Luke 12:32-40 Rev. Paul M. Burns

Take A Deep Breath

Psalm 1 August 19, 2007

Colossians 3:1-17

When I was a boy (a few weeks ago I think) I thought the Letter to the Colossians was the Letter to the Galoshes. It turns out that I might not have been totally wrong. The Colossians were trying to insulate themselves from the rest of the world. They didn’t want to get their feet wet. They wanted to try to create a small world that they could keep all nice and neat and dry. No mud puddles. No messiness. But when you live in bodies of flesh life is just messy.

In the climax of this amazing letter that Paul has written, he shows the church how we can live in this world of flesh and matter in a heavenly way. Not up in the clouds, but down here where life is lived, and people have needs. Where we get not just our feet, but also our whole self wet.

Paul writes that if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. This is easily misinterpreted as escaping this world and simply sitting around pondering on holy things. Paul though is fighting this very attitude in the church: a separation from the world of matter and flesh and the world of the spirit. Paul is challenging the community to seek what has already entered this world in Christ. The right hand of God is not up on a cloud far away. It is here. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is near. It is arriving.

In verse 2 he writes “Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” The word translated as set your mind has an unusual history. It comes from the word for diaphragm as in the part of your gut that helps you breath. It was thought that the diaphragm was the seat of both the intellect and the soul. We separate them out as in the head and the heart. 3000 years ago they were together. This fleshly body part was connected with spiritual activity. In fact the word for Spirit can also be translated as breath. People considered the physical activity of breathing to be also spiritual. However, over time this word became associated purely with the intellect. It lost both its fleshly nature and its spiritual nature.

Eventually, it began to be used as pride, arrogance, lack of understanding, to think meanly, or at best presumptuous cleverness. By the time Paul came along, it had strayed far from its excellent root. However, he uses the word here to call the church back. As we begin to separate the spirit from the body and the intellect from the spirit we lose the positive use of all three. Our spirit and our flesh become imprisoned by our intellect, which can only choose what seems to make the most sense, which of course benefits us first and foremost. We become prideful and arrogant. We treat others meanly. The things on earth that Paul speaks of are not the reality they are an aberration normalized. These earthly things are rotting and we are so used to the smell that we don’t even recognize it anymore.

Why? Because we are not breathing from our diaphragm, our inmost part where we are rooted to Christ. Often we are not connecting our way living with our spirit. In college I studied the art of singing. The key to singing is all in the breath. If you take shallow breaths from the very top of your chest you will produce an airy shallow sound. You won’t be able to sustain your voice through a phrase of words. There’s- a – sweet- sweet- spirit- in – this –place. To produce a full and sustained sound you must breath from your diaphragm…from the deepest area of your torso. Set your minds on things from above. Breathe deeply from your inmost part of the things from above. Do not live shallowly from earthly things.

Paul gives us a list of earthly things, ways we tend to live when we only take shallow breaths: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. He challenges the church to put these things to death. These are ways of shallow living. All of these ways stem from the disconnect between spirit, and body. Our spirit seeks intimacy with another person, but our body does not hear the request. The need is felt, but the response is purely sexual or purely self-serving. We often seek to fill the spiritual need with only the body. In the process we do not fill the true need and at the same time use another person. So neither person has this need filled. This alienation leads us to objectify everyone. People become commodities that we use and we also become a commodity. This impersonal, shallow way of treating people makes it easy for sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness to become the foul air that we breath. We cease to breath deeply because of these toxic fumes.

But Paul tells us to put away these shallow things. The phrase put them all away makes me think of last week’s putting off the old flesh. But it comes from a different word. It is used in reference to cleaning off dirt. Paul is speaking here of baptism. In baptism all this filth is washed away. However, it is in the form of continuous action. In this world one washing is not enough. Our spirit only needs it once. However, if you only took one shower and expected it too last forever you and everyone around you would be sorely disappointed. We must regularly cleanse our flesh, our humanness. We must regularly confess our sins and accept the forgiveness that never ceases. When we become Christians we often believe that sin is now in our past. When we sin again we worry that maybe we aren’t really Christians, that maybe the baptism didn’t take.

Paul has already assured us over the permanence of our baptism. We have been permanently rooted in Christ and establish in the kingdom of Heaven. But we are living in a process and we still need daily cleansing.

Cleansing requires that we get our feet wet, our whole self wet. It’s messy, though. Sometimes its muddy and bloody, but we must go through it in order to reunited with our true self. But who is our true self and how to we get to the person?

Paul tells us that in our baptism we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of the creator. This word knowledge is different from knowing information. It refers to intimacy. It is the kind of knowing like when we know someone. It doesn’t mean knowing a collection of facts about a person. It is a connection a relationship. To know someone is to be known. Knowing someone always changes us. When two people live together for along time they tend to become more like the other. We begin to speak like each other. We begin to adapt similar tastes. This knowing must correspond with loving though. When we love someone we appreciate that person and we want to share that person’s way of living.

Paul tells us that in knowing the image of our creator, who is Jesus Christ, we are renewed in that image. We are made more like him. We begin to speak like him and act like him. But this does not make us who we are not. It’s just that we cease to be defined by the old categories: white and black, conservative and liberal, presbyterian and baptist, straight and gay, employed and unemployed, healthy and ill. These categories by be true but they are only temporary and they are not how we ultimate define ourselves any more. Christ takes our old self and begins to restore us to our true self. And that true self is modeled after Christ. We don’t lose our uniqueness, though. In fact we become more us than we ever were. I become Paulier. Earl becomes even Earlier if that is possible. Genesis tells us that we were originally made in God’s image. But as we have allowed our humanity to lose its spirit we have become less us.

But this true self being renewed in God’s image in Christ has been hidden in Christ. It is being kept safe from corruption. It is being held in trust at the First National Bank of Heaven. It pays wonderful dividends while we are on earth like compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Thankfully we can’t get our hands on it now. We would sure squander every bit of it. Christ is our trustee. He saves us even from ourselves. So he hides us until that day when we stand with him in glory before God holy and blameless and irreproachable.

There is a way to tap into this true self, though. Paul writes that Christ is all and is in all. Here we have a statement that is probably too big to grasp: Christ is all and in all. Christ by entering into human flesh became a partner to all flesh. He became the every man so to speak. He is the fullness of all humanity. He is not just an example of a good guy. He is a fully realized human being and therefore Christ represents the potential of all people. When Paul says he is in all, I believe he is referring to the image of God that has been stamped on the souls of all people however obscure that image may be.

So…if we are hidden in Christ and Christ is in us then our true self is somewhere deep in our inmost parts. To reach it we must breath deeply. Two excellent breathing exercises are prayer and the study of scripture. Prayer attunes us to God whose image resides deep within us giving us a reflection of himself. As we learn to breath in prayer we begin to know God, not in an informational way but in a deep intimate way. In scripture we encounter God in history, in his relationship with our ancestors of faith. We see the potential of that relationship. In reading the gospels we see Jesus Christ in whom both the fullness of God and our own fullness reside. We see spirit connected with flesh at its very best.

But there is yet a third way of learning to breathe. If Christ is in all, and we are to seek Christ then we must seek him in others. We must seek to breath in the Christ that lives in others, for in others we find what is missing in ourselves. Our own identity is caught up in all of creation. To separate oneself from it is to separate one from the true self, which is Christ the fullness of God.

It may seem actually a little self-serving to meet others just to know ourselves better, but there is an important element that needs to be added. Paul charges us in bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven, so you also must forgive. This word translated as forgive is generally translated as forgive, cancel or pardon. However, it literally means give graciously, freely. You might recognize the root Karis, gift or free. You might also recognize another form charisma, attractive or gifted or literally a gift. Caring. Same root. God cares for us and therefore gives graciously to us. As we are renewed in his image we then care, which means we forgive, not out of an obligation as much as out of the natural restoration of our hearts. It is our true nature to forgive, to give, to care. It is human to care.

And this is love which is the bond everything creating perfect harmony. Love is not a feeling so much a connection. It is charismatic. It is attractive. It pulls people together. It is a gift. It is to be given. Where there is the bond of love forgiveness comes more easily. Where there is the bond of love we work together. Where there is the bond of love there is our true nature and it is dependent on being with others. We can never be our true self in isolation. It can only happen in relationship with others where love pulls us. This attraction always seeks to widen its circle it is never satisfied until all things are pulled together in perfect harmony. If this church ceases to widen itself then we are fighting against the bond of love. It is pulling us out into a larger community. It is blurring the identities that we use to judge others. In fact our true identity which is hidden in Christ will only be manifested in the completion of God’s will to join all people together. Our identity is tied up in others. Each person holds a piece of who we are. As we truly seek to know others we become more us and less them. More we and less me. More heavenly and less earthly. Go find yourself!

Only then will the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. So take a deep breath…