Resisting Thought Colossians 2:1-23

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1 Garrett Vickrey Pentecost 9+ Resisting Thought Colossians 2:1-23 Woodland Baptist Church San Antonio, TX The ancient Greek philosopher Plato once said, Make this life a training for death separating the soul from the body as far as possible this is the practice of philosophy. 1 I don t think Paul had Plato in mind when he talks about hollow and deceitful philosophy. Paul has in mind resisting popular dogmas and systems of thought that dehumanize the self or others. The wisdom of the world after all is relational. Putting your philosophies over people isn t principle it s hollow pomp. The practice of our faith isn t about separating body and soul; our faith is about being union and wholeness. Finding wholeness within ourselves and union with others. The idea of separating body and soul runs counter to what we hear from Paul in Colossians, and indeed, anywhere Paul talks about baptism. Baptism is like a second step in incarnation. We are buried with Christ in baptism and raised through faith in the working of God. Not only does God love us so much that God sent the Son, but through baptism God works through the life of the church that which God worked in the life of Jesus. Wisdom doesn t come from within, but it comes from being drawn into the one from whom all the came Jesus, the first born of creation. This changes everything. Colossians 2 suggestions it circumcises your uncircumcision. There s no need to beat yourself up. No need to justify yourself through ritual action. You are loved first. And out of that love we learn the way to walk in the way of Christ. For Paul, Christ changes everything. The foundation of the universe is not something it is someone. The philosophy of learning to relate to that someone is what we call discipleship. This is what we do as a church. We help each other examine our patterns of thought so that we might find renewal in our hearts and minds. We are each philosophers. Yes, philosophy is not the most lucrative of callings. But, it s a critical part of discipleship examining our faith. There s an old joke about college 1

2 graduates with philosophy degrees.the engineer asks how can I build that? the scientist asks how does it work? and the philosopher asks do you want fries with that? Did you hear about the philosophers who died at a picnic? They began to discuss the meal and starved to death. The early Christians were deeply influenced by philosophy. Stoicism, Gnosticism, Epicureanism and Platonism were all competing schools of thought around the time the New Testament was written. All these philosophies represent an ideal form of life defined by an ideal form of wisdom. Most of them believed that wisdom was unlocked from the inside. All these schools had master teachers with disciples who studied. They would read texts that were essentially sacred readings for them. They would meditate on the readings daily. They would gather to read together and discuss. These schools of philosophy relied on many of the spiritual practices that we still do today. They thought that through reading and reflection one might cultivate an awareness of wisdom planted deep within. By connecting to that wisdom they would find fulfillment and happiness in the mist of a crazy world. These schools of philosophy had a great effect on early Christian understanding of prayer. The belief that through prayer and reading scripture we might be transformed through the working of the Holy Spirit was something that would not have been foreign (completely) to that group of Christians at Colossae. At the same time, philosophy was seen as a threat to society. The spiritual practices of the philosophers implied a reversal of received ideas. They didn t just go with the flow. They turned to alternative virtues contemplation, simplicity, gratitude at existence. For us, alternative virtues like this must be developed by patterns of thought and practice that allow the Holy Spirit to do its work in us. In her book The Closter Walk, author Kathleen Norris says that the life of prayer works "the earth of the heart," she means that prayer is like the act of cultivation. In order to work the soil, one must break up the hardened dirt clods, water the ground, free it from weeds and then plant a crop. Prayer is the way to "loosen up" the heart. During the natural course of our lives the "earth of our hearts" becomes parched, weedinfested and hard as flint. Unless 2

3 we take care to break it up to run our fingers again through the rich soil that we know is there, our lives become as destitute and as desiccated as a desert. That hard earth needs to be loosened through life in community worshipping, serving, praying, and learning together. We need the challenge of multiple perspectives on scripture. We need the broad vision diverse life experiences provide. We need each other to be the body of Christ united in the one from whom all wisdom flows. We find wholeness together. We find God in that wholeness, after all the bible reminds us that God is holy and dwells in holiness. Sometimes deceitful and hollow philosophy is learned in church. Sometimes patterns of inherited thought blind us from seeing what God wants to show us. For the Colossians they could not get beyond their own preconceptions to understand that God really was fully present in Jesus. What ideological residues keep us chained to yesterday s faith? Carlyle Marney once told a story about being in Buenos Aires, Argentina years ago. On the streets their were these huge horses used to drag unbelievable loads in enormous wagons. The horses were always heavily harnessed, heavily loaded, beautifully groomed, bountifully fed, but they had the narrowest set of blinders that would fit. Blinders are patches of leather worn alongside the eyes to keep the animals from being diverted by things that are not directly ahead. These huge animals with the blinders pulled tightly over their eyes come to an intersection, hauling these mammoths loads behind them with their harness straps tight, bells jingling, trotting in a kind of lockstep. there were no traffic lights at the time. Yet, these mammoth animals with a load behind them would move into eight lanes of traffic without batting an eye pull right straight through the street no pause, no hesitancy, no looking right or left they just move out into the traffic, majestically. Brakes screech, traffic piles up, people curse, taxi drivers jump out yelling. There was a law in Argentina that prohibits hitting a horse. And so the wagon drivers just push there horses out into traffic. The horses knew there was another world out there; they could hear it, they could smell, but the 3

4 couldn t see it. They just knew the traffic would stop. 2 Some of us probably know people who live like this. Some of us might be like this ourselves. Afraid to ask questions. Afraid of the world beyond our preconceptions. Blinders on tight. Only looking at what we know. Afraid to learn. Afraid to grow. For some, resistant to thought, this is the goal of Christian discipleship. To place the cross over our eyes and ignore the outside world. To focus so much on the spirit that we separate body and soul. This is hollow philosophy. In 1632, Galileo published his work concerning the revolution of the earth around the sun. At the time this, the Copernican Theory, was controversial. Galileo s work was a discussion among three people: one who supports Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the universe, one who argues against it, and one who is neutral. The work was supposed to present an unbiased view, but the argument in favor of Aristotle s theory that the sun revolves around the earth came off looking like ignorant. So Galileo was punished by the Church for this dangerous ideology. The Church decided his theory was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture. 3 Galileo was forced to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. Back then and even today, people of good faith sometimes choose to keep their blinders on tight and ignore the implications of what we re learning. Resisting thought and discovery in our faith reveals hollow faith. God is big enough to stand up to are greatest questions. The question for us is whether or not we are willing to walk in wonder and live with mystery, or do we demand a faith we can master? In Jesus day, rabbis would gather around with their disciples and with other rabbis for study and debate. They believed that the highest form of worship was study and that true study always leads to wonder. Where did we lose our sense of wonder as a goal of our study? Perhaps we are too quick to spend all our time claiming the victory of Jesus instead of contemplating the wonder of incarnation. Wonder begins with observation watching, waiting, and most of all listening. 4

5 I was sitting next to a man in a coffee shop the other day who was meeting with another man from church. I know they were friends from church because they were talking about committees. The first man said to the other, after he had prayed, that he liked to talk because he can t hear well. If he s talking he knows he can hear the conversation. If he s not, he knows he might be missing something. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he s still missing something. You miss something by talking all the time. You miss the opportunity to find out your wrong. And finding out your wrong is the only way to growth. You can only grow at the edges. At your limits is where you find growth. It may be painful; it might hurt your pride. But, that s just growing pains. Now more than ever is the most important time to practice contemplation and discernment during an election year. You can t contemplate with your mouth flapping. You can t discern without listening. And just because you listen doesn t mean you discern. Discernment is a spiritual practice and those kinds of practices need to be well, practiced. In election season politicians are eager to get the Christian stamp of approval. Christians become just another interest group to appease. This is the importance of one of my favorite quotes I ve shared with you a few times from theologian Karl Barth who said, The gospel is not a truth among truths, but hangs a question mark above all truth. We need to question why and how faith is used in politics. There are always those who are eager to hang the gospel truth alongside other truths. But, the gospel is meant to be the means by which we judge what true justice is. It s how we know true peace. It s how we know true compassion. It s how we understand true humility and grace and freedom. That s why we refuse to fall in line with easy assumptions; with ideologies that demand ultimate loyalty. That kind of fidelity is God s alone. The colossians were not the only ones surrounded by philosophies that claimed ultimate importance. Everyday, everywhere we turn there is a knew claim on wisdom. Eat this. Do this. Read that. Don t believe what he says. Buy this now. Forget them. With all these claims for division where do we find wholeness? Were do we find encouragement? 5

6 Paul s message here may actually be more simple than we think find union in love because that s where wisdom is found. Plato s philosophy and much of the philosophies of the day espoused separation and division. Divide the soul from the flesh, separate from the unrighteous people around you. But, the God of Jesus is different. Our God is about wholeness, the root meaning of holy. Our God draws us toward union in love. Our God unites heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, righteous and unrighteous. Find union in love because that s where wisdom is found. That s a philosophy with depth. It s a philosophy for life. It s a philosophy of good news. 6

7 1 Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, trans. Michael Chase, Ed. Arnold I. Davidson, (Blackwell, Malden, MA: 1995) Carlyle Marney, Beggars in Velvet, (Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN: 1960) Hannam, James (2011). The Genesis of Science. pp