Wednesday Wonder

High minded nonsense

This phrase came up in Bible study this week. It caught the imagination of the study groups. What exactly was the high minded nonsense to which Paul was referring, and why was it important enough for him to mention to the community of faith at Colossae?

I just spent the morning with my grandson. There was no high minded nonsense going on then. I’m not even sure some of what sent us to collapse together in a heap of giggles could have even been called low brow comedy.

That didn’t matter. It wasn’t about what someone was saying. We were all about what we were experiencing together. What could our bodies do? How could we create something interesting with the toys at hand? And then, how could we do something interesting with what we had created? I never knew how much fun dumping all our toys out of buckets, turning over said buckets and then creating a path upon those buckets could be. No, I didn’t walk on the overturned buckets, I’m a little heavy for that, but Damon sure had fun learning about balance and how good Granny is at making up interesting paths for him to follow. We were learning. But we were not learning high minded nonsense. To anyone watching us it might have seemed like nonsense. But it was the good kind of nonsense, the kind that helps a child grow and learn.

And, in fact, that was what Paul was worried about for the Colossians. He didn’t want the high minded nonsense to keep them from growing and learning in the faith. What is this high minded nonsense I keep mentioning? It is all the claims the experts make that may sound good, but ultimately, take us away from our focus on God, Christ and our place as part of the body of Christ. In fact, it may even try to tear down the body of Christ all together. We are the body of Christ. That is what the church is known as, both then and now.

Clearly, in Colossae, there are people who are making claims about knowing how to get the most out of life, or what you should believe to gain the most. These people are trying to convince the new Christians in the Colossian church that what they believe is actually the nonsense and they should go back to their old lives, or follow this other, different way of worship and life. Paul is encouraging the Colossians to remain steadfast in their faith in the gospel of Christ they have learned.

How hard it must have been for those new Christians, in this new community of faith, to remain faithful in the midst of all the ‘experts’ pushing other ideas. How hard is it today? What we are discovering in Bible study is that what Paul is saying to the Colossians, he could just as easily be saying to us, now. They were new to the faith. They had only recently heard the good news of the gospel. We have thousands of years of history and experience of this good news. But, do we still struggle to remain faithful? You bet!

Being a follower of Christ is never easy, in any time or place. We are often called to be countercultural. While the world goes off in whatever direction the latest expert says is the way to go, or whatever interpretation of the latest study says is the best. We are called to stay the course and live as Jesus, the Christ, showed us.

And what did Christ show us? That we are called to be for the other, not ourselves. We are called to look out for our human neighbours, and everyone is our neighbour. It isn’t just what is best for me and mine, but for all God’s creatures. We are some of those creatures, and we are called to help care for the others.

Yep, sometimes I collapse in a heap of giggles like I did this morning, at the absurdity of this call. When I look at the world around me, I can’t imagine how telling the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection will ever be heard, let alone believed, in this world today. But Jesus came to give us life, life in abundance. And I plan to share that abundance, however I can.

Today, I shared it in a heap of giggles with my grandson. No high minded nonsense needed. Just some good old regular nonsense that helped him learn and grow. Maybe there is something in there for how we ‘church folks’ can share what the world often calls nonsense, in a way that might be heard. Let’s face it. We could all use a good giggle some days.