Well hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome to another session in Abiding in Colossians,
As we consider what it means to abide through the lens of Paul's letter to the Colossian church.
Well yesterday we began to widen our field of vision.
We stepped beyond the interior life,
Beyond simply noticing what's growing within us,
And began to consider a larger claim,
That reality itself is held together from within,
That presence isn't far away somewhere or hidden beyond this world,
But is foundational to it.
And today,
As we continue in this letter that Paul has written,
The hymn that we began yesterday continues,
But once again the focus will shift.
Because yesterday,
While the emphasis was creation,
Today the emphasis is reconciliation.
So as we prepare to begin,
I invite you just to stop and to still yourself,
To feel your body still and present.
If your feet are on the floor,
Feel the floor beneath you.
Allow the space where you're sitting or lying to take your weight.
Take a deep breath in and out.
And in that stillness,
Open your ears as we consider the words of Paul in Colossians chapter 1 verses 17 through 20.
Continuing to speak of the Christ,
Paul writes,
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
Whether on earth or in heaven,
By making peace through the blood of his cross.
And so if you cast your mind back to yesterday,
You'll remember that we heard that all things were created through Christ.
And today we hear that all things are being brought back together.
And this is a movement from simply seeing reality as sustained to seeing reality as being healed.
So the passage says that Christ is before all things and in him all things hold together.
And then it goes on to speak of reconciliation,
Of peace being made,
Of all things being brought into unity.
And you'll notice that word there,
All.
So this isn't some things or selected things or only what appeared good on the whole.
All things,
Or as I like to say,
The Greek for all there means all.
And this is where the vision becomes both beautiful,
But also perhaps a little challenging.
Because if you look around,
You'll notice that we live in a world that doesn't just feel but looks incredibly fragmented.
We've got fractured relationships,
Divided communities,
Separated nations.
Even within ourselves,
There can be a sense of tension that part of our lives doesn't seem to fit together with some other parts.
We know what fragmentation feels like.
We experience it in strained relationships.
We misunderstand each other.
There are conflicts that linger longer than we would wish.
And yet,
This passage dares to suggest that fragmentation is not the deepest truth about reality,
But rather unity is.
And you'll note that we can perhaps hold to this because he doesn't speak here of a visible unity or an immediate unity.
What he's talking about is a structural unity.
This is deeper than what we can see going on on the surface.
So when the hymn speaks of reconciliation,
It's not doing it from a place of wishful thinking,
But as a space of movement.
Some ongoing bringing together of all the things that have been scattered.
And maybe the most striking claim in this whole thing is this,
That everything belongs.
Structurally,
Everything belongs.
Meaning that nothing exists outside the reach of reconciliation.
Nothing at all is beyond the possibility of being gathered and healed and restored.
It doesn't mean that everything's going to feel peaceful.
And it doesn't mean that everything's going to be restored and resolved.
But it does suggest that reconciliation is something that's already underway.
That we don't have to try and do it ourselves and rustle it up.
And that trust can be difficult.
Because when we look at the world,
We often see division way more easily than we do unity.
We see what's broken and strained.
We can tell when things refuse to come together.
And yet beneath those visible fractures,
There may be deeper currents moving that we can't see or measure or control.
Things that are happening without us noticing.
Just again,
Like the natural world.
You know,
When a forest is disturbed by a storm or a fire or a drought,
There's a disruption and a loss.
And there's a lot of visible damage.
But beneath the surface,
Restoration begins almost immediately.
Seeds buried in the soil respond to the new light.
Roots hold the ground steadily.
Growth begins to appear.
Even before the landscape appears to be whole.
Reconciliation in nature is patient and persistent.
And maybe reconciliation in human life works in the same way.
That it's not always visible and immediate,
But it's happening.
It's underway.
It's already moving and already holding.
Which truly does invite us into a different way of living with tension.
Because most of us,
When we encounter fragmentation,
Feel an urge to fix it quickly,
Don't we?
The force to go out and bring a resolution about,
To try and get clarity,
To eliminate the discomfort,
To appease.
But sometimes you can't rush reconciliation.
Healing sometimes doesn't respond well to pressure.
And sometimes unity doesn't emerge through control.
And maybe sometimes the most faithful response to fragmentation is to not try and force it,
But trust.
That reconciliation is deeper than the fracture itself.
Trusting that belonging is more fundamental than division.
And that trust begins to change how we hold tension.
That instead of reacting immediately,
We remain present.
Rather than forcing the outcomes,
We just give some space and we attend rather than control.
And this is what we might call holding without controlling.
Holding the tension without collapsing into some sort of anxiety.
Holding difference without rushing to eliminate it.
And holding uncertainty without demanding immediate answers.
And this requires patient trust.
Trust that reconciliation is something that we participate in.
Something that's already unfolding beneath the surface of our lives.
And this has incredible implications,
Not only for how we see the world,
But for how we see ourselves.
Because fragmentation doesn't only exist out there,
It exists within us too.
All of us have conflicting desires and unresolved questions.
Parts of ourselves that feel disconnected or uncertain.
And quite often we try to resolve these through trying harder and demanding clarity and forcing certainty.
But maybe there's a deeper invitation in all of this to hold tension.
And to hold it faithfully,
Trusting that unity is deeper than fragmentation,
Even within ourselves.
And to trust that reconciliation is already underway somehow in those deep interior spaces of our lives.
So today I'd like to invite you into a posture of holding.
As moments of tension arise,
Whether in conversation or thought or feeling,
Notice the impulse to control.
Notice the urge to resolve it quickly.
And when you notice that,
Just pause for a second.
Allow the tension to exist without trying to make it disappear.
Let the question remain without demanding an immediate answer.
And see the fracture without speeding off to repair it.
And ask yourself,
What changes when I trust that reconciliation might already be underway,
Even though I might not be able to see it?
To trust that unity runs deeper than division.
That belonging runs deeper than separation.
And that life itself is being gathered into wholeness.
Because if this hymn of Paul's is true,
Then fragmentation is not the final word.
Unity is.
And while it may not be immediate,
And it may not always be visible,
It's happening.
Deeply happening.
Already present.
Already moving.
And already holding everything together.
And may grace,
Peace and love hold you as you hold that tension today and always.
Amen.
Until tomorrow,
Friend.
May peace be with you.
