Colossians 1:11-20

Pentecost +26 - Year C

Colossians 1:11-20

There are a lot of words here. It is parallel to the obsequiousness used by any servant fearing they might be overheard. To try to cut through the fog of images, all good, all the time, we'll focus on: "what is a reconciling mechanism that will reconcile all things?"

Here is a quote from David Buttrick in The Mystery and the Passion that points in a helpful direction:

God's mercy is not merely therapy for a few individuals beset by guilt....God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God's mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess.... Our calling is to live in mercy.... Recalling God's unmerited mercy ... we absolve one another, enacting the good news. 'In Jesus Christ,' we say, 'we are forgiven.' So we look into each other's eyes without illusions; we are sinners all. Yet we embrace each other in the mercy, the wide, wide mercy of God.

To the extent that Jesus participates in mercy, he is revelatory of G*D. To the extent that a Church participates in mercy, it is revelatory of G*D. To the extent that you or I participate in mercy, we are revelatory of G*D. To the extent G*D participates in mercy, G*D is revelatory of creation's purpose.

Every internal and external difference is bridgeable, but only in a way that transforms both ends of a divide as mercy is a two-way street, a mutual embrace.

Here is a "king" at work, modeling mercy. Here is a "servant" at work, modeling mercy. Here is what we might have learned this past year - to model mercy. Apparently there is more to learn as the mercy quotient in the world continues to get short shrift compared to power, revenge, anger, and competition.

So, King Jesus; so, Queen Church; so, Prince or Princess You; so, Brother Paul; drop all the fancy words and doctrinal constructs and get on with clarifying mercy. Reconciliation isn't through blood itself but a response of mercy wherever and whenever blood is spilt - a merciful, "forgive them, they don't know what they are doing" and a getting up to keep at that wide, wide mercy work of welcoming and working together. Everything else is accruing righteousness for oneself and giving up that same self to be on some perceived winning side.