The Mission of Unity

As we come to the next to last Sunday in our summer series through Colossians, you may wonder why we didn’t skip this passage. Believe me, I thought about it…more than once. Yet, it is a familiar (if controversial) passage in our culture, and important for us to understand. To understand this passage, we have to understand the intended recipients of the letter and their lives.

The primary institution, the building block for all society, in Roman society was the household. Households were more than mom, dad, and kids. A household was a network of relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins, workers, and associates. The hierarchy was well-developed, and stable. And then, along came Jesus, revolutionary words were spoken. His followers treated people as equals and taught that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ Jesus, children of God, heirs of God’s promises. The household was set on end. And as a result, so was society.

There had once been rules about everything, and they were enforced rigidly, and then, according to Christians, they were all fulfilled…the law was replaced by grace. In Christ, all were one with freedom and unity. But the question after 2 generations became, how is this organized?

N.T. Wright compares the situation to a country that has had a strict and severe ruler with laws about everything from what to eat and how to fix it, to what time to get up and go to bed, to who could own a car and where and when they could drive it. Nothing in this country was left to chance or interpretation. The country was tidy and orderly, but the people were repressed. The dictator suddenly took ill and died, though, and as a result all the old restrictions were abolished. Everyone was free to do as they wished. So many new possibilities, the joy and excitement led to reveling and celebration.

The next day, two drivers were enjoying their new-found freedoms. When they crashed headlong into each other, neither was hurt fortunately. But they were both angry and puzzled.
“Why were you driving on that side of the road?”
“Why shouldn’t I drive where I like?”
“But people drive on the right-hand side of the road!”
“Who says?”
“Well, that’s the law isn’t it? That’s the custom. That’s what we do.”
“We’re free now! We don’t have to do what anybody tells us!”

See the problem? There needs to be some kind of Highway Code. In Christ, all are one; there was no longer a hierarchy for the household, but they needed some kind order, a “household code”. Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles were written late in the 1st Century. 2 generations after Jesus’ life and ministry. Two things were happening that caused the writers to establish a “Household Code.”

First, the establishment did not like revolution. Household hierarchy was the building block of Pax Romana. Each person understood who ruled over them, all the way to the Emperor. Christianity was perceived as anti-household, therefore anti-society, therefore anti-establishment, therefore anti-Rome. The result was persecution. Peace would be kept, at any cost. And it wasn’t hard to recruit non-Christian heads of household to carry out the persecution. Imagine how afraid they had to be that their wives, their children, their servants would start demanding the freedoms and rights that were being given away in those Christian households.

It was a time of anger and fear directed at Christians. So, many Christians toward the end of the 1st Century were beginning to call for conformation to societal norms. It’s hard to be radicals. It is hard to challenge the status quo of the establishment. It is especially hard when it has been the struggle of your parents and your grandparents before you. Passion for the mission of unity and new societal structure was waning. Many were thinking, “Why do we fight this battle anyway?”

Some wanted the comfort of the old rules. They were black and white. You knew where you stood. You knew who you answered to. You knew who would answer to you. Life was simpler then. Fireside talks drifted to wistful conversations, “Remember the old days?”

The other reason a household code was needed was practical. Without rules, people didn’t know what lane to use. Roles had always been clear. Now all were equal, no roles, no authorities, no rules.

What we have in Colossians 3 is the response to people who were scared of persecution and weary of revolution to acculturate without giving up the mission of unity that they had been living. The underlying principle of the Christian household code, the guide that will lead to unity, is reciprocal obligation. It is still countercultural.

Other household codes of the day would not address anyone but the patriarch, and there certainly was no reciprocity. Wives, children, and servants are all addressed by the New Testament codes. And the instruction to submit, to humble yourselves, to recognize reciprocal obligation to one another, is given to the patriarch as well.

The cultural norm was that in a household a wife was a possession, a thing with no legal rights, equal to his house, to his flock of sheep. She was an object. She didn’t have to be told to submit to her husband, and neither did his chair. Christianity radically taught that women were individual human beings with personalities and freedoms. So, the New Testament household code instructs wives to submit those freedoms to the good of the union of husband and wife and instructs husbands to love and care for their wives.

In the same way, cultural norms for parents and children and for servants and masters were very different from what we have known in the modern era. Fathers had the right to sell their children into slavery, to put them to work in their own fields, and even to condemn them to death and carry out the execution. Servants were also property with no codes for working conditions, and if a servant could no longer work, it was acceptable to put him or her out to die. See how, even as they recognized the need for lanes and roles, the New Testament household code remained countercultural? Fathers are to not provoke their children and care about their spirits, taking care that they not lose heart. And masters are to treat their servants justly and fairly. That was radical.

This passage is not a popular passage for most preachers or congregations. When we got married, my instructions to Dick Baldwin, who married us, included to not use the word “submit” anywhere in the service. This passage has been used to oppress rather than to guide. But its mission is good, when we remember the reason for the letter and the lives of the original recipients. The principle of reciprocal obligation is good. All relationships need to have lanes, continually leading us toward the center: As each instruction is given, the center is clear: “as is fitting in the Lord”, “for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord”, “as done for the Lord”, “for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.” The center of all relationships is our mission to live in unity, in Christ. The center is the Lord. Not ourselves, not someone else, not something else – the center of every household, the center of every relationship, is the Lord. Thanks be to God for his Holy Word that guides us. Amen.

This sermon is based in part upon:
WIlliam Barclay’s Daily Study Bible Series
N.T. Wright’s Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters
Lewis R. Donelson’s commentary in the Westminster Bible Companion Series