The past couple of
weeks we have been looking at Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Last week we
were in chapter 1 and our theme was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We
talked about how as a church we need to have on our spiritual 3D glasses. They correct
our vision so that we can see Christ all around us—in the creation that he made
in love and sustains in love, and in one another. With our spiritual glasses we
see the world with God’s gaze of love.
Our theme today is, “You have been
given fullness in Christ.” Paul opens this passage with an exhortation to the
Colossians. He says, “just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to
live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were
taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving.” Paul is concerned because it seems
that the Colossians, in verse 8, have been struggling with
some false teaching in their midst, based on human philosophies and ideas that
are not the true gospel of Christ. This false teaching diminishes who Christ
is. So Paul affirms strongly in verse 9, “For in Christ all the fullness of the
Deity lives in bodily form.” God dwells in completeness in Jesus. Then Paul adds
in verse 10, “and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over
every power and authority.” This
means that the church, the Body of Christ, has completeness or wholeness in
him. If the church has completeness in Christ, what more can these false
teachers add to that? The question we
want to answer then is “what does it mean that the church has fullness
in Christ?”
In thinking about us
here at All Saints, I’d like to talk about what I see as a real gift that
Anglicanism has in terms of our fullness in Christ, and that is through what we
call in our denomination the three streams—Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and
Charismatic. Anglicanism is broad, including in it three spiritual streams
which in most places in the wider church are found in separate denominations.
Having them all gives Anglicanism a richness in the church, and a fuller
expression of what it means to be the body of Christ, to have unity in
diversity. Some of you may find talk of the three streams helpful, and others
may wonder what they mean or why we bother with them. I’d like to try to help
us understand them a little better and how they are rooted in who Christ is. Basically,
these three streams describe who we are in our worship, our foundation in the
Scriptures and our attention to the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the building
up of the church.
As we think together
about these three streams, I want you to picture in your mind a cross. The cross
has four arms that are all the same length like a Greek cross. Now, think of
the Church as this cross. At the center of the cross is Christ. And the arms of
the cross are what we call the spiritual streams, flowing towards Christ where
they mingle and become one. We could also call them aspects of what the church
as a whole truly is. Each of these streams has an important role in the
wholeness of the Body of Christ. We need them all in order to be the fullness
of Christ dwelling in us. If you’re with me now you might be thinking, “Wait a
minute. There are four branches on the cross, but we have three streams.”
You’re right, but I’m going to keep you in suspense for a little bit about that
fourth branch. So let’s take a close look at the first three branches.
The first branch is
what we call the Anglo-Catholic stream. This stream helps us to have a deeper
understanding of the Incarnation. It emphasizes the importance of the
Sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, as well as the other sacraments of
confirmation, marriage, ordination, reconciliation and healing. These are all
in the Book of Common Prayer, and they are all special ways that, through the
ministry of the church, God touches into our physical lives with his spiritual
grace. The Anglo-Catholic stream teaches us about God coming to dwell in our
own human flesh, making our daily lives in our bodies holy and good. This is incarnational and sacramental
theology. The Anglo-Catholic stream gives order and unity to our worship as the
body of Christ, through the liturgy. The purpose of the liturgy is to help us glorify
God as a body, and be spiritually formed as a people into a unified body of
Christ. So the gifts to the Body of the Anglo-Catholic stream are bringing into
view the Incarnation, the Sacraments and the ordering of worship in the
liturgy. We might say that it helps us to embody Christ. It teaches us about
the Body.
Secondly we have the
Evangelical stream. This branch emphasizes our salvation through Jesus’ death
and resurrection. The Anglo-Catholic stream draws our attention to the Incarnation.
The Evangelical stream draws our attention to the Cross. It is concerned about
the individual believer having a personal relationship with Christ, receiving forgiveness
of sins through the cross. This stream stresses the church’s need to be
Biblically grounded, firm in the authority of Scripture. It emphasizes the doctrines,
or right teachings, of the church to help keep her true to the faith handed
down from the apostles. This stream, in a sense, guards the pulpit to ensure
that the gospel is proclaimed and the Scriptures are properly expounded. It
encourages the study of the Bible individually and in groups. If the
Anglo-Catholic stream draws our focus to the body, we might say that the
Evangelical stream draws our focus to the mind, and the renewing of the mind in
Christ.
Thirdly, we have the
Charismatic stream. This branch
emphasizes Pentecost. It reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the one who
empowers the church, and gives the church spiritual gifts for the building up
of the body. Unless the church is enlivened by the Holy Spirit, it’s just a
human institution. The Charismatic stream is concerned that the church
recognizes its dependence on the God’s Spirit for all that is done as a body,
whether it is worship, Bible study, preaching, the sacraments—all is enlivened
by the Holy Spirit. The Charismatic stream draws our focus to the Spirit—the
Holy Spirit enlivening our own spirits. These three streams, with their
emphasis on body, mind and spirit, together help us to have a holistic
understanding of the church, so that all aspects of the Body of Christ are
being nurtured and developed.
Finally, I’m adding
into our three streams a fourth, that I believe properly belongs to a holistic
understanding of the church. This is what has been known as the Social Justice
stream, but I want to call it Love in Action. Love in Action is the living out
of the faith in the world. Love in Action draws our attention to the prophetic
ministry of Jesus to the poor and the outcasts. It looks to the teachings of
Jesus, such as in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. It is concerned
with showing compassion to the world, and sharing God’s love. Through the Anglican Communion we have wonderful natural connections with suffering churches around the world
in Africa, the Middle East and other poorer areas. In our congregation we have His Provision and
other kinds of outreach to the needy. It’s important that we heed the voices
that call us to put Love into Action in the world.
When any stream begins to flow away from
the center, there is danger of falling into heresy or imbalance. This is the
kind of false teaching that Paul is troubled about on behalf of the Colossians.
Different groups can become caught in the idolizing of their own particular views,
losing the sense of unity with the Body of Christ at the center where there is
balance and deep connection in Christ.
For the Love in Action branch there is the
temptation towards a liberalist humanism that forgets its roots in the good
news of Jesus Christ. Those who idolize social justice can fall prey to
cultural capitulation, which diminishes the ability to witness to Jesus Christ.
The other streams can also flow the wrong direction away from Christ in the
center. Out at the edges of the branches it seems that people or groups can
become more rigid and self-righteous. Anglo-Catholics can fall into the
idolatry of ritualism where the performance of the liturgy becomes more
important than the meaning of the liturgy. Then the liturgy becomes empty of
purpose and the power of God to transform the people into his unified Body.
Evangelicals can move away from the center towards Bibliolatry, worshiping the
Bible and becoming legalistic; clinging to the letter of the law and forgetting
the spirit of the law. They can also
fall into a kind of intellectualism that enjoys endless discussions of the fine
points of theology without ever getting their feet wet in compassionate living
out of the gospel. Charismatics, when they move away from the center of the
cross, can become very individualistic, placing too much emphasis on personal
experiences. They can get into a pattern of going from charismatic event to
charismatic event, looking for the next spiritual high, mistaking fleeting
emotions for the Holy Spirit.
When a stream flows away from Christ at
the center of the cross, it moves farther away from the other streams as well.
It falls into a kind of hardness and rigidity. Out on the edges people become
self-righteous and judgmental. They believe their view is right and others are
wrong. They can be afraid of people with other views, distrust them or even
pity them. This causes divisions in the Body. But the more the four streams
flow towards the center, towards Jesus, the closer they are to each other until
they mingle in the center. In the center, where Jesus is, there is unity, there
is respect and appreciation for the gifts that each stream brings to the Body.
The amazing thing also is that at the center, the labels become less important
and even less meaningful. Instead of finding one’s identity in any of these
labels—I’m an Anglo-Catholic, or I’m a Charismatic, etc.--we find our identity
in Christ. He is the one who calls the church into being, who gives us gifts
and perspectives that the church needs to be a whole healthy church. At the
center of the cross we listen to one another without defensiveness because we
know that Christ speaks to us through one another. We know that we are truly
one in Christ. This is true in our congregation, in our denomination, and in
the church at large.
Paul says, “you have been given
fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” The
fullness of Christ dwells in his Body, the Church. He has given us completeness
in his body. As his body we grow in humility when we learn that we need all the
members, especially those who see things differently from us. In the body, we
have completeness because of who Christ is as the Incarnate one, the Reconciler
on the Cross, the one who pours out his Spirit upon us, and the one who leads
us to put his Love into Action into the world. Christ calls us to live out of
his fullness. He is the one at the center in whom we find our true and only
identity. As Paul exhorts the Colossians, so he exhorts us, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord,
continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established
in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. “ As we flow towards
the center of the cross to Jesus, we are moving towards each other and into unity
in Christ, so that we as his body can find fullness and completeness in him. Amen.