In Him all things hold together
It is easy to choose certain Bible verses that reinforce our preconceived notions about the worthiness of other people, yet the Spirit hopes that our lives are transformed to see all of creation held in God’s embrace. How can our practice of faith nurture a more inclusive vision in our lives, so that our lives are patterned more fully on the life of Jesus Christ?
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
Glimpses of Grace on Spotify
Transcript
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There are copies of these. Just for what it’s worth. There in the back on that little column. As we keep this conversation going over the summer and looking toward to the Fall with some really rich spaces that we’ll have a chance to look at together.
When I was a child, I think back to being in Sunday school and in other places, and being encouraged to memorize Bible verses. It was a favorite pastime, apparently, of the church where I went, and we would have contests to see who could memorize the most, and there would be prizes to motivate us. And there’s nothing like stirring up some good, healthy competition among children early on.Even when it comes to our faith.
When I think back on those days, I remember that there were only key Bible verses that were on the list of those that we would memorize. Mainly they were from what we would call the Roman road, and those who grew up in a Baptist background have walked that road many times in their lives.
It’s a series of verses from the Book of Romans that laid out humanity’s sinful condition, our need to turn to Jesus for salvation, and the promise that God made in Christ to save us. Those were the main ones that we would memorize each year.
As I got older, I realized two things.
The first is that we choose the verses that reinforce or validate our already formed theological and ethical opinions. Choices are made to focus on some verses while ignoring others that don’t fit with our way of interpreting the world. This is one reason why I appreciate that we have a lectionary cycle in the Episcopal Church that gives us our readings each week, because it challenges us to wrestle.
The second thing that I realized was that by focusing on some verses in the Bible at the exclusion of others, we arrive at a much different place in terms of how we understand ourselves and the source of life. This is why I’m very suspicious when anyone tells me, “the Bible says…” when laying out an argument, because the Bible says a lot of things. Our call is to engage with the text, to wrestle, and to stretch our imaginative muscles, and somehow, in the midst of all of that, to trust that the Spirit is at work throughout that process, transforming our lives.
Today’s text from the Book of Colossians was never on our list of verses to be memorized as a child, but it has become a foundational one for me. The image that it lays out challenges and transforms our vision of ourselves and the entire creation. We all have a list, if we’re honest. We all have a list of the verses that we go back to, and this text is on the top of my list. And it’s the way that I see the world.
Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
With this image, we don’t begin with some statement about our sinful condition and our need to move somewhere else, as it were, in order to experience salvation. Rather, we begin with an image of universal connection and the Divine Presence permeating all existence. We begin with the Divine vision.
In Him all things hold together.
It’s an image that challenges us to see God’s embrace as all encompassing – especially in times such as these that encourage categorizing and dismissing certain people.
I thought of an incredible poem by a 15th century Sufi Muslim named Zeynep Hatun from Turkey. Not much is known about her life, but we do have a few of her poems which are extraordinary in their mystical depth. Here is one that I have taped by our kitchen sink so that I can keep memorizing it.
I am a fountain, You are my water.
I flow from You to You.
I am an eye, You are my light.
I look from You to You.
You are neither my right nor my left.
You are my foot and my arm as well.
I am a traveler, You are my road.
I go from You to You
(trans. By Murat Yagan, in This Dance of Bliss, edited by Ivan M Granger)
Her poem resonates with this image from Colossians, and it echoes with the mystics throughout time who have all emphasized God’s all embracing presence in life. God is the source of all life. And Colossians imagines Christ as the connecting principle, the creative force, and the Word of God that infuses all of life through the Spirit’s breath and flow.
Now, some may read or hear this and immediately think or say “yes, but other verses say this or that.” And that is a true statement. Other verses do say this or that. Other verses in the Bible may seem to contradict the statement that God embraces everyone. You may find other verses that seem to say that only a select few are truly chosen by God, with others being seen as less worthy at best. Some verses in the Bible seem to give warrant to killing entire groups of people who don’t believe the same way that you do. There are a lot of complex stories in the collection of texts that we call the Bible.
For those who may assert that there are other verses, my question to you would be this: why do you feel the need to find those texts that validate opinions you have about the worthiness of other people? What is your motivation in seeking out verses that seem to exclude and judge? Why have you chosen the verses you have, to focus on those?
I told someone the other day in my office that I no longer want to play the game of countering some Bible verses with others. I no longer want to feel like I have to keep my set list of Bible verses in my pocket, so that I can pull them out at a moment’s notice, as we all feel that way from time to time, to serve as a counterpoint to the chosen verses of someone else. And we keep putting those cards on the table until one of us has the last one. It feels like a cynical game, and it’s a shallow way to practice our faith.
I think I want to look toward the life of Christ himself, to see how he actually lived, and then do my level best to change the way that I live, so that my life is patterned on his life. That’s the lodestar of my vocational identity and any theological claims that I make. And when I look at the life of Jesus, I see his constant desire to reach out across social, political, and religious boundaries to learn something about other people. Jesus was curious about other people in their lives. He was not judgmental. He wanted to meet them, hear from them, and help them see the healing presence of God within them. He was appreciative of them, and he embraced them in their struggle.
He quoted the prophets and the Psalms often, and he always reminded people that God’s presence is a transforming presence that seeks to transform the way, to change the way we live in our world. Look at this morning’s reading from Amos, and feel how it makes us squirm. And if you think this is bad, just wait till next week. That deep prophetic imagination challenges the way we live in the world, and because of that, we struggle with the prophets and we prefer to keep them at arm’s length.
Or this morning’s Psalm, with its tense images or the Gospel text, and the way that Jesus challenges Martha to change the way she sees life. And as an aside, how many of us, when we read that text, suddenly become very imaginative and start finding ways to twist what Jesus says to Martha into something that actually reinforces the way that we live in the world. “Well, he didn’t mean that.” We don’t like engaging with texts that challenge the assumptions we have made. It’s the same reason we ignore so much of what Jesus actually teaches, and how he lived, in favor of choosing verses that seem to support excluding and judging.
In Him, all things hold together.
I am a fountain, You are my water.
I flow from you to you.
I am an eye, You are my light.
I look from you to you.
You are neither my right nor my left.
You are my foot and my arm as well.
I am a traveler, You are my road.
I go from you to you.
These are profound and challenging images. And we can also hear the same claim in the prologue to the Gospel of John:
All things were made by Him and without Him not one thing was made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all people.
So what does it mean to celebrate that God holds all things? That God embraces all things? How does that change the way we live in the world, the way we act and the choices we make? How are we convicted in the way we may have cast judgments against certain people whom we see as “other?”
Allow me to leave you with this guided meditation that you can take with you throughout this week. It’s a way to visualize this all-embracing presence of God in our lives. It’s a translation of a Buddhist practice called Metta. So if you will simply sit up a bit straighter with your feet on the floor. And gently close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath.
Notice for just a few breaths how you can settle into yourself, paying attention to any sensing of relaxation as you ground yourself in the presence of Christ in your heart.
Now gently visualize in your mind a golden circle drawn out on the floor. You can see the circle as you take your place, standing on it.
And as you look to your right, you see someone you love. Someone appears in front of you, taking their place on the circle.
And as you look to your left, you see a stranger or someone you don’t know well. Perhaps that someone you saw this morning at the store or at someone here that you said good morning to but don’t really know yet. But they appear here with you, taking their place on the circle.
And now across from you, you see someone, to put it mildly, that you don’t like. Someone you don’t care for. Perhaps that someone who you consider an “other.” Someone you struggle with. Perhaps it surprises you who appears there, but there they are. And they take their place on the circle.
Everyone is here, and perhaps you can envision the circle expanding larger and larger, so that more and more people take their place on it. Everyone standing, having a place, everyone being held in that circle.
Perhaps this is a way we can pray for someone when we can’t imagine how we can possibly do so. To simply visualize them standing in the circle as well, and to trust that all is being held by God’s presence.