This article originally appeared in Christian Leader magazine and can be viewed here.
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| Peaceful protests in Baltimore. |
At the climax of his message to the Colossians, you can almost feel Paul lift out of his seat to deliver his central charge, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace!” (Col 3:15)
We still crave these words today. To be a people of peace. To just experience peace for ourselves. For Christ to rule.
But what does it mean to be at peace? Can we have peace in our hearts if there is not peace in our world and our relationships? We must be careful here. Jeremiah once called his people to task for claiming such things carelessly. “‘Shalom, Shalom’ 'ayin shalom,” he wept. “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, Peace,’ they say, but there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14).
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| The Apotheosis of Washington, painted on the underside of the US Capital dome. |
Whose Peace Reigns in Colossea?
The Colossians weren’t foreigners to false claims and poorly attended wounds. They lived under the Pax Romana, an imperial peace imposed through military and economic domination. Rome declared that her rule marked a glorious new age, one upon which the blessings of the gods rested. All who lived within her sphere and bowed to Lord Caesar would find peace.
Paul drops the letter of Colossians into this context with an alternative story that took off like a subversive virus. With Jeremiah, he rejects the empire's claims to peace when there is no peace. The story Rome has told is false! All have not found peace here. The wealth of a few is built on the backs of many. Some are privileged while others suffer as slaves.
In a world where the image of Caesar was printed on everything from money to city gates to cutlery as a reminder of who was King and god, Paul declared a different Lord:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col 1:15-17)
Jesus--the one Rome tried to kill on a cross--is the resurrected King, the true image of God, the creator of all the world Caesar claims as his own. In place of a false peace, Jesus redefined the means of salvation. Instead of military conquest, he made peace through radical self-sacrifice.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1:19-20)
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| militarized peacekeping |
Be Reconciled...Justly
For Paul, the truth of Jesus has implications across every dimension of creation: individual, family, church, communal, societal, even ecological. All things are being made new, and we get to have a role in it! But once again, he doesn’t dumb down the difficulties of entering this new world.
This draws us back around to a central question: what exactly is the anatomy of peace? Steeped as he was in scripture, Paul’s thought clearly reflects that most freighted word of the Hebrew language: shalom.
When Paul talks about the “peace of Christ,” he is talking about shalom.
While Rome’s peace was based on allegiance to the emperor, shalom begins with first commandment faithfulness: to have no other gods beside Yahweh (Ex 20:1-3). This is the main reason why Paul instructed the Colossians to turn from sexual immorality. These acts were associated with pagan worship practices, which, as Paul succinctly reminds his readers, “is idolatry” (Col 3:5). There is no peace without the worship of God.
While Rome’s peace only benefited a few, shalom is a fundamentally communal experience. If anyone in the community is excluded, shalom is broken for all. “Shalom is always tested on the margins of a society and revealed by how the poor, oppressed, disempowered, and needy are treated” (Randy Woodley, Shalom in the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision). In the words of Walter Brueggemann, “shalom is never the private property of the few.”
While Rome’s peace was based on social hierarchies and systems of oppression, shalom emerges where systems are just and relationships are reconciled.
Colossae sat on a key trade route through the Lycus Valley in Asia Minor. Diverse peoples from all over the empire called it home. Cultural differences and power differentials made for a relationally fragmented society. Paul could not simply encourage them to cozy up next to one another and work things out.
Rather, God’s shalom lifted them out of injustice, and reconciled them into Jesus where they discovered a new way of life with one another. Their former selves and social mores could not facilitate true community. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Instead, they would learn to be one Church through their shared identity in Jesus.
“Put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Col 3:10-11)
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| Jesus in the Breadline, Fitz Eichenberg |
A Daily Vocation
The truest thing about our world is that Jesus Christ is Lord, firstborn from the dead, creator of all things, making ALL things new. Therefore, writes Paul, live like it!
Colossians 3:12-17 walks a well-worn Old Testament tradition. The most common Hebrew word pairing is mishpat and sadiqah (e.g., Jer 22:3-5; Isa 28:17-18). The first word relates to justice in society and the second to personal righteousness. The two are continually held together in the biblical imagination. Paul follows this vein in his instructions for Christian living. The Jesus-ethic he describes forges an intimate marriage between personal holiness and social justice. It is, therefore, a powerful weapon against the divisions and oppression which continually encroach on the people of God.
What does it look like to have died to self and come alive to Christ in normal life?
Paul says it is to have compassion, literally to “suffer with” one another. It is to commit to the Christ-like, self-sacrificing, listening postures of kindness, humility, meekness and patience (Col 3:12). When differences and difficulties flare up, Paul urges to “bear with one another,” and live not in perfection, but in forgiveness (v13). And finally, that glorious thing which cinches everything together, “put on love” (v14).
“Clothe yourself” in all of this, we are told (v12). The power of the Empire will keep trying to creep in. Each day you must re-dress yourself in these virtues, remembering that you are God’s beloved people.
In the following of Jesus there is a path for peace that does not make light of present pain. A peace that lets us join with the great Southern preacher William J Barber II, singing “to pain and problems and suffering and racism and injustice, ‘You may be real, but you are not the final reality. There is another hope! There is a resurrection!’”
