Canoes and Fire Insurance--January 26, 2021

Canoes and Fire Insurance--January 26, 2021

"As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." [Colossians 2:6-7]

Jesus is less like an insurance policy, and more like a river.

I believe with all my heart that understanding the difference is what sets living faith apart from dead (if also respectable) religion.  It's all to do with seeing ourselves canoeing down a particular river, rather than possessing heavenly fire insurance.

Let me back up for a moment.  First off, I mean no disrespect to those who sell, oversee, and manage my insurance policies.  I am grateful for the peace of mind they offer me, and I am glad to know that if lightning strikes my house, or my car slides into guard-rails in an icy storm, or if my kid ends up with a rare disease that requires expensive treatments, that there is an insurance policy that can hopefully help with covering costs.  Knowing that allows me to put those fears--and the policy itself--out of my mind, and just go about my business without thinking about it.

In a very important sense, that is the best thing about having insurance--it is the freedom not to think about it once you have it, and to know it's safely stored away in a filing cabinet, or the drawer where you keep important papers, or in a safe-deposit box somewhere, where you hopefully won't have to see it or deal with it again.  That is sort of the hope, isn't it--that you get insurance but never have a situation where you actually have to rely on it in an emergency, right?

And while that is a lovely feature of having literal fire insurance for your home, it becomes terrible theology when we treat Jesus like he is merely your own personal heavenly fire insurance policy.  And we do actually do that sometimes.  We talk about Jesus like he is something you can possess, rather that someone with whom we are in a relationship as disciples.  You know the standard religious boilerplate:  the pamphlet left wedged in your front door that asks, "Have you accepted Jesus?" phrased as though Jesus is that upgraded insurance coverage that your agent keeps recommending.  "Have you received the Lord?" it asks, as though Jesus were a commodity to be possessed, and as long as I "have" Jesus (whatever we think that means) then all I have to do when I die is trot out my Jesus-insurance-policy, say his name like a magic word, and I get into the afterlife.  I'm sorry to be crude about it, but that's pop Christianity for you in a nutshell--Jesus as consumer product who won't affect your actual day to day life but can be cashed in for a heavenly escape hatch in case of death. We're the paying customer, and he becomes the merchandise. Why doesn't it surprise me anymore that living in this land of ours where everything is a commodity for sale, we do the same thing to Christ Jesus himself?  

Well, suffice it to say that none of that is how the letter to the Colossians intends the phrase, "as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord," as it does in these verses.  For the apostle, Jesus ain't an insurance policy you only think about in an emergency or after death--Jesus creates for us a particular way of life that we move in.

That's why Jesus is more like a river.  If you are in a canoe, the course of the river directs where you go.  Its flow points you in a particular direction, and it gives you momentum as it pushes you and guides you along that course.  The river is simultaneously what moves you forward, holds you up, and surrounds you--and it doesn't leave you where you started.  

And that is actually a lot closer to the idea that we hear from these verses in Colossians.  I don't merely "accept" Jesus like I receive my new insurance policy in the mail, only to forget where I put it or that I even have it.  We "receive" Jesus like a canoe receives the support, momentum, and direction of the river--allowing the canoe to move forward along its own course. Our translation of this verse says, "continue to live your lives" in Christ, but the Greek is actually a verb for movement--it's closer to "walk in Christ." That's a way of helping us to picture that the following Jesus is a journey in a particular direction.  I don't stay put, and I don't remain unchanged.  Like riding in a canoe will often mean letting the river move you downstream, following Jesus will mean he moves us and helps us grow in new ways, becoming more like him in the ways we act and speak and love.

An insurance policy leaves me more or less unchanged, just by having it.  In fact, that's sort of the point--I can go about my regular life, knowing that my insurance will cover me if I do something really stupid or cause major damage somehow.  But riding in a canoe along a river will move me.  That's what the Christian life is more like--being moved by Jesus, who is also supporting and surrounding us.  He holds us up, and he also directs our course.  

Where might Christ be leading you, or me, in this day?  How will we be ready?

Lord Jesus, lead us where you will today, and don't leave us unchanged.