“Glue, Gravity, Gumption and Guts”
Based on Colossians 1:15-20
Preached at the Stated Meeting
of Peace River Presbytery
First Presbyterian Church, Bonita Springs, Florida
May 24, 2012
By Rev. Graham P. Hart, General Presbyter
Preface - I come with a disclaimer and explanation – there
are more gifted preachers than I among us today; I know
because Sunday by Sunday as I visit congregations I hear
you and am grateful for your ministries of the word.
There are more gifted Biblical scholars among us today; I
know because several of you have helped me look at this
text.
There are more faithful disciples among us today who as
ruling elders work and pray and give witness to their faith
both inside and outside the church. I take my hat off to you
in gratitude for your faith and witness, the foundation on
which every pastor and the entire presbytery depend to do
our work.
But, having said that, I have a passion to serve the church
in a way that celebrates and recognizes that we are the
Body of Christ together… And I am grateful for the
invitation and opportunity to preach today.
The title of my sermon --- Glue, Gravity, Gumption and
Guts – refers to things or forces that hold stuff (including
ourselves) together. I would invite us to think today about
what or who ultimately holds life, including the church,
together.
We are living at a time when to some it appears that
everything is coming apart.
The economy is recovering for some, but, for the
millions out of work, it still feels like it is coming apart.
Presidential election year politics will use fear and
anger to plant seeds of doubt into our national psyche
to get us to believe that, if the other side is elected,
the world – our country – the economy is all going to
fall apart.
In the church, especially in the West, it may feel that
way as well… like it is all coming apart. Specifically,
o PCUSA lost almost half of its membership since
the 60’s. It feels like we are coming apart.
o The mainstream Presbyterian family over the
past 75 years has had three schisms, with a
small group of folks splitting off every 25 years or
so. First there was the OPC, then the PCA, then
the EPC, and now the ECO. It seems we are
coming apart.
o Most protestant churches except for one or two
Pentecostal variety churches have been in
decline – it seems we are coming apart.
o Sociologists of religion, students of the culture,
and recent surveys of the next generation are
telling us that Gen X-er’s and the millennial
generations (basically those under 40) like Jesus,
but the church, not so much.
o Again, it seems it is all coming apart.
It is in that context that the words of the Apostle Paul to
the Colossian church are so powerful for us. The context
to Colossians in some ways is similar to ours.
There were those who understood Jesus as important, but
not central. Jesus for them was in the same category as
Buddha, Mohammed, or Socrates. There were those in
Colossae who believed a cosmic drama was playing out,
and Jesus was just one of many emanations of the divine.
To that, Paul lifts up as magnificent a statement on the
purpose and work of Christ as there is in the New
Testament. Richard Deibert, as many of you know, did his
Ph.D. studies in New Testament at Cambridge. When I
was talking with him about this passage he said to me:
Paul reaches for the sublime in this hymn about Christ’s
divinity.
Christ is the visible Icon of God; Christ is the Source
and Goal of all created things; Christ pre-exists all
things and in Christ the existence of all things
coheres; Champion over death, Christ is the
beginning of all life, and therefore the organic Master
of those baptized into His resurrection, the Church;
Christ defines everything as the singular Point of
Reference; Christ shares the exact Essence of God
the Father; and because Christ unites divinity and
humanity, Christ unites everything in heaven and
earth, transfiguring our murderous violence into
eternal peace.
This is as grand a doctrinal slam dunk as there is in
the New Testament. Upon it everything else
depends. Lose sight of it for any reason and the Body
will eventually die.
The message of Paul to the church at Colossae is simple
and direct: When Christ is at the center, everything else
will be in its proper place.
Why? Paul in this great Christological hymn in verses 1520 affirms 3 essential points, which are as relevant and
applicable to us as a presbytery as they were then:
Christ holds creation itself together, even with all its
complexity.
Christ holds the church together, even with all its
divisions and debates.
Christ holds us in community together, even when we
think we have a better idea or path or direction or
answer than anyone else.
So what does that mean for us?
First, in this passage, this great and early hymn, Paul
affirms first and foremost that Christ holds creation itself
together, even with all its complexity.
The Bible translation The Message says it like this--- 15
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen.
We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in
everything created. 16 For everything, absolutely
everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank
after rank after rank of angels - everything got started in
him and finds its purpose in him. 17 He was there before
any of it came into existence and holds it all together right
up to this moment.
Christ is the agent of creation at the beginning as well as
the locus of God’s activity in the creation even now. Unlike
the deist who believes God, like a clock maker, wound up
creation and let the created order tick away on its own,
Paul is saying the one who made it all continues to be
present and at work in and through all. Christ is not just
one of many important people, or some emanation of the
divine; Christ is the divine force. And it is Christ who is the
glue and the gravity, who holds creation itself together.
Second, Christ holds the church together, even with our
debates. How? Paul says it simply and directly: Christ is
head of the church.
It is not our theological conversations or some esoteric
understanding that holds the church together. It is Christ.
It is not Paul’s or Apollo’s ideas, it is not our systematic
theology that saves us or the church. It is Christ.
As Protestants of the Presbyterian variety, somehow in
our DNA, the DNA that has been there since this
reformation project began over 500 years ago, we have
gotten it into our heads that we hold the church together.
Our belief system, our systematic categories, our
explanations, our particular understandings hold it
together…. Paul said, wrong answer… Christ holds all
things together, especially the church.
On a personal note: I was not always Presbyterian… my
religious DNA, at least from my grandparents stock would
make me ¼ Quaker, ¼ Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, ¼
German Lutheran or Baptist, and ¼ English Baptist. So
the question I might want to ask is what part of my
religious DNA got it right? What of those 4 very different
traditions do I need to follow?
Where in that mix is the way, the truth and the life?
Well, the church in which I was raised basically said that
my other grandparents got it wrong. I did not get this
message from my parents, but in sermons I heard that
somehow my Quaker side and my Presbyterian side were
in error. The result was there was only one true church in
town. My own wrestling match with all of that is a story for
another time and another day.
The problem with sectarian thinking, the issue with
thinking that my interpretation or our hermeneutic is
infallible and authoritative, is it creates a church that drives
us away from each other. Instead of Christ being the
center, our views are at the center, and when that
happens we stop being the church. Paul said it clearly:
Christ is the head of the church. Not our best ideas, or
even our best practices, only Christ.
Third, what happens to our sense of fellowship and
community when anything or anyone but Christ is put in
the center?
Tim Halverson shared a game he does with his youth
group. He invites everyone to get in a circle, and then walk
toward the center. As they do, he asks - what happens to
the space between yourself and the person next to you?
We are getting closer. Now back away from the center.
What happens? The space between us increases. That is
true for us. Come to Christ and we come closer to each
other, distance ourselves from Christ and we get farther
away from one another.
This is the short version of a longer story about how I
became Presbyterian.
After college, but before I had a sense of call to ministry
and went to seminary, I was asked to work with what
became my home church and start a ministry to reach out
to unchurched kids. Where do you begin? I invited 12 or
15 college-age students to join me for Friday night Bible
study, conversation, dinner and prayer. We gathered
weekly. Later, that group started a Christian Coffee House
that had between 35 and 200 youth every Friday and
Saturday night. Of the original group of college students,
half of us went on to become pastors, several married
pastors, and all became in their adult years active in
Presbyterian churches around the country. But the point I
want to share is the profound influence that group, that
time, and the first book we read together had on my life.
The book was Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was killed by the
Nazis just days prior to the end of WWII, wrote Life
Together for the underground reformed seminary that had
emerged in Germany during WWII. He had been asked to
lead it, and risked his life to come out of self-imposed exile
and go back to Germany. The book is a kind of a rule for
that community, but it became a great influence on my life.
In a chapter called A Day Together, Bonhoeffer writes that
it is only through Christ that we can have true fellowship
with one another.
Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in
Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than
this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or daily
fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We
belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
The unity of the community is in Christ, "Through him
alone do we have access to one another, joy in one
another, and fellowship with one another."
Christ and Christ alone is the way to true fellowship with
one another.
So back to the beginning, what/who holds together life
itself, the church, our fragile relationships with one
another? Christ….
Again in The Message it says it like this: 18 And when it
comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together,
like a head does a body. 19 So spacious is he, so roomy,
that everything of God finds its proper place in him without
crowding. 20 Not only that, but all the broken and
dislocated pieces of the universe - people and things,
animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in
vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that
poured down from the Cross.
It’s all about Christ … our center at the center. I think one
of our very real issues and challenges as a denomination
is we have forgotten Christ… risen, glorious, and
triumphant.
The problem may be the picture or architecture or art that
is in the front of the church… presbytery… denomination.
Who or what iconically represents the fullness of the
stature of Christ? What is in full display as people come to
worship? What is the focus?
Is it a lectern or pulpit where a preacher does most of the
talking?
Is it a picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, holding a
lamb?
Is it an empty cross?
Is there a pipe organ where in the Roman Catholic Church
there is an altar?
And I am not saying any of these are wrong, just that they
make a point and point a church in a certain direction.
For the past several years, I have been part of a learning
community of faith and practice. We gather for a week to
talk, present papers, share best practices we have learned
in our work and sometimes to share our worst mistakes.
The group meets at an ecumenical Benedictine
Community, and in their church, the Church of
Transformation, there is a 40-foot tile mosaic of a
triumphant Christ in the chancel. You will see the same
kind of iconic portrayal and art in many Orthodox churches
as well. I have wondered what it would be like for us as
Presbyterians to have a 40-foot mosaic of the triumphant
Christ peeking over our shoulders when we preach. I have
wondered if maybe that is part of the reason the Orthodox
tradition has had so few splits and schisms. Jesus, a
magnificent, triumphant Christ is front and center in most
Orthodox Churches.
The challenge (some might even say demon) of the
reformation is we have made our words, our intellect, our
particular nuance and parsing of scripture a supreme
goal… we debate and divide and debate some more… but
why? Because we have made our intellect and reasoning
supreme, and not Christ.
What was Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus? – that
we would grow up in every way into him who is the head,
into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit
together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as
each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth
in building itself up in love.
What was Jesus’ prayer for the church?
20
”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of
those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they
may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that
you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I
have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,
23
I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have
sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Jesus in his great and only prayer for the church, for us,
prays that the key to this whole enterprise called church,
the ecclesia, the ones called out and back into the world,
is to know Christ, to be so intertwined with Christ (I in
them, and you in me), that they become completely one.
Christ must be our center or it all comes apart.
Later this morning, we will be looking at a new
organizational structure. Let me be clear - that will not
save us - but the goal and hope is that we can create
space for us to be the Body of Christ together… where we
can intentionally and actively affirm and know Christ at the
center.
And when we do, we have a chance to be used by God
and useful in the church, but that can only happen if we,
like the early church, keep Christ at the Center.
… to the glory of God.