"Rooted, Built Up, Established in Faith, Abounding in Thanksgiving " - Hosea 1:2-10; Colossians 2:6-15
A Sermon by Alex Evans, Pastor
Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA
Texts: Hosea 1:2-10; Colossians 2:6-15
“Rooted, Built up, Established in Faith, Abounding in Thanksgiving”
Sunday, July 24, 2022
In the last few weeks, like some of you, I have had some doctor visits and some medical tests. Do not worry. I am doing fine, and everything checked out well. But one of these tests for me recently was a MRI – which stands for “magnetic resonance imaging.” MRI’s happen in a tomb-like tube – and it is very loud, with the machine bouncing magnetic and radio waves to create images of the body. I know some of you are very familiar with MRI testing.
Prior to having a MRI – which means lying in this tightly enclosed space – the question is asked in various ways: “are you claustrophobic?” “Do you panic inside tight spaces?” “Have you ever had a problem with a test like this?”
Claustrophobia is a real thing: an abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces – which is exactly what a MRI machine is.
I spent the long 45 minutes of the test, closed in that tight space, with my eyes closed, singing hymns, reciting favorite passages of Scripture, practicing mindfulness, and striving for calm. I also laid there thinking that that space is very spiritual, because I am sure many prayers and hymns have been recited inside that machine.
Lying in that MRI machine, it is easy to understand why claustrophobia might be a problem for many people. Tight spaces can indeed be dreadful.
Then, I started realizing how claustrophobia – dread of tight spaces - might be a helpful term for life, especially in these days. We might not be lying in a tomb-like machine, but we can feel life squeezing us, closing in on us, making us fearful and full of dread.
If you are dealing with lingering aches in your heart, maybe deep worries about children, or sincere concerns about a parent, . . . or heavy grief – life can feel very closed in and dreadful.
If you are facing a big transition, and you have too much to do, and endless worries that keep you unsettled – life can feel pretty oppressive – not unlike a MRI machine.
If you are fretting about chronic problems in our city, or that we are going backwards on racial justice, or women’s healthcare, or losing ground on marriage equality – that can feel very much like claustrophobia – the world closing in.
Claustrophobia is a word that has to do with fear of tight and narrow spaces, but so much about our life, our world, and our times, can fill us with fear and dread in the same way.
We might even talk about spiritual claustrophobia – things get so tight and narrow in our lives that we are not sure how God might be at work. We might have so many fears and so many questions that God is squeezed out.
If you hear someone say, “I am spiritual but not religious,” that is really an expression of spiritual claustrophobia – an inability to see how God could fit into life: too many questions, too many assumptions – so God is squeezed out.
And here’s the reality – when we get claustrophobic – in a tight place, either literally or figuratively – we do not live our best lives. When we get full of fear and dread because life and circumstances and worries are squeezing us, we do not function so well. Fears take over. Anxiety grows. And we get far off track from what God intends us to be and do.
In our first lesson today – from the prophet Hosea – we have a startling message. God is so disgusted with God’s people that God instructs Hosea to depict this disgust: “Go and marry a wife of whoredom and have children or whoredom.” The children are given names that reflect God’s disdain. The story of Hosea reflects both the anger of God and . . . eventually, the abiding love of God.
Remember, the Biblical story, the unfolding history of God and God’s people comes to us in hopes that God’s people truly find life and wholeness, peace and purpose. The unfolding story intends to show us what life is about – God’s love and our call to love and serve God. This intends to bring vitality and peace near and far.
But too often, as we know in the story, we get turned inward – not outward toward God. We get lost in our worries and in our selfish pursuits. We get – actually – claustrophobic – where fears run rampant, and anxiety grows, and we do selfish and stupid things that mostly disappoint God.
The Biblical story wants to help us – “do not go this way – go the way of God.” Do not get lost in your various pursuits, trust God and serve God. That is the way to life – and life everlasting. Once we absorb this story and its importance, we will be well on our way – and all things will be well, and all matter of things will be well.
Our second lesson comes from Colossians 2. This is one of the many letters attributed to Paul, who is seeking to help faithful people find faithful life in God’s care, and serve God in the world. It seems that the Christian community in Colossae was struggling with many distractions to their faithfulness. Perhaps they thought Jesus was a good guy, but they were also taken with lots of other ideas. In the fast-moving Greco-Roman world, Paul focuses on the centrality of Jesus – which is why this letter seems so pertinent for our day. Listen to these verses:
6As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
When life starts squeezing us, when life gets complicated and overwhelming, when fear and dread take center stage, we want and need to be called back to life, to faith, to living as God’s people.
Paul’s message to the people of Colossae, and to us here, intends to re-frame us for faith and life – not squeezed in and claustrophobic – but expansive and trusting and serving toward God.
Paul’s words – written with a warm heart and convincing tone – call forth the best from us because of the truths that shape us. He reminds us that we have received Christ Jesus the Lord. We are to live lives in him. We are stay rooted, to be built up, so established in the faith, and abounding in thanksgiving.
That is not a bad mantra to recite – lying in the MRI machine: rooted, built up, established in the faith, abounding with thanksgiving.
That is an approach to mindfulness when we are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and fear: rooted, built up, established in the faith, with thanksgiving.
When our life feels squeezed, pinched in, pressured, perplexing – “rooted, built up, established in the faith, abounding with thanksgiving” – we are Christ’s own people. God never lets us go! Not even the unfaithfulness and disgusts that we read about in Hosea can separate us from God. God keeps working on us, working in us and through us, redeeming us, forgiving us, saving us.
Then these verse keep on – “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, . . according to the elemental spirits of the universe.”
Wow – how relevant is that phrase in these days?!
This is how The Message translation puts this section: Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him.
We saw crosses carried to the US Capitol on January 6. We have seen Christians trying to justify violence, and racial injustice, and oppression, and the degradation of women. We have gotten really good at distorting the message of Jesus to suit our own persuasions and idolatries. Paul warns against this, calling us back – rooted in Jesus, built up in him, established in the faith.
Does our faith define us and therefore our politics, or do our politics and other leanings define our faith? This is a real and pertinent question.
Paul – in Colossians – wants us to get this right. Our lives are meant to be rooted in Jesus’ life, built up in Jesus’ person, established in faith, with thanksgiving. We stay focused on Jesus. He also says we were “buried with him in our baptisms,” and we were “raised with him through faith by the power of God.”
Our faith – rooted, built up, established – is meant to be what defines us. We are to love God and love what God loves – with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We are to bear with one another, forgive each other, and work for the peace and wholeness of the world. We are to care for the needy, help the hurting, strengthen the weak, tend to the troubled. When we “live in him,” as it says, our lives are about spreading love and justice, promoting peace and righteousness. Remember – rooted, built up, established in faith, abounding with thanksgiving. This is the way of Jesus. This is our way.
Martin Luther King, Jr has a great quote: “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. (The one) who loves is a participant in the being of God.” (see J. Pavlovitz, If God is Love, p.1)
There are so many crazy things going on in our world. We have oppressive heat scorching the earth and creating all kinds of crises. We have so much polarization and anger at how things have been or how things should be. It is hard to tell if the moral arc of the universe is actually bending toward justice because so often it seems to be bending toward injustice. So many are being left out. The needs of the poor and marginalized are growing. All of this and more can make us feel claustrophobic – squeezed, filled with fear and dread.
Colossians offers so many encouraging words: you have received Christ Jesus the Lord – stay rooted; be built up in him; remain established in faith – not caught up or tossed about by the storms of the world. God prevails. And God will always prevail. Our calling is always to align our lives following Jesus – doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly, striving to move our parts of the world toward the peaceable kindom of God.
If you Google the phrase “You had one job!” The results of that search reveal both a hilarious and tragic parade of impossible happenings, unbelievable poor planning, and face-palming human error. “You had one job!” and you can find so many photos: a piece of melted cheese slapped on the side of a fast food burger bun; the word STOP mis-spelled at a street crossing; (you had one job!) a “keep right” sign with an arrow going left; a toilet lid somehow affixed under the toilet seat; double parallel lines but with one of the lines waving out and about from the other. We laugh – we find amusement - at all of these. (see J. Pavlovitz, If God is Love . . ., p. 1)
But that phrase – you have one job – is a good one. Our one job, according to Paul, live life in Jesus – rooted, built up, established in the faith, abounding with thanksgiving. This is what defines us. We are claimed in the waters of baptism. We are connected to the love and purposes of Jesus. This is what shapes us. This is what gives us fortitude and faithfulness for all that comes our way.
We keep seeking to become all that God made us to be – disciples who love God and love what God loves – for the healing of the world.
May it be so. Amen
Prayer of Commitment: Holy God, pour out your grace upon our lives. Remind us of the centrality of Jesus and our call to follow. Enthuse us with your Spirit that we may always grow in love and service as disciples. Amen
Alex W. Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA preached this sermon during Sunday morning worship, July 24, 2022. This is a rough manuscript