Organizing A Community As Jesus Would Have It

Homily Col 3 (Found in the Office of readings, Wednesday 2nd week of Christmas)

Reading the clear command: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” gives us the opportunity to take a short cut. Make the sign of the cross, pray “Lord, please bless this action. I ask it in the name of Jesus, thank you Lord” and then do what you want. Well, I’ve heard that organized crime sometimes says a prayer like that before a murder. There are no magic formulas in God’s kingdom. That puts the cart well in front of the horse.

What St. Paul is saying here to the church in Colossae is not magic. It is the path of communal discipleship. And the apostle starts off with a statement that the secular culture has been hammering Christians with for decades. But let’s be clear about the end, the goal. Paul is telling us what every community needs to order itself around in order to give effective witness, both to itself and to the world. That’s witness and life in a world that is starving for the Gospel of Jesus and a community of love and purpose, but seems to want only the destruction of everything our Lord established. So Paul begins, not with an easy command, but a difficult and counter-cultural one: women, place yourself in obedience to the man. Or “wives, be subject to the husband.” Now in the first century, this was not a revolutionary order. In fact, the revolutionary command was the next, to the man–love your wife and do not be harsh with her. In the first century, women were treated as the man’s property, and harshness was more the rule of husbanding. So the Christian home was quite counter-cultural, and to suggest that in response to the children’s obedience, fathers should be careful not to act to discourage them, was really a world-beater.

So what is being described here is a new way to organize communities, following the two critical commandments of Christ: love God above all things, and love neighbor as yourself. Paul continues. Slave revolts had long been the plague of the Roman republic and the later empire. The free citizens of Rome lived in constant fear of them. But Paul does not want fear to rule any Christian church; he constantly counsels against it. So he tells those in servitude in a lengthy statement to obey and do their work “heartily.” Then he promised those who follow these rules an eternal reward.

So what about the slaveowners? Is Paul–as some believe–defending a system whereby one humans pretends to own another? He takes a subtle swipe at the unjust slaveholder. He writes, “the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.” So every member of the community will get his just deserts, the slaveowner just as much as the slave.

Is this a description of a perfect Christian church? Maybe not, but it’s at least two steps up from any other group in the Roman first century. Ultimately the Pope forbade the slave trade and several nations will even establish blockades of Africa to interfere with human trafficking. But it can be found all over the world even today. Short of heaven we will not experience the perfection of common living, but that does not relieve us of the responsibility to do everything in our power to move toward that wonderful goal.