Who We Are Together--December 28, 2020

Who We Are Together--December 28, 2020

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:  Grace to you and peace from God our Father." [Colossians 1:1-2]

We are all stuck with each other... because God has chosen to stick with all of us.

Before we go any further into this New Testament letter, we should say that much.  We are all inextricably connected to each other, all the way down to our deepest sense of identity.  We are beings-in-relationship--and that much seems to be fundamental to being human. 

That is, it's not just that you and I have relationships with other people (which we take or leave easily, like changing your clothes).  We are, in a manner of speaking, the sum of our relationships.  Each of us is a point of overlap in a Venn diagram, a point of intersection of all the people with whom I relate in all the unique ways that are mine to relate to them, and that unique mix of relationships makes me "me."

To see what I mean, do a thought experiment.  Tell me who you are, and see how long you can go before you have to use relationships to other people, entities, or communities (which are just collections of people) as you describe yourself.  My guess is it won't be very long.  We are, all of us, a collection of overlapping relations--I am my father and mother's son, the brother to my younger sibling, the dad for my two kids, the spouse of my wife, the pastor of two collections of ordinary saints in two different places in a county in western Pennsylvania.  The specifics of your list of relationships will be different--and we can all quibble about how we order the list, too--but my guess is that it is nearly universal that we understand ourselves, not as isolated islands floating in a dark sea, but as creatures-in-relationship.

This idea isn't new--although sometimes we do seem to willfully ignore it.  Jean-Paul Sartre once famously suggested that other human beings are the problem, when he wrote his famous play, "No Exit," in the mid-1940s and drove home the idea that "hell is other people."  (And in all fairness to Sartre, I get it--I have been around plenty of people, and sometimes we can be absolutely rotten to each other, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are folks who do not care to be in my presence who would think that having to be in a room with me is like hell.)  

But in all seriousness, aside from the occasionally angsty existentialist philosopher (again, apologies to Mr. Sartre), it seems blatantly obvious that our very existence is inescapably relational.  I can't be "me" without there being other beings to be in relationship with.  The South African notion popularized in the US as "ubuntu" says it this way:  "I am because we are."  That is, my very existence arises from the existence of a community of others, and I can't separate myself from them without losing something of myself.

Well, that's where we start in the New Testament book we call Colossians.  It starts with relationship.  Everybody listed in that opening verse is described in terms of those to whom they relate, and how.  Look again--it's Paul "an apostle of Christ" who sends greetings.  The word "apostle," just means "a sent person," so his very title is a reminder that he is a go-between, sent by Christ to other people.  Paul's companion (and possibly the secretary writing the words as they were dictated) Timothy is also defined relationally: "our brother," a nod to their shared belonging in Christ.  Even the recipient of the letter aren't just addressed as "Dear Resident" or "To Whom It May Concern," but siblings in Christ, who live in relationship to one another because we are all deemed children of God.  You can't get away from it, as much as we sometimes want to deny our connections to others--we live as beings in relationship.

And, as we said at the outset here, that means we can't get away from each other.  We are all bound up with one another, because we are each in relationship with God.  We are stuck with each other, because God has chosen to stick with us collectively.

Everything else in our conversation in the coming days, weeks, and months of exploring this book flows from that.  We exist in connection to each other, because God has chosen to be in relationship with all of us.  I ran across a quote of the American United Methodist bishop and theologian William Willimon, who summarized the Gospel in these seven words: "God refuses to be God without us."  And I think that's just it.  Because of who God is (spoiler alert--God is fundamentally relational, too!), all of us are all entangled with each other.  God refuses to just be a lone entity floating outside of the universe somewhere, indifferent and aloof from all the sufferings and troubles of the world.  God chooses relationship, and that brings all of us along.

There will be plenty more to tease out about this starting point as we move deeper, but let me just toss one more thought out for this moment:  the church of the first century doesn't seem to have defined itself in terms of a rigid set of doctrines or beliefs, or even a universal set of actions required of all members, but saw itself as a set of relationships first.  Yes there were things Christians believed, don't get me wrong. And yes, there are some fundamental practices that Christians have been teaching one another to do for two millennia (like loving neighbors and enemies). But those weren't nearly as codified as we have made them over time, using things like creeds and catechisms to define who is in or out, or deciding that Christians all had to agree on issues like whether it was ok to permit drinking alcohol... or slavery.  Instead, we began as a community that saw our belonging connected to God's claim on us.  Since God in Christ has claimed you, then I am in relation with you, whether I know you, look like you, love like you, speak your language, or agree with you.  It starts with relationship, and then from there affects what we say, do, and think.

These days, that is important to remember, because "being church" feels different. In the time of a pandemic, we aren't "doing" a lot of the same activities we were used to, and we don't all have the same opinions about how to deal with a pandemic, either--should things be open or closed, should we have singing or not in church, should we have to wear masks, and so on.  And if church were first and foremost a club of people who all did the same activities or had the same opinions, we would all have to disband and start over again with smaller teams of perfectly like-minded individuals.  

Why don't we do that?  At least part of the answer is that we are stuck with each other... because God has chosen to stick with all  of us, and our lives are spent in relationship.  Being church is about a set of relationships:  first, God's choice to love and claim you along with the whole world, and second, our living out of that love to relate to other disciples of Jesus as part of the family and with the whole world in the same love as well.  It may be easier to be in a church community when we all think or act alike, but it's not a requirement.  We are called to love--not just each other, but the world--because God has chosen to be in relationship with all of the world, as well.

How might it change the way you interact with people today, or this week, if our starting point is that we are all bound to each other in God's love, rather than thinking I can walk away from them if I don't like them, know them, or share their views?  How might it change the ways I speak and treat others?  How might it change how I define myself?

Because... for whatever else you may say about yourself, you are already in relationship with the God who loves you, who claims you, and who has chosen to stick with you.

O God who claims us, help us to see one another as you see us--in relationship and connected to you.