Colossians Remixed...

We begin a series on Colossians this Sunday, walking verse by verse through Paul's letter to the community of Jesus followers at the Greek city of Colossae.

To prepare, I'm reading Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat's Colossians Remixed:Subverting the Empire

In it, they wonder what would happen if a letter like this was written to us today, at the beginning of the new millennium? What if we took the exact same themes that Paul wrote to them (believers in Colossae) then, and wrote them to us (Believers in Western society), now? They say:

"This isn’t such a novel way of approaching an ancient text. In fact, when rabbis read the Torah to the Jews of the Diaspora, they did precisely this kind of thing. Recognizing that their congregations did not understand Hebrew, the rabbis would have to translate the text as they read. And their translations were not literal. Rather, they would update the text, apply it to the changing context and put it into contemporary idiom. The result of such interepretive exercises were called targums, extended paraphrases on the text."

Here's their targum, their paraphrase for today of Col 1:1-14, our text for this week...
Rehearing Colossians 1.1–14 in the Context of Disquieted Globalism

Brian and Sylvia, disciples of Messiah Jesus by the grace of God, to the covenanted community of faithful brother and sisters in Christ in the totally wired world of the new global economy.

At the dawn of a new millennium, and in the face of a world of terror, may you experience the all–encompassing shalom and wholeness that is received as a wonderful gift from God our Father.

We want you to know that thankfulness permeates our prayers for you. We continue to give thanks to God, the Father of our sovereign Messiah Jesus as we hear the stories of struggling and daring discipleship that continue to characterize his followers. We have heard that your faith and trust in Jesus who is the Messiah of Israel is proven true because it takes on the real flesh of love in your midst – a love that is manifest in your care for the poor, providing shelter to the homeless, food for the hungry and hospitality to the stranger. Such faith and love are inseparable, one cannot exist without the other. But neither are possible without hope. And, here at the end of a century of such bloodshed, betrayal, and broken promises, it is an amazing thing to be a community animated by hope. May that hope sustain you in a world addicted to violence.

But your hope is not the cheap bouyant optimism of global capitalism with its cybernetic computer gods and self–confident scientific discovery all serving the predatory idolatry of economism. You know that these are gods with an insatiable desire for child sacrifice. That is why your hope is not the shallow
optimism of the “Long Boom” of increased prosperity.Such optimism is but a cheap imitation of hope. Real hope – the kind of hope that gives you the audacity to resist the commodification of your lives and engenders the possibility of an alternative imagination – is no human achievement, it is a divine gift. This is a hope that isn’t extinguished by living in “the future of a shattered past” precisely because it is a hope rooted in a story of kept promises, even at the cost of death.

You didn’t get this hope from television and you didn’t find it on the Net. This hope walked into your life, hollering itself hoarse out on the streets, in the classroom, down at the pub and in the public square, when you first heard the good news of whole life restoration in Christ. This gospel is the Word of truth – it is the life-giving, creation-calling, covenant-making, always faithful, servant Word that takes flesh in Jesus who is the truth. So it is not surprising that the word of truth is no detached set of objective verities committed to memory and reproduced on the test. No, this word of truth is active, bearing fruit throughout the cultural wilderness of this terribly scorched earth. From the beginning blessing, “be fruitful and multiply,” God has always intended that this creation be a place of fruitfulness. Now the Word of truth is producing the fruit of radical discipleship, demonstrated in passion for justice, evocative art and drama, restorative stewardship of our ecological home, education for faithful living and integral evangelism, and liturgy that shapes an imagination alternative to the empire's.

And when that kind of fruit is evident in your lives, then you don’t need to choke on the word, “truth,” – you don’t need to whisper it through your tears. You see, once you have comprehended the grace of God in truth and your life bears witness to the power of this truth, then you can speak – indeed you can
sing – of truth with integrity. You have learned all of this well from prophets and singers, teachers and preachers, artists and story-tellers that have come before us, and again, they all testify to your love in the Spirit.

So, ever since we have heard of your faith, love and hope we have not ceased to pray for you. And our prayer is that in a world that has commodified knowledge, you will be saturated with the holistic, intimate knowledge of God’s way with this world that he has created. May your lives be characterized not by the accumulation of disembodied, unconnected facts and information, but by the playful, history- embracing, this-worldly, interconnected wisdom that traces the wise and loving way that God orders this world in all of its rich diversity.

What we are praying for is that you will demonstrate a spiritual wisdom and understanding in all
things so that you can discern where the Spirit is leading the church in this new century. You see, this kind of knowledge, this kind of wisdom, this kind of understanding is foundational if you are to shape cultural life in a way that is worthy of the Lord, worthy of the name, Christian. And don’t miss the scope of what we are talking about here. What is at stake is nothing less than the pleasure of our Lord – a pleasure that he takes when every dimension of our lives bears the fruitof his kingdom.

It is not simply a matter of growing in knowledge and then displaying the practical consequences or uses of that knowledge in our daily lives. No, that would be too much like the intellectualism that was the hallmark of modernity. The kind of knowledge and cultural fruitfulness that we are talking about feed off of each other. Knowing the world in wisdom and discernment gives rise to certain kind of cultural practices that themselves lead to an increase in knowledge. Knowing grows in the doing.

But here is the rub. Everything in this monolithic culture of McWorld globalization is allied against you and will try to keep your imaginations captive, stripping you of the courage to dream of alternative ways to live. When a culture is threatened, it becomes especially repressive of those who dare to live differently, subject to another vision of life, another Lord. So may you be strengthened with all strength and empowered with nothing less than the weighty power of God in this disempowered culture of unbearable lightness. May your vision, your stubborn refusal to allow your imaginations to be taken captive, havethe tenacity to hang in there for the long haul and a patience that doesn’t need to aggressively realize the kingdom of God now because it has the faith and trust to work and wait for a miracle, for the coming of God’s shalom to our terribly broken world.

You will have the resources of such patient endurance, you will be sustained for the long haul of radical obedience in the face of overwhelming odds if your life is embedded in gratitude. Joyful thanksgiving is deeply empowering.

And what we are thankful for provides us with a subversive imagination. While the cybernetic revolution will tell us that the world is in the hands of those with the most powerful computers and widest Net access, and the forces of globalization arrogantly proclaim that those who control capital have a proprietary right to the resources of creation, we confess that this world is the inheritance of those who live in the light – not the dim light of the Enlightenment, nor the glittering lights of computer screens, televisions and gambling terminals, but the light that liberates us from darkness.

You see, friends, because we are not subservient to the empire, but subjects of the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, we have the audacity to say to the darkness, “we beg to differ!” We will not be a pawn to the Prince of Darkness any longer because we owe him no allegiance, and by God’s grace, through our redemption and forgiveness, our imaginations have been set free.

Comments

[Dan Brown]

So the way to adapt to the "changing context" is to throw in a bunch of "postmodern" buzzwords and tired anti-capitalist boilerplate? Are you sure this isn't a parody?

[john chandler]

Such a great book.

[bob]

Yup.
You'd have to read the book, but they actually do a great job of answering that question...
Not "anti-capitalist" but anti-empire...
And every empire has their tools of control, eh?

The point of targum is to give cultural equivalancy... and I think there's great reason to equate the claims of Roman Empire and their Pax with the claims of Globalization and its...

A quote: "So here's the question. When Paul employs the metaphor of fruitfulness in his opening section of the letter, what echoes and overtones does the does the language carry? Wouldn't this language reverberate with fruitfulness as a dominant metaphor in the conflicting narratives of this community's life? If the empire encodes in the imagery of everyday life- on public arches, statues and buildings- the claim that Rome and its emperor are the beneficent provider and guarantor of all fruitfulness, then can a claim that the "gospel" is bearing fruit "in the whole wold" be heard as anything less than a challange to this imperial fruitfulness? Especially if we remember that the word gospel (euangelion) is the very same term that the empire reserves for announcements of military success and pronouncements from the emperor, doesn't it become clear that there is something deeply subversive in what Paul is saying here? Whose gospel is the source of a fruitfulness that will last and sustain the world- the gospel of Caesar or the gospel of Jesus?
And what kind of fruitfulness are we talking about? Paul tells the Colossians that the Gospel of Jesus bears a fruit in their lives that is fundamentally diffeent from the fruit of the empire. The fruit of this gospel is rooted not in military might and economic oppression but in the practice of justice and sacrificial faithfulness. This is a gospel that bears fruit "in every good work" of forgiving generosity and therefore undermines the hoarding abundance touted by the empire."

and...

"In Colossians Paul is telling a story that is an alternative to the mythology of empire. Mythology is always about salvation, peace and prosperity. Rome found salvation in the universal peace after the age of Augustus. The "American Empire" finds its salvation in economic progress and global control. Paul tells a story about a salvation rooted in Christ, historical sovereignty located in a victim of the empire, and prosperity that bears fruit in the whole world."

[Steve McCoy]

Cool. We are starting Colossians this week as well. Starting to read Colossians Remixed today. Also using O'Brien, Dunn and Wright.

[bob]

Very cool! I thought I had more commentaries on Colossians on my shelf... I'll have to check those out...

[Dan Brown]

Apples and oranges, Bob. Empire is top-down; capitalism and "globalization" are bottom-up. In other words, empire is about control, while capitalism is about autonomy. Anyway, a remark like this one can only be read as anti-capitalist rather than anti-empire:

But your hope is not the cheap bouyant optimism of global capitalism with its cybernetic computer gods and self–confident scientific discovery all serving the predatory idolatry of economism.

And by the way, this one could be the most absurd of the year:

Everything in this monolithic culture of McWorld globalization is allied against you and will try to keep your imaginations captive, stripping you of the courage to dream of alternative ways to live.

Anyone who fails to see how globalization has enormously expanded the options available to everyone is either astoundingly ignorant, willfully blind, or just plain stupid.

[ron]

Anyone who fails to see how globalization has enormously expanded the options available to everyone is either astoundingly ignorant, willfully blind, or just plain stupid.

Hi Dan, my daughter who is currently working in missions in Zambia, must be ignorant, blind and stupid...as globalization, free trade have done nothing to " expand " the options to the poverty in that one small country.

Bob, fantastic book, we worked through the book a couple of years ago as community...it was an eye opening experience.It is far more than pomo buzzwords, Walsh and Keesmaatt have put years of work into it...and to N.T. Wright read the draft and highly endorse it...tells you the book is on track.

[John]

Dan,

As Ron said, it is more than a bit disingenuous to say that Globalization Inc. has worked out for all. All systems leave some behind. Christ does not.

But the greater danger to most in the West is that Globalization Inc. HAS brought a great deal of prosperity. And we think that prosperity is the cure for all evil, here and throughout the world. It is so easy to confuse prosperity for the genuine freedom only Christ can bring. Good is the enemy of Best. Even when all our systems work out, it is still a cheap imitation.

All that said, the exerpt does seem a bit buzzword heavy. :)

[Paul Hill]

This book is really not a commentary, in the traditional sense, but an excellent resource in learning to apply the New Testament to story to our lives.

Walsh and Keesemaat are writing as much about hermeneutics as they are about Colossians. It goes well with Webb's book "Slaves, Women and Homosexuals."

Ron, how long has your daughter been in Zambia? Did she see what things were like when trade was less open? I'm not saying by any means that globalization makes everything perfect, and anyway, we're a long way from truly free trade. Places like Zambia also suffer from corruption and foolish economic policies, which cheat citizens out of the potential gains of integration into the global economy. Even so, globalization has encouraged improvements even in Zambia. Sez the CIA World Factbook: "Privatization of government-owned copper mines relieved the government from covering mammoth losses generated by the industry and greatly improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth." Inflation is falling, and the overall economy is growing. Of course, that doesn't prove a causal relationship, but the country is apparently doing very well by historical standards.

John, you make it sound like prosperity is a bad thing. In the developed world, economic stagnation is an inconvenience; in the "developing" world, it can be fatal. In the long run, economic growth is the only thing that will relieve the misery of people in impoverished countries.

[Dan Brown]

That last message was from me, by the way.

[[email protected] Carmichael]

you know u r big time when people who don't know each other rip on each other on ur blog...

congrats bob!

J<><

[ron]

Dan, she has been in Kitwe for about 4years, so in a historical context, a blip...She has seen little of the trickle down from changes in the mining industry. And you are certainly right about the corruption in government, but I think there too, things are slowly changing.I just don't see Globalization as the end all. It is almost becoming the " new " religion, the only hope for the future. At the moment most of these third world countries, are worlds away from where globalization will help them.Just my observations Dan, thanks for the conversation. Peace...Ron+

[John]

Hi Dan

I didn't mean to say prosperity is necessarily a bad thing. Just that Jesus is better. :)

[John Chang]

Great commentary; I've got one on my shelf and it's fantastic!