Pentecost 14

Sept 14 - 20

2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, Colossians, 1 Timothy

Though quiet for a long time, the ruins of the temple mount now echo with the sound of tools and voices of workmen. To the dismay of the local peoples, a crew of Jews has arrived to rebuild what the king had once destroyed. As the walls rise, so does the tension. Nehemiah, their leader, has permission from the king to rebuild the LORD’s house – and yet, he must protect his construction site with guards and arm his workers. With their tools in one hand and weapons in the other, their service to the LORD is both exhilarating and terrifying.

The church in Colossae knows this difficulty. Even though they have returned from the exile of unbelief, false teachers have encircled them with dangerous teachings. The Colossians, too, must defend the house of the Lord while laboring to build it.

But the foundation is Christ, and it is Christ who empowers his people in the struggle. “Him we proclaim,” St. Paul says. “For this I toil, struggling with all his working that is at work within me.”

God is at work within us, too. In baptism, we have been sealed as his own. In his Word, we are comforted, encouraged, strengthened. We even know how the story ends. But our service to God often seems anything but certain. In this life, the world is less than pleased with the work of the church, and as long as we labor for the Lord, the threats, taunts, and accusations continue.

So we follow St. Paul’s admonitions. We strive to walk in Christ, and not in the world. We pray, constantly and sincerely, for our own preservation, for our spiritual leaders, and for each other. We labor on and struggle together. We do this in full anticipation of the glorious new temple, the one Jesus is preparing for us, the one that will never be rebuilt, where the jeers and taunts are gone forever, and the sound of perfect praise in the LORD’s presence endures.

Pentecost 13

Sept 7 - 13

2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Philippians, Colossians

In this week’s readings, we see repeated examples of people who try to put God in a box, people who try to subject God to human perception, reason, impulse, and intellect. Naaman wants to be healed of his leprosy, but not by some Jewish prophet who just tells him to take a bath. Jehu will take up the righteous task of destroying the prophets of Baal, but he will let other idolators off the hook. Sennacherib will acknowledge that Israel has a god, but won’t give the God more credence than any of the others. Some in the Colossian church are willing to follow Jesus as their Lord, but struggle to do so without making sense of his divinity.

We tend to follow suit. Our sinful flesh likes packaging the LORD up in boxes because it lets us unpack him in the ways we want. The idol we pull out of the box is conveniently tailored to our flesh. It is a deeply appealing god. It may bear all the external marks of piety. It will promise peace and happiness in this life, and it may even borrow phrases from Scripture to do so. But in the end, it is only a reflection of ourselves – a powerless, dying god with nothing to offer in eternity.

If anyone is really boxed in, though, it is Paul, whose earthly reward for preaching the true Gospel is a prison cell. From its confines, he declares a boundless truth: Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. He is the creator and redeemer of the world. There are no containers to hold him. He chooses how to reveal himself. He will not share his glory with another. He determines whom he will send. And he wants all people to be saved.

And so, Paul is willing to be hemmed in because the pure Gospel is not. It shows us that our Lord lives, how he has raised us from death in baptism and binds us together as one body with his flesh and blood. He continues to work through imperfect vessels to bring his glorious grace to all who will hear, producing joy and thankfulness, whatever their earthly circumstances.

But Paul also continues to pray for everyone, because even though the joy of life and salvation is certain, the idols – and the boxes that hold them – persist for a time. So, until our Lord makes all things new, we pray for his Spirit, to be in his Word, to hear the prophets, to tear down the idols that distract and tempt us, and to yearn for the world to come.