be with the Master. I wonder
about things with the wonderful Spirit.
This is our lesson for our world today. This is what we have to offer. A
deep Root to nourish us, that allows us to grow up and out and explore this thing
called life. That root is Christ; that Cornerstone is Jesus; that Source is the
Saviour.
I’m not sure what people on the street think of the One we worship in this
room. I need to be a bit more direct in asking folk. ‘What’s Jesus to you?’
A couple decades ago, Christian thinker, Dallas Willard, taught about
how smart Jesus Christ was and is. “There
is in our culture an uneasy relation between Jesus and intelligence,”
Willard wrote, “and I have actually heard
Christians respond to my statement that Jesus is the most intelligent man who
ever lived by saying that it is an oxymoron... Almost on one would consider him
to be a thinker...” (D. Willard, The Great Omission,
2006, p. 180)
Is Jesus the smartest person you know? Remember all the biblical language
about the Wisdom of God. I, for one, have so much yet to learn about being close
to Jesus and accessing the wisdom of God. We have this good news to offer our world
also. Yet it is shown best in our lives, not in our own talking.
One of the earliest
accounts of Francis [of Assisi], the “Legend of
Perugia,” quotes Francis as telling the first friars, “You only know as much as
you do.”
The early Franciscan
friars and Poor Clares wanted to be Gospel practitioners instead of merely
“word police,” “inspectors,” or “museum curators” as Pope Francis calls some
clergy. (R. Rohr May 29, 2017)
[Condemned by religion] Speaking of ‘word police’
or religion ‘inspectors,’ we must face the tradition of rules that sometimes overtakes
Faith. We know we must counteract the stereotype of Xianity as a legalistic, rule-filled
organization. We did earn this stereotype through our failures!
There has been many a joke told on Christians about how we won’t get along
or agree. Like: put two Baptists in a room, and you’ll get three opinions. We are
called upon to keep on showing how we do
get along, how we do agree to disagree
about some things. I must say you (at least, First Baptist) have a reputation for
being a wide variety of Christians who do get along, cooperate, and stay together.
Back in those earliest days of the Christian movement, we get hints of the
challenges those people faced. Colossians 2 says, at one point: 16 Therefore, do not let anyone condemn you in
matters of food or drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. 17
These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the body belongs to Christ.
The way Christians do their religion has not been just one way. We have such variety!
Not all of it, good, of course. Here, we continue to have the challenge of learning
to be practicing Christians, without being corrected all the time, and without criticizing
other believers every week.
I’ll tell a story on a fellow I know, far from here. He is a Christian, and
I got to know him from hiking trips we were on together, and when he joined a Bible
study group I led. In person, in the study group, he was interesting and pleasant.
On social media, though, the posts he shared were often direct in condemning others...
correcting Christians for getting all sorts of details wrong.
My friend would share things on Facebook regularly about the real name of
Jesus – what we should be saying (and
how to spell it). For instance:
Not Jesus, not Yahshua, not Yahushua,
BUT Yahusha!!!!!
Acts 4:12 Neither is
there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved.
I’m not sure where this teaching came from, but this dear fellow was always
sharing things like this. And things about Sunday not being the Sabbath, and Christmas
being a pagan festival, and so forth. Here’s another example from online:
Keeping a weekly
Sabbath is a sign, that you are still under the law and you need to be born
again. Will you enter into His rest? And, cease from your works
I have not much patience for this kind of religious teaching; but I have
all the patience in the world for my friend who posted this online. When Jesus is
in us, inspiring us to be patient with others, we will show our world that true
religion is uniting, not dividing people. As I usually say, religion, at its best,
is a way people share spirituality. The Church is a gift from God.
Spiritual teacher, Richard Rohr, says: We can’t risk walking around with a negative, resentful, gossipy,
critical mind, because then we won’t be in our true force field. We won’t be
usable instruments for God. That’s why Jesus commanded us to love. It’s that
urgent. It’s that crucial. (Richard Rohr, Oct 30, 18)
[Disqualified for spiritual
practices] A third and final phrase I want to draw out from Col. 2 is, I think, about
personal spirituality. This long sentence: 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and
worship of angels, initiatory visions, puffed up without cause by a human way
of thinking, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body,
nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with a growth
that is from God.
Whatever all these things were like, 2000 years ago, they seem to be about
personal spiritual practices. Again, here’s Eugene Peterson’s take on this: Don’t tolerate people who try to run your
life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession
with angels and that you seek out visions.
You will learn, in time, that I am a lover of spiritual disciplines, or spiritual
practices – whatever we want to call them. At least, I have loved learning about
them and exploring them. I just have not got good at actually fasting, meditating,
being in solitude, memorizing scripture, or just praying, for that matter. There
are many forms of prayer and devotion, and so many of us miss out on a lot. But
let us not be known for being harsh with others when it comes to how they pray or
worship, or however else they spend quality time with God.
I looked back this week into Richard Foster’s book on prayer, with twenty-one
chapters for twenty-one types of prayer. I like his imagery here, in the first chapter,
called ‘Simple Prayer.’
What I am trying to say
is that God receives us just as we are and accepts our prayers just as they are.
In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot
offer a bad prayer. (Foster, 1992 Prayer, p.9)
Then, like a child artist, we develop our praying through life, we don’t
stay with crayons and finger paints. There is so far we can go. Christian meditation,
lectio divina, pilgrimage, prayer without words.
And yet, there is something to be said for crayons, and finger painting.
Simple prayer and Bible reading are not to be judged; they have their place in our
lives. The riches of the Christian tradition are ours to offer the world, and Christ
is with us - starting with the simplest of prayers.
We have some help to offer. To offer the people of Amherst, and
Cumberland County, and the world. A person need not be captive, condemned, or
disqualified, for their thinking, their religious life, their spirituality.
There is a Way, a path of grace. Keep on doing what you are doing.
In a world of critics, be an encourager. Christ develops such kind grace
in us.
In a world of fears, be confident. Christ lovingly draws us together.
In a world of a million confusing choices, choose to be faithful. Christ
powerfully is present in Spirit.
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