Vicaring - A sermon resource for all those involved in Christian ministry

First Preached         22 July, 2001   Trinity 6

Colossians 1.15-28

Hands up all the Gemini’s  …..

The point is that we all know about these things. (I hope you understand that they are total rubbish) Nonetheless, they are part of our popular culture.

In the same way I was siting in a Tea Shop in Colchester and I saw this notice ’Working with your Guardian Angel.  Angels are having a boom time and in most cases this is not at all a Christian thing.

It might seem a long way from Colchester to the riots in Genoa, [At the time of this sermon the Meeting of the G8 leaders  at Genoa had seen particularly violent demonstrations] but there is a similar belief at work there. That the World is in the grip of unseen forces. In this case a demon by the name of ‘Globalisation’ who has possessed the leaders of the World and who must be cast out.

On one level Paul would not have quarrelled to much with that attitude. He believed in the reality of Spiritual forces. What would cause him to get upset was if these forces began to loom so large in peoples minds that they began to obscure God.

This was what was happening at Colossae. As far as one can judge those causing the trouble are proponents of what scholars now term Gnosticism. It is a vague term. Something like ‘New Age’ in our day – More a tendency than a unified movement but with certain defining characteristics.

The chief of these tendencies was to detach God from the World. Not simply in the Christian way, of making him glorious, transcendent and majestic, but by putting between him and the world a whole order of beings. God cannot touch the World, because the world and all matter is intrinsically evil. It exists not as God’s good creation, but as a misbegotten blob the property of malign Spirits.

What you have to do then to be saved is to know your way past these beastly beings. This is the knowledge (Gnosis) which Christ came to bring and to which they of course have access, while the rest of you poor plebes do not, so Yah boo sucks.

This teaching Paul refutes, not simply by saying, “What a load of old cobblers”  but by firmly re-establishing certain basic Christian beliefs. Re-establishing them but making them more clear cut and brilliant.

He says of  Christ in effect what John says at the start of his Gospel
² He was with God in the beginning.³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made John 1.2f

What Paul actually says is.
“¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  ¹⁶ For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Far from being detached from the world Christ came and dwelt in it. Not only dwelt here but died here, to save us not simply from a lack of esoteric knowledge but from the much more serious defect -Sin!

¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,  ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

And again:

²² But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Far from it taking a special knowledge to beat the system it requires only one simple trick. The humility to let yourself be forgiven.

Far from being distant absent and detached, the Christian God loves this world. Loved it into being as creator. Died to save it as redeemer.

So let me give you your Christian Horoscope. Virgo, Gemini, Leo and all other signs. The Earth is going round the Sun so the indications are that this week you will sin: Probably on Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Saturday and on Sunday driving to Church. However the Son has moved into the house of his Father so for everyone breathing this week there will be grace mercy and free forgiveness; just remember to confess your sins with humility and faith.

You are not a victim of blind fate you are a beloved child of your heavenly Father. Just remember the stars are a long way away, but Jesus Christ is closer to you than breathing

• Proper 11 C

First Preached         22^nd  July 2007        Trinity  7  (Proper 11 C )

Gen 18.1-10                :        Colossians 1.15-28   :        Luke 10.38-end

[Apologies these notes are unusually cryptic. I hope however that some of the allusions may be thought provoking. ]

Not do but be.

Be: Caught up in Christ. – in you the hope of glory. In Him Spotless.

And realise how magnificent a thing this is.

The attempts to diminish Jesus. We do have a very diminished comprehension.

A figure in history.

But for Paul [ Also particularly for John & Hebrews] history is in this figure. He is the centre, but also the beginning and the end of History.

So it is a farce to set him among other figures. At Colossae there were those who wanted to place him among angels. Today people would group him among other inspired leaders.

It is to miss the point. He is king of angels. More they owe their being to him.

There is no power that is not subject to his authority, and under his judgment.

The Barman Declaration: “We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords–areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.”[i]

Conforming to the way of the world leads to a false view of Christ. But trying to escape from it can have its own dangers. The religious mind loves subtlety for its own sake. The esoteric as intimacy with God.

For Jesus intimacy with God comes through loving your neigbour. And loving God. But not  from loving something in between.

That is the point. Jesus is the Way to the Father. He opens God up.

You are made in the Image of God. What you would you be like if you were God? -Like Jesus.

Jesus reveals the open heart of God,  the revelation of the Father.

He comes to bridge that gap. (Between what we were made to be and what we are)  To reconcile. No system does that. Not even the C of E! You really have to trust in Jesus to save you from the vicar.

All that is needed, is to acknowledge the need;  the alienation from God.

Our problem is our refusal to face up to sin. Our problem is the denial of the problem.

It should not be too hard to twig. The signs are all around us in our culture: The death of creative ideas. The efflorescing complexity; it reminds me of late Medieval Theology. The anxiety of our society.  The death of hope.

Christ in you the hope of Glory. The potential waiting to be realised. The new perspective on the world and its obsessions.

Above all the new perspective on yourself. Christ is in you and, “Neither height nor depth nor anything else  in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 8.39 

• Proper 11 C