When I was a young boy, my dream was to play first base for the Boston Red Sox. I am certain I was not the only boy to have this dream, but I was absolutely sure that it would happen. I remember the first time my father took me to Fenway Park. Coming up the ramp and seeing the field for the first time was an amazing experience. This was back in an era when you could still talk with the players and get autographs. I was immensely proud of the Carlton Fisk autograph I had on my glove. Baseball was a big part of my youth and it was clear to me that this was what I would do with my life.
There were a few problems, however. I was short, pudgy, had no athletic ability, and was not fond of practicing. While these didn’t seem to be significant to my 8-year-old self, I eventually came to realize that these were what could politely be called “limiting factors”. As my fledgling
baseball career progressed, I went from first base to right field, and eventually, to the bench. It was now clear, even to me, that I just did not have the gifts and skills needed for the game, and that was the end of my big-league aspirations.
I had learned a lesson that we all face sooner or later; that simply wanting something was not enough. You had to have the right mix of gifts, skills, tenacity and luck. Without these, it is not reasonable to believe you will achieve your goal.
Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians against a backdrop of challenges. Colossae was a bit of a melting pot of cultures and religions. It was a merchant city, so it attracted people from all over the known world. Paul had spent time there preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and a church
was established. But after he left, controversy arose. There were some in the city who were Gnostics, and they had a very different view of God than the Christians.
The Gnostics held beliefs that we would consider strange. Chief among them was that the body, indeed the entire world, is corrupt and that only the spirit truly exists. They believed that all matter is evil and only the spirit has the capacity to be good. We can never really know God, they said, that God is so far removed from our experience, that the gulf between us is just too vast. But a select few, those with the spiritual purity, would be granted the “gnosis”, the secret knowledge of the nature of God, and to them, and only to them, would salvation belong.
It would seem the Gnostics well understood my plight in aiming for a career in major league baseball. For they believed that only those gifted with a higher level of spiritual purity would be able to attain the secret knowledge that would allow for a relationship with God. It was not enough to simply want a relationship with God. Absent these special gifts of wisdom and
spiritual understanding a person could never attain such a goal.
The Colossian Christians are in a quandary after Paul leaves as the Gnostics keep telling them that the gospel is false and that only the spiritual elect have any hope. They write to Paul for guidance and what we have in today’s epistle is Paul’s answers.
“ This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardlessof their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.”
Paul is having none of this Gnostic exclusionism. He tells them that while it may have been a secret at one time, Jesus revealed the secret. And revealed it not just to the elite, or the unusually gifted, or just the ones who could hit a curve ball, but to everyone. “God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing.” Paul is reminding them, and us, that God is not Lord of just a few, but of ALL. There are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God.
To the Jews, this was heresy! They are the chosen people and they alone have a special relationship with God. Paul tells them, no dice. God is Lord of all; Jew and gentile, slave and free, man and woman, black and white, straight and gay, democrat and republican, and any other division you can name. God is God of all, with NO exceptions.
And the secret? “The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple.” We need no special gifts. We are each of us created in the image of God and a relationship with God is possible for each one of us.
So if there are no barriers to a relationship with God, how do we start? We begin by doing what you have already done; you come to worship. We read the scripture, hear from a preacher, and share communion. This is a good way to begin, but it is not enough. For to deepen a relationship with God, we need to study his words and deeds. As Paul tells us, “we teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity.” This is a group effort and it takes all of us working together. Just like we come together to worship, we enrich our journey to maturity when we study together. We study together and we learn from one another as we deepen our relationship with God.
That is why we have so many opportunities at Epiphany to do just that. The Faith Matters forum each Sunday morning is not a lecture, but a guided discussion on the gospel where the group sets the tone of the conversation. The reflection ministry is a group of motivated parishioners writing their thoughts and emailing them for us to ponder. The Kerygma class involves individual study and individual preparation, followed by small and large group conversation. It is this bringing together of different voices and ideas that has the capacity to feed us.
When we do these things, we exercise those spiritual muscles and draw closer to that maturity and deeper relationship that we seek. We too can play in the big leagues, for unlike my baseball ambitions, everyone can be part of this dream. No special skills are required.