Colossians Remixed

Colossians Remixed Subverting the Empire: Session 3

Opening Prayer: “Ours is a seduced world” By Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, p. 129

The Word of Truth • Focus on Colossians 2:8-23 • What truth claims does Paul make in this letter? • Gospel as the “word of truth” (Col. 1:5) • Prays that the Colossians “may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom, and understanding” (Col. 1:9) • Prays that the Colossians will “grow in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10) • Serves the Colossians “to make the word of God fully known” (Col. 1:25) • Teaches “everyone in all wisdom” (Col. 1:28)

The Word of Truth • More truth claims made by Paul • Desires the Colossians “have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, …,Christ” (Col. 2:2-3) • Concerned that the Colossians be “taken captive through philosophy and empty deceit” (Col. 2:8) • Admonishes the Colossians to stay focused on the crucified, resurrected, ascended, “coming-again” Christ (Col. 3:1-4) • Speaks of the Colossians’ “new self” as “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Col. 3:9-10)

Colossians & Worldviews • Aspects of worldviews • Specific way to think about life that is identified as reality • Tend to forget they are a viewpoint • Walter Wilson’s definition • “A person’s comprehensive and pre-reflective understanding of reality, an integrating framework of fundamental considerations which gives context, direction, and meaning to life in light of one’s ultimate commitments.” (as quoted on p. 100)

Colossians & Worldviews in Postmodern Era • Colossians is a worldview • Post-modernism seeks to deconstruct worldviews • Texts presenting a worldview are read with a “hermeneutic of suspicion” • “Question authority” • Post-moderns see truth in terms of regimes

Regimes of Truth “Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanism and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.” (Michel Foucault as quoted on p. 102)

Is Colossians 2:8-23 a Regime of Truth? • Like regimes of truth • Paul uses his letter to exert constraint on the Colossians confronting a different philosophy • Paul invokes the authority of Christ in a manner similar to Foucault’s “mechanisms” • Paul speaks with apostolic authority, a specific type of discourse accepted as valid • Reading this text with a “hermeneutic of suspicion” • Raises the lost voice of Paul’s opponents • Questions the validity of Paul’s claims • Ultimately does to Paul’s voice what it claims Paul does to his opponents

“What’s Sauce for the Goose…” • What if we subject the opposing philosophy to the same type of scrutiny? • Have to use the Colossians text since we don’t have a letter from this opposing philosophy • Are Paul’s opponents a regime of truth? • Exert a type of captivity based on deceit and oppression • Hide a merely human tradition behind this façade of deceit • Exerts its power of constraint with a multiplicity of rules • Uses its power for exclusion • Employs the “mechanisms” of asceticism, fasting, & visions

Regimes of Truth & the Kingdom of God • Looks like Paul is unmasking a “regime of truth” • Is this just a battle between 2 “regimes of truth”? • “Is the biblical metanarrative, together with its large-scale truth claims about the whole cosmos, inherently totalizing, violent and oppressive, or are there counterideological, antitotalizing dimensions of this grand story that militate against, delegitimate and subvert any ideological, violent, totalizing uses of this narrative?” (p. 106)

The Kingdom of the Beloved Son • “Antitotalizing” dimensions of the biblical metanarrative • “A radical sensitivity to suffering” (p. 107) • Begins with the covenant established with Noah in Genesis 6- 9 • God identifies with suffering of the slaves in Egypt (Ex. 3:7-8) • Continues in the liturgy of the psalms of lament (Ps. 44) • Reaches its apex on the cross of Christ

On Suffering • “By deciding to endure a wicked world, while continuing to open up the heart to that world…God has decided to take personal suffering upon God’s own self.” (Terence Fretheim as quoted on p. 107) • “Biblical texts in this trajectory critique the unjust status quo that legitimates itself on the basis of a false presence (notably that of the temple and monarchy) in the name of a God of justice and liberation….A story that has God intimately involved with suffering and that sees violence to be the root of the human predicament should engender a worldview that eschews all violence, including violence to those who radically disagree with us.” (p. 108)

The Kingdom of the Beloved Son • Israel as a “light to the nations”(Is. 49:6), “a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6) • Purpose to bring about the restoration of all peoples • To restore all of creation, a party to the covenant with Noah • The emphasis on total restoration actually undercuts reading the biblical narrative as a violent regime of truth • “First, …a story rooted in and radically attentive to suffering is a story of liberation from violently imposed regimes of truth, not a story that legitimates newly imposed slavery. Second, a story with the redemption of all of creation as its focus subverts any partisan, self-justifying co-option of its message.” (p. 109)

Colossians & the Biblical Metanarrative • Language of Colossians 1:12-14 • Recalls the story of the exodus • Slaves are released from captivity • Slaves are given an inheritance • God responds to Israel with forgiving love, even when they turn against him (Ex. 32:7-34:10) • Jesus re-enacts the story of the exodus • We move from slavery to freedom • We are rescued “from the power of darkness and transferred …into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13)

Colossians & Regimes of Truth • “In profound contrast to regimes of truth with their multiple forms of constraint, the kingdom of the beloved Son is a kingdom won not through violence imposed on others but through violence imposed upon the Son.” (p 110) • Cross of Christ takes central place • “The cross was ‘the victory of weakness over strength, the victory of love over hatred. It was the victory that consisted in Jesus’ allowing evil to do its worst to him, and never attempting to fight it on its own terms. When the power of evil had made its last possible move, Jesus had still not been beaten by it. He bore the weight of the world’s evil to the end, and outlasted it.” (N. T. Wright as quoted on p. 111)

Centrality of the Cross • Paul uses inflammatory language (Col. 2:13-15) • Our trespasses are nailed to the cross as the charge against Jesus • Jesus turns the tables on the authorities leading them captive in a victory parade

The Scandal of the Cross “Instead of aping the enemy’s act of violence and rejection, Christ, the victim who refuses to be defined by the perpetrator, forgives and makes space in himself for the enemy.” (Miroslav Volf as quoted on p. 112)

Colossians & Creation • Paul’s greeting points to a shalom that extends throughout creation • Gospel “has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven” (Col. 1:23) • Sweeping nature of this gospel undermines the opposing philosophy that denies the embodiment of creation through ascetic rituals • “All things have been created through Christ and for Christ. He is beforeall things, and in him all things hold together. Therefore through him God is pleased to reconcile all things.” (p. 112 version of Col. 1:16-20) • Col. 1:20 pairs the concepts of “creational scope” with “embrace of pain”

Vision of Colossians “Here is a vision of radical, creationwide inclusiveness of the kingdom, in contrast to the dismissive exclusiveness of the regime. All things are to be reconciled—even the thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities that put Christ on the cross and continue to wreak havoc in countless human lives. But that redemptive inclusion comes via the path of the cross, the embrace of pain” (p. 113)

Truth Emerges from Praxis • Paul doesn’t debate theology with the philosophical opponents • Paul points to the problems with faulty praxis • The fruit that the Colossian Christians bear points to the truth

Revisiting Moderism • Upholds objective, rationalism as model for distinguishing truth • Definition objectivism • “an approach to knowledge that attempts to eschew all perspective rooted in particular times, places and traditions, in order to aspire to the ‘view from nowhere’.” (p. 121) • How does the concept that “truth will set us free” square with the violence and oppression that reached its apex in the 20th century at the height of modernism? • “’Objectivity’ does not set us free from oppressive regimes.” (p. 120)

Modernism Revisited “The agenda of modernity has overreached itself. Its optimism about human capacities is misplaced and its assumption that there is a neutral standpoint wrong. There can be no indubitable foundation of knowledge, no uninterpreted experience, no completely transparent reading of the world. A cosmic or a divine language to express ‘what was the case’ is not available to us; all our languages are human languages, plural dialects growing on the soil of diverse cultural traditions and social conditions.” (Miroslav Volf as quoted on p. 122)

Modernism Revisited • Overreaching  pride  idolatry • Remember modernity was viewed as being in opposition to the Christian faith when it emerged • “This is not a world of objects that sit mutely waiting for the human subject to master them. Rather, this (is) a world of created fellow subjects, all called into being by the same Creator, all born of the Creator’s love, all included in the Creator’s covenant of creational restoration, and all responsive agents in the kingdom of the beloved Son.” (p. 123)

Toward Biblical Knowledge • “Knowing” in biblical terms connotes intimacy and relationship • Yada, the Hebrew word for knowing, is used for sexual intercourse • “Christians know the world from a committed place, a place of faith.” • Modernism replaces God as the judge of truth with “reason”

Criteria for a Truthful Worldview (p. 127) • “Comprehensive in scope” • Should address all of life • “Coherent” • Specifically in the way of life it endorses • “Sensitize its adherents to justice” • Do we hear the cries of the oppressed? • Makes humble claims and is “open to correction” • “Generates a praxis … of life”

Why Praxis Matters • “What our world is waiting for, and what the church seems reluctant to offer, is not more incessant talk about objective truth, but an embodied witness that clearly demonstrates why anyone should care about any of this in the first place.” (Phillip Kenneson as quoted on p. 128) • Compare with Col. 2:1-4 • Paul wants to “encourage the hearts” of the Colossians • Paul wants the community at Colossae to be “united in love” • Christian truth is embodied truth

When Christian Praxis Fails “When the church fails to be a listening community, attentive to the cries of the poor, then the gospel is implausible and alternative social philosophies take on an air of plausibility. When the church becomes a site of bitter enmity while the world is spinning ever more quickly into war and violence, then the gospel is not only implausible, it is an embarrassment. In the face of such failures to be a community that embodies the truth that came to save the world, it is no wonder that alternative visions become more plausible to us.” (p. 130)

Notes on Targums of Walsh & Keesmaat • Organize biblical story in 6 acts • Act I - Creation • Act II - Break in relationship with Creator • Act III - Israel’s story • Act IV - Jesus’ story • Act V - Church’s story • Act VI – Eschaton • We are in Act V acting with no script • We need to improvise based on the script for Acts I – IV and part of Act V

Targums & Biblical Interpretation • Improvisational nature of life requires a paradoxical reading of scripture • Innovation paired with consistency • Fidelity to the narrative paired with imaginative reading • Stability paired with flexibility • Justified by “inner-biblical exegesis” within the scriptures • Living a faithful life implies being in touch with the scriptures and with the world • Suggest reading Bible using “dynamic analogy”

Targum on Colossians 2:8—3:4 • Read targum by Walsh & Keesmaat

Bibliography • Background Clipart. Microsoft Office Online. http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us (16 Jan. 2005) • Brueggemann, Walter(2003). Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. • Curran, Leo. Photo of “Arch of Titus: Triumphal Booty”. Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome. http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~tlg/index/resources.html (27 Feb. 2005). • Walsh, Brian J. & Keesmaat, Sylvia C. (2004). Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press

Colossians Remixed