Ordinary saints– Colossians 4:2-18
I have been looking forward to preaching on this last chapter of Colossians simply for the challenge it presents! What do you say about a list of names? And who – who is up to the challenge – of reading a list of names? Thank you very much, Gary!
Although it is not entirely a list of names. There are the first few verses where Paul asks the church in Colossians to pray for him, revealing his very ordinary humanity.
Which is why, firstly, I think we have this list of names! Because it tells us that the church is made up of ordinary saints – ordinary people.
A year ago, Megan and Alan and I repainted the Sunday School room at the back of the church because Roz was thinking of re-starting her counselling there, and we discovered (don’t tell the historians!) a list of names on the wall – that we painted over! But! We did document them first: Natasha, Chloe, Liana, Cameron! Some of you will know those names! (What we should have done, Megan, is measure how high each of those marks were on the 9th of the 9th 2001 because they were not that high. It was very cute!)
Because this list makes them very real doesn’t it! You can suddenly picture a little Natasha (aged four?), a little Chloe, a little Liana, a slightly bigger Cameron! And this is what Colossians 4 does for us, too. We can picture Paul (the commentators say perhaps not in prison but under house arrest, chained to another person – perhaps Aristarchus?) meeting with these people; Tychicus, Onesimus, Mark, Justus, Epaphras, Luke and Demas; meeting together, praying together, planning out next steps for the church together, wrestling with challenges and difficulties together.
And when you look around this room… when you zoom in and see the names and faces on the screens… that is what we are still doing. We are ordinary saints, ordinary people meeting together, praying together, planning out next steps for the church together, wrestling with challenges and difficulties together.
Secondly, we are reminded ordinary saints are simply people who know they need God.
If I can quote Pope Francis, “The Saints are not supermen [or superwomen!] and neither are they perfect. They lived normal lives marked by sadness and joy, hardships and hopes, before reaching the glory of heaven. But when they witnessed God’s love, they followed him with all their heart…” Paul, in this letter, goes even further! You are not saints at some future point, he says, you are saints now! “To the saints, [the] faithful brothers and sisters,” he writes in Colossians 1:2; “we have heard…of the love that you have for all the saints,” (Colossians 1:4); “you…share in the inheritance of the saints in the light,” (Colossians 1:12); “Christ in you, the hope of glory…has now been revealed to [you, God’s] saints,” (Colossians 1:26).
The Colossians were saints, there and then, because, in Christ, they had been rescued, “from the power of darkness…transferred (Colossians 1:13)… into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” They were inside the walls of Christ’s great love. They were in Christ’s love and that love was in them. They were saints because they were people who knew they needed God.
And we are also saints – here and now! We have been rescued from the power of darkness and relocated into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. We are stripping off the filthy rags we wore in that regime and dressing ourselves in loveliness. Because we are God’s holy and beloved people! We are in Christ’s love and that love is in us.
Thirdly, as ordinary saints, as loved and loving saints, we are people who need people.
Some of you will remember, years ago, the Sunday School doing Paul’s missionary journeys, and the question being asked, “What did Paul take with him on his travels?” I remember hauling a suitcase into church, as I posed this question, and then we’d unzip it, and out would pop one of the smaller and bendier children! The answer was, “his friends!” Paul took his friends with him on his travels because Paul was a person who needed people!
He needed the Colossians. Pray for us, he says. Pray I find the right words when I declare the mystery of Christ. I’d ask that of all of you – that you would pray for my preaching – and for Steve’s. And we pray the same for you – that your speech will always be gracious and just a little salty – not in the contemporary sense – but in the sense of bringing flavour, zest, life into your conversations with others.
Paul also needed Tychicus. “He is a beloved brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord,” says Paul. He needed him as postal service (no Australia Post then!), but also to let the Colossians know how Paul was doing and to encourage them on his behalf. There was mutual concern.
And he needed Onesimus. Onesimus who has a fascinating back story. He was the runaway slave of a member of the Colossian church, Philemon, (we find this out in the book of Philemon) but Paul is now sending him back as much more, “the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you,” Paul says. This is the incredible transformative power of the gospel at work! Onesimus’ old clothes, old role is now old news. He is now a brother in Christ.
And Paul needed the others. Even those – and commentators debate the meaning of verse 11 – who, “are the only ones of the circumcision among my co-workers”, those who may have belonged to the group of Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision for all believers – something Paul argued against (even in this letter). Yet they and Paul have found a way to work together, to be a comfort to each other despite their different views.
Which goes back to what we were discussing last week – in the sermon and the church meeting. We are not – as Christians – expected to hold the same positions on everything. To affirm the same set of Christian position statements – let alone Baptist position statements! Being the church means witnessing to finding ways to work together, comforting and supporting one another, in our differences! Receiving the other, as the Anglican primate said last week, “as a gift from God.”
I will confess I struggle to think of the more conservative end of our denomination (the five churches that brought these motions to the 2021 Special Assembly) as a gift from God. You would certainly not find Nympha leading a home church in their churches! But I would not deny them – for a moment – the opportunity to come and meet together; to find ways to work together; to comfort and support each other. This is what our church, and others, have faithfully been doing over the past two years. Not insisting that any other church leave our association but upholding our deep commitment to what being church means – to quote the Most Rev Geoffrey Smith again – to finding ways, “to stay together, graciously reflecting God’s great love, with our differences held sincerely.”
Because we believe as a church that Christians can work together. Can I hear an Amen?
Because we believe as a church that Baptists can work together. Can I hear an Amen?
Because we believe as a church that is faithful to Scripture, that is ‘in Christ’, that is being shaped by God’s great love, that is led by the Spirit, that is following the example of the Colossian church that welcomed Greeks and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, former slaves and former slave owners – that we will welcome and we will affirm LGBTIQA+ people as our faithful brothers and faithful sisters in Christ; that they are one of us! Amen to that? Amen!
We are ordinary saints. Saints with warts and all. Who all acknowledge that we need God. Who all acknowledge that we need each other.
We want to be Ephaphrases, who was one of them – who could be any one of us – always wrestling in his or her prayers on behalf of others, faithfully ministering – working hard – for Christ, for the church, for others, telling and retelling stories of saintly love.
So that is what we are going to do – as I have mentioned this morning.
We are going to sing this next hymn – a rather daggy hymn, in many ways, that is my father’s favourite, and is also kind of wonderful. And during this hymn, can I encourage you to write some words on the paper you have – maybe the name of the ordinary saint you are thinking of – or a very brief description of their act of love – or how that act has impacted you. And then after the hymn, we will share those very brief stories with each other.
Hymn – I sing a song of the saints of God
Sharing exercise…
We are ordinary saints. Ordinary saints who need God. Ordinary saints who need other ordinary saints – as our stories have demonstrated. And – thanks and praise be to God – we are also ordinary saints who our extraordinary God calls – our extraordinary God wants – to be the church.
I want to close by reading a little prayer that I have used before – a challenge and an invitation for us to be God’s ordinary saints together.
Loving God, your church is made up of people like me.
I help make it what it is.
It will be friendly, if I am.
It will do great work in people’s lives, if I work.
It will make generous gifts to people in need, if I am generous.
It will bring other people into its worship and community,
if I bring them and welcome them.
It will be a church where people grow in faith and serve you,
if I am open to such growth and service.
Therefore with your help, God,
we commit ourselves
to being what you want your church to be.
Amen.