The Gift of Each Other--March 3, 2021
"Tychicus will tell you all the news about me; he is a beloved brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts..." [Colossians 4:7-8]
We do need to be together sometimes.
It's true that when the situation has called for it, the community of Jesus has learned how to transition into an underground, physically-distanced, chain of outposts. That's been true, as we've hopefully seen in this devotional series looking at Colossians, from the very beginnings of Christianity in the days of Paul, and it is certainly true in our day and time. We have all been living, for nearly the past year, with some form of dis-embodied church: the challenge of learning to have meetings on screens by video chats, the importance of staying in touch with people who can't use electronic media or don't have high-speed internet access, the diligence required of each of us to stay in touch when we aren't all in the same room together physically.
And we've said throughout this study of Colossians that there's a certain both-and-ness to dealing with the distance, in both Paul's day and ours. On the one hand, both the ancient Colossian church and the 21st century COVID-era church are learning that we are still bound up together in Christ's grip, even if we have to rely on words written in one place and read in another. Paul's format was a letter written on papyrus from prison that was then read among the church folks in Colossae, and we have been using the media open to us in our day--blog posts, video worship services, social media memes, text messages, and emails. But we have discovered that we can still "be church" even when it feels disembodied. At least we can do it for a while.
But even the letter-writing apostle himself knows the value of face-to-face connection. And so, since the technology of Paul's day required a human being to physically deliver a letter, in these verses we get Paul's reminder that the actual human being carrying the letter we have been reading can fill in the rest of the details of Paul's life. They need the connection. They need the face-to-face time. They need to catch up on the little details of everyday life, and the major milestones that have passed in the time they've been apart. In short, they need each other, live and in-person.
If that doesn't sound like the days we're living through, well, I don't know what does. Part of the challenge for so many of us in this past year of the COVID-era has been the disconnection with other people. Our social circles have shrunk in many cases, and our contact with others has been limited. And much of what we've gotten used to in terms of video chats, YouTube worship services, and online devotions is one-directional communication--that's not always bad, of course, but it does mean there's less back-and-forth, less conversation and sharing, and less getting to offer up ourselves to one another. And what do you know, but that's an important part of the Christian life and community, too!
I think that's what is really helpful for me to consider when I hear these verses. Paul is sending their mutual friend Tychicus, not only as the means of transportation of the written words of Paul, but quite possibly as the one who would have read the letter out loud when he got to Colossae, and also the one who would share the details of what was happening as Paul awaited trial. Paul knew that his friends and church family in Colossae needed that, and so this was a chance not just to teach "good doctrine" in a letter, but to share his life with his readers.
Over the past year, I've found myself thinking that we in congregational church life need something similar as we all, at our own paces, are pulled back into social gatherings. We will need time to share with one another the updates in our lives--the new cars and changes of jobs, the new relationships or books we've been reading, the rites of passages that came and went but couldn't be celebrated in the ways we had hoped in the past year. And while that will probably end up happening in a bunch of different ways, some of them planned and intentional, and some just spur-of-the-moment, it needs to happen. We need each other. Christianity isn't just a set of facts, beliefs, or propositions we all commit to memory, and it's not just something you can passively watch on a screen, either. When times require us to resort to those means for a while, it's worth remembering it was never intended to be forever, the same way the ark was never meant to be a permanent home for Noah or the animals.
Maybe we're not there yet--maybe the dove hasn't returned yet with the leaf in her mouth telling us it's all safe to step outside of the safe places we've been--but at least it's worth remembering that the day is coming. And it's worth remembering that part of what God has brought us into in Christ is a community of people, human beings with faces, with whom we can share our lives, our joys, our sorrows, and our hopes, and encourage one another in the life of faith.
Right now, it just might be the time to start thinking whom God is sending into our lives like Tychicus to catch us up on the life-details we have been cut off from... and it might just be the time to ask how we can be those connecting points for someone else who is feeling cut off, too. In the end, that's how we each give and receive the gift of community in Christ--the gift of each other.
Lord Jesus, help us to find the courage to step back into connection as you direct, and to look for ways to help lead others into connection as well.
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