Rooted in the humility of Christ?

April 23, 2008
Colossians 2:16-23
“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idol notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belong to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!?” These are all destined to perish with use because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

On Monday evening, I sat with many of you at the Claude Broach Lectures and listened as Dr. James Howell, Senior Pastor of the Myers Park United Methodist Church spoke to us about a number of thoughts. Among them was the idea of rightness and as he spoke I could not help but hear a regular mantra of mine echo in my mind. “It is better to be kind than to be right.” I don’t always live by that mantra as my family will be the first to tell you and I’m not sure that the Apostle Paul ever fully lived by it himself.

This passage is testament to that fact. Paul is very straightforward here as he tries to set the Colossians straight. Some teachers had arisen in the community who were teaching such things as rigid dedication to strict dietary and sexual celibacy policies so as to grow closer to God. They taught that access to God would only come by using angels as their intermediaries and that only through an ascetic lifestyle that incorporated fasting would they ever be able to truly be seen as a worshipper of God or even enter God’s presence for that matter.
These were things that Paul couldn’t let slide—to him, at this juncture, being right rather than kind was imperative. In Paul’s view, these folks had best not miss the absence of one very crucial feature in the teachings of the cultists among them. That crucial feature was none other than Jesus Christ! Jesus is the one who was God’s tangible example of Godself. Jesus is the one who will be the mediator for God’s people. If Christ is the head of the church, then why should the church ever look to angels as intercessors?! For Paul, these teachers had gotten caught up in particularities and minutia (which is what liberal and conservative fundamentalists do!) and they had missed that the ultimate concern is really about the motives of our hearts. If we are really living faithful lives, we are dedicated to humble living. We are able to make ourselves subservient to Christ and to each other and in that subservience is where we live out God’s kindness. This, for Paul, was the ultimate indicator of true life in Christ.

If we believe that to be the case . . . if we agree with Paul, then I think we each must test ourselves. Does our religious perspective have its roots in the humility of Christ? Are we able to submit our lives to God? Are we able to offer submission to others as we interact with them and in what situations do we find ourselves expecting others to submit to us?
That phrase keeps echoing from my Monday evening thoughts—“It is better to be kind than right.” The Colossian teachers didn’t seem to be living by that lesson; Paul had to forego the lesson to get the Colossians back on the right track but the bottom line to his message is that if we make ourselves subservient to each other then we do so first out of our humility and submission to God in Christ and secondly out of our desire for kindness over rightness. Maybe this is our challenge—to become self-aware enough that we can submit ourselves to each other so as to practice God’s kindness and give up our need to be right. In so doing, we will find love. May we find that love this week! Amen.