Dear Friends,
I have been writing to you for a number of weeks now about Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae. So far, Paul has explained that his desire for the Colossian church is that they would love each other and that, in so doing, they would know God. He has gone on to encourage them not to try to know God through religious rituals that involve physical objects, which are temporary, but to focus on what is eternal. This is because God is eternal, and those who are in Jesus have died to the things of this world and are now also eternal. At this point, Paul goes on to talk about aspects of the old lives of those who are in Jesus that must die in order that their new lives may be embraced. He says,
“So put to death the parts of your life that belong to the earth, such as sexual immorality, moral corruption, lust, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).”
Col. 3:5 (CEB)
Some people may read this and think, “I knew it. Eventually we’re going to hear about how God is mad because people are having sex.” But, this isn’t just about sex. It’s about people chasing after whatever temporary and physical things they desire rather than after what is eternal, namely love, which is the very nature of God and which leads us to know God. When we orient ourselves toward the pursuit of temporary physical pleasures and comforts like food and entertainment, when we covet the leisure that comes with services provided by other people, and when we focus our desire on objects that bring comfort and pleasure or represent wealth and status, we worship objects created by God rather than worshiping God. And we fail at what is most important - love, through which we are able to know God.
I want to pause a minute here to talk about sex, which is the part of this that often makes people feel uncomfortable. Most of my friends, during my late teens and early twenties, were significantly influenced by the idea of free love. This can mean a lot of things. But here I use it to mean the idea that people should feel free, for the most part, to have sexual relations with whomever they like whenever they like. This approach to sexuality is often portrayed as a way to propagate love in the world. But the opposite is more often the truth. I found, as I experimented with this approach to sexuality, that it divided me from my friends rather than bringing us together in love. I got hurt. My friends got hurt. I hurt people. I hurt people I thought I was in love with, who were important to me, whom I really thought I cared deeply about, and whom I still remember with great tenderness, but who probably don’t remember me with the same tenderness and may even wish they’d never met me. There were diseases and unwanted pregnancies and arguments that ended friendships that have never been repaired. It turns out that free love is not free. And it is not love. Love isn’t doing whatever pleases me in the moment. That’s just treating people like objects and prioritizing what I want right now over their long-term well-being and my own. It turns out that love and self-control go hand in hand. Love involves making and keeping promises. And love involves caring for others over time even when this requires sacrifice.
People often imagine God as a kill-joy who doesn’t want people to have any fun. But the opposite is true. God created pleasure. He created the delight that we have in our physicality, including the taste of delicious food, the sensuality of sunlight, water, and green grass on our skin, the intense skin-to-skin passion of sex, the exhilaration of outdoor adventure, all of it. But none of these things are to be worshiped. If we give ourselves over to them and make pursuing them the center of our lives, their purpose is destroyed. We must worship the one who created all of these things out of immeasurable love for us instead. And we must make knowing and pursuing love in relationship with the creator and one another the center of our lives. God is eternal. Love is eternal. And, in Jesus, humanity is eternal. Pleasure is for a moment, but how we love one another matters forever.
A prayer:
God, thank you for all the wonderful things that you have created out of your love. Let me delight in them and give thanks for them. Let me never begin to worship your good gifts instead of you, pursuing my own temporary desires instead of your love. Let me focus on what is eternal, on you and your love, and not on what is only for a moment and then blows away in the wind.
Love in Christ,
Michelle
