Jesus, Mr. Miyagi, and You (Or, why the doctrine of the Trinity is important!) ~ Colossians 1:15-20

 Not long ago there were some interesting articles written about songs that had changed the world. Some of the songs highlighted were those which helped fight oppression, others brought a sense of unity to fractured groups or nations, some brought hidden pain out into the open, and still others were like divine interventions which saved people from suicide, self-destructive behavior or even broad disasters like famine. This Sunday we will be discussing a song that didn't make any of the lists and yet could easily be argued as one of the most powerful ancient songs the world has ever known. I'm referring to the hymn which comes from Colossians 1:15-20, which sings about the identity and actions of Jesus in the world. And let me tell you - this song sings! What does this song sing?

First, it’s by looking at Jesus that we discover who God is.

The song is fierce in stating that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God,” the “fullness” of God. The ancient church also stated it this way: Jesus is homoousia with the Father. Literally, of one substance which can sound utterly odd and abstract to us. Yet this word should be one of the most exciting words in our vocabulary, telling us that who Jesus is and what Jesus is doing is one with the essence of God. The early church had a delightful image for this challenging reality: light one candle from another, and you don’t have any less of the first flame and you have a second flame as bright and hot as the first. The Son truly shares the living flame of God’s nature with no qualification or lessening. He is the character and nature of the living God made visible. What God shows himself to be in Jesus is simply who he always is; he doesn’t decide to be like Jesus for thirty-odd years but was so from the very beginning. One theologian said it this way: God is Christlike and in him there is no unChristlikeness at all. The song sings the fullness of God was made visible through him.

Second, the world and everything in it is Jesus’ place.

Paul and the early church were not content like so many Evangelicals to describe reality as spiritual and non-spiritual, with the former being that which is most real, most sacred, more deserving of our attention. But this song sings a different tune. Our days on this planet are a time-share in a gorgeous condo that is not our own. It won’t simply do to say – well, “We’re on vacation. It’s not our place. Who cares if we trash it a bit?” No, the song wants to remind us, and by “remind us,” I mean repeat incessantly, almost annoyingly, that “all things” were created, “all things” came into being, “all things” were formed, sustained, held together, by Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus. When the lavish and generous beauty of the world makes you catch your breath, remember that it is like that because of Jesus. Our mission then is to live in such a way that the world and all that is in it sees that it belongs to Jesus, that it is stamped with Jesus, that he is marked for Jesus, that she is already connected to Jesus. There is no such thing as a sacred and secular divide. This is what I love about Sue Enyeart’s testimony that she feels the joy of God by petting her dog, looking at trees, listening to birds. Wow, she sounds a lot like Jesus who said, “Look at the flowers . . . observe the birds” (Matt. 6:25-34). I’m not saying that things and people don’t need to experience redemption. I’m saying, with the Apostle Paul, that everyone and everything that needs redemption already belongs to Jesus. This world and everything in it, the song sings, is Jesus’ house.

Third, God was pleased . . .

Do you imagine that God is ever pleased? Stop and take a moment. Who do you imagine God to be? God is not the displeased actor in this drama the Bible wishes to tell. God is not the vengeful cowboy of this movie – seeking to kill everyone out of revenge and rage, like so many classic westerns. We should follow the text closely at this point: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things.” This is admittedly making the same point as point #1 but from a different angle, a different twist: that whatever we are to make of what transpires on the cross was not some weird exchange by which Jesus does something that God doesn’t want to do or somehow calms the supposed anger of God who needed to kill somebody. God doesn’t need to be reconciled. We do. There is a very dangerous set of ideas out there about sin, God, redemption and Jesus that goes something like this: God is angry because of sin and needs to crush us out of justice but Jesus loves us and satisfies God so that God can be reconciled to us. But the song isn’t saying that Christ changes the mind of God toward us sinful human beings and forces God reluctantly to be for us instead of against us; rather, Jesus is the deepest expression of God’s desire to be with us and for us. God is not two-faced (needing to somehow kill us and save us at the same time). Sin doesn’t change God. It changes us. Jesus doesn’t save us from God because the whole mission of the cross was a joint, collaborative, unified effort of redemption by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to save us from sin.  

It's perhaps the greatest film of the 1980s – filled with well-known one-liners, heart-warming characters and a memorable kick to the face. I’m of course talking about the movie Karate Kid. In what might be one of the more memorable scenes, Daniel LaRusso is asked by Mr. Miyagi to do a series of mundane chores: sand the floor, wax the cars, and paint the house – all in very strange ways: up/down, wax on/wax off, side/side. In a moment of frustration, Daniel complains that he is acting like Mr. Miyagi’s servant and learning nothing about Karate, which Mr. Miyagi promised to teach him. And that’s when Mr. Miyagi asks Daniel, “Show me sand the floor.” And what follows is the amazing moment in which Daniel realizes that the repeated actions were teaching him karate and he didn’t even know it. That’s what’s happening today. This song is a Miyagi-like move to teach us about something very important that is often misunderstood - the Trinity.

So I’m teaching you something about the doctrine of the Trinity that is significant and important. The first is often referred to as the rule of appropriation and could be stated in this way: according to the Scriptures, all the works of God are indivisible. There is only One God who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. To put it another way, all of God is involved in everything God does. This means whether we are speaking about creation (John 1:3), salvation (2 Cor. 5:19), or sanctification (Eph. 5:26), we are speaking about one God.  If we look more closely at creation, for example, this has a number of significant features to counteract popular errors about a Christians response to climate change, for example. A proper doctrine of the Trinity thus points out that the will and actions of Jesus on our behalf are not different to the will and actions of God the Father – what Jesus does and says ARE the Father’s words and actions. Jesus does not change the mind of God toward us sinful human beings or force God reluctantly to be for us; rather, Jesus is the deepest expression of God’s creating, redeeming and sustaining love.

The second rule of trinitarian thinking is less apparent in Colossians but nonetheless apparent in Scripture and moves us from an emphasis on what the triune God does to a discussion of who the triune God is – a divine community who lives with and for and in one another in mutual openness, and self-giving love. This is referred to as the rule of perichoresis, which literally means to go around together, to be in-step together. One of the ancient symbols for this reality is our own Triquetra, Trinitarian knot, which highlights a never-ending movement of giving and receiving. The modern word for this is social trinitarianism that upends our sense of individualism and hierarchical relationships because God is a “pleased” community of self-giving love, of obedience and submission, of sharing and receiving, and that relationship, that image of God, is also meant to shape our sense of community. And that’s my final Miyagi move today – will we be “pleased” to dwell together as a church, with Jesus, for Jesus, in mutual togetherness like God has revealed in Jesus? Will we be a pleasing image of the invisible God? Will you be pleased to dwell with others here, in this place, like that symbol?

Running with the Chariot: Reading the Bible with God and Others "This Very Day"

 

We are in series which explores the reality that God has something for each of us “this very day.” Today’s story better helps us understand how our relationship with God and others impacts our Bible reading. What does Bible study look like with a God who encounters us “this very day”? We will see through Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch that the Bible is a book that calls us to mission, to run toward desert places and excluded people, to encounter questions that we might not expect, and have us running with the Spirit in strange ways.

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

This crazy Bible study involving Philip doesn’t begin in a quiet spot with a commentary and a cup of coffee. It begins with the angel of the Lord directing him where to go and leading to an encounter. It continues because the Holy Spirit speaks to Philip and tells him, “Go to that chariot.” Philip encountered this Bible study because he was listening to God.

The book of Acts reminds us strongly that we read the Scriptures with God and not simply about God, that reading the Bible on the run is a team sport filled with angels, the Holy Spirit, outsiders and ourselves. And God directs us along side Scripture to where we need to go but also what we need to understand. And that can feel frightening. It’s far easier to believe that all we need to do is to keep our nose in the book but friends, the author of it is all around us and wants to guide and direct us. You can never know the Bible too much, but you can know the Spirit too little.

The book of Acts reveals a God who is active in the world and not merely trapped in the pages of a book. The Bible, in other words, is not Aladdin’s lamp – awesome cosmic power, in an itty-bitty living space. God is not trapped there but actively uses it to bring people to faith.

How do we cultivate a sensitivity to angels and the Holy Spirit? Don’t read like an atheist. We often read the Bible like the author isn’t present. Acknowledge God, asks for wisdom and direction, take risks, and suspend disbelief. Angels are often easily explained away. In the library of Scripture, the Spirit often whispers.

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. ³¹ “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

The story reminds us that the Bible can’t simply explain itself – it often needs, someone to teach it or explain it (the Spirit, the church, and maybe “you”). We need to move beyond the too easy comment, “The Bible says . . .” or “I just believe what the Bible says . . .” This isn’t to say that the Bible loses authority or must give way to only an elite set of interpreters but it does require some careful attention. 

In my last church we had a season in which the lens on our worship projector kept giving out making everything blurry. I was particularly struck when it would happen while Scripture was being read and shown on the screens. What seemed so clear would all of a sudden lose focus, become hard to read.  To be honest, I think the actual experience of the blurriness of Scripture is appropriate and, I suspect, so would Philip. If you don’t understand that the Bible is blurry you will never read it with the care that it demands. Blurry doesn’t mean you can’t see anything or that it’s inscrutable but neither is it easy. To read it well requires help, it requires others. We’ve already seen we need the Holy Spirit but we also need other people, even outsiders.

To read the Bible well you’re going to need to be like Ethiopian Eunuch. You are going to have to ask some questions. You are going to have to ask for help. You will need to discover some helpful friends to explain it to you. You will need to cultivate a proper disposition - a commitment to study, a determination to ask questions, a willingness to risk, the ability to laugh, and a readiness to ask for help.

You will also need to be like Philip. You are going to check-in on others, to ask if they need help with this book. You are going to have learn obedience to God and an ability to hear his voice and do what is asked of you. You are going to have to know the Old Testament and how it connects with the story that God wants to tell – “the good news about Jesus.”

³² This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth.”

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

Reading the Bible on the run is a suffering sport. It involves a suffering road. Our story begins with Philip receiving an absurd command from an angel to go toward a not-so-comfortable road (vs. 26) – “Get up and go South, along the desert road (in the middle of the day).” This is not a comfortable book. If you find yourself never encountering difficult commands or desert places, you’re probably not reading it correctly. Bible reading with the Spirit demands a commitment to action and adventure. It requires engagement not simply understanding. It asks you to run to others with good news amidst suffering and about suffering. I’m wary of Bible readers who haven’t suffered – the sleek, the beautiful, the famous. They often read the Bible and think they’re good.

The Bible is a terribly wonderful book with a message that says: God has taken up our suffering in Jesus Christ. That God is found in suffering. That God can use suffering. It seeks to tell us about God and about ourselves and the story it wants to tell is a suffering story that is good news, that is horribly transforming, painfully fantastic. If you are going to read the Bible well, you are going to have to understand suffering and God.

³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” ^{[37] 38} And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

Now this Bible study becomes very interesting. For this outsider, non-Jew, foreigner, does appear to know the Bible. And his knowledge is revealed in a question that perhaps we missed: “What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” That phrase in vs. 36 “stand in the way” is one word in the Greek - koluo [hinders, denies, restrains, punishes]. Why would he imagine that something might hinder him? Well, the Bible told him so. Unlike the other adjectives for our Ethiopian, Luke uses the word “eunuch” five times. Eunuchs were marginalized in Judaism and explicitly told that they could not be a part of the people of God (Deut. 23:1). He would not have been able to enter the temple nor eat any sacrifices that he had sponsored. Culturally, within Judaism, we know that he would have been considered effeminate and a bad omen if you crossed his path. In fact, calling a man a eunuch was an insult. Given the stereotype, cultural tensions, and clear Biblical text, many within the church could have easily said to this outsider: “Yes, the Bible hinders you.” They would’ve rightly quoted Scripture and hindered the work of God. The Bible is telling a story that points in a certain direction. It should not be read in all the same way for it speaks of a drama that centers on God’s work through an anointed one to bring about salvation. Another passage in Isaiah, Isaiah 56, tells of a future salvation that will include “eunuchs” and name them “better than sons and daughters: (Isaiah 56:5). Because of Jesus Christ and because of the Spirit’s prodding – Philip understood that one scripture was no longer true, no longer to be followed, and that another text was to take its place. He came to this conclusion not because he was awfully clever but because he was there by God’s command, asking questions of God’s book with God’s Spirit running alongside. It was God, he knew, who told him, “Run!”

So, Bible study is not for the faint of heart. It requires an openness to God and doing what God wants. It involves a mental, emotional, and spiritual commitment that will lead you into unfamiliar territory.

How do you know if you’re reading it right? Do people go on their way rejoicing? Do they have their suffering named? Do they experience the joy of God being present in it through Jesus Christ?