Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 12: A Suffering Ethic.

The book closes with a final focus on the approach to suffering. They introduce their approach with a fictional account "the suffering of Nympha". It is their way of illustrate the kind of trials that first century Christians faced as the seceded from the empire. In their retelling they suggest that the story of Jesus is a story of suffering.

for those of us that live at the heart of the empire, this raises an uncomfortable question. If as Paul asserts through his letters, we are called to share in the sufferings of Christ, and if such suffering is for the sake of the body of Christ, where does that leave a church community that seems to avoid any sort of suffering. Page 229.

Their closing emphasis is to a call to the reader to make the story of Christ live in the community that they inhabit.

Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 11: An Ethic of Liberation

Having tackled Colossians as a message of subversion, Brian and Sylvia are faced with the difficulty of the household code which on the surface appears to be repressive. It apparently stands in stark contrast to the rest of their approach. They offer a retelling through the eves of letter bearer and disgraced slave, Onesimus. Their retelling suggests that application of the principles should draw on the thought of Jesus reconciling everything (1:20). That reconciliation should be applied to the household structures. Paul's code appears to be an affirmation of the ideals of the empire. On close examination it is a simple subversion. Women and Slaves are given recognition and a place in a society which would not normally recognise them. Brian and Sylvia's application of this principle is to remind us that they see the empire that dominates our lives as the global economy. They remind us that the brand names that we wear are produced in countries where slavery is rife. It is their suggestion that we should begin to reshape our lives under a liberation ethic. Responding to the question of possibility they say:

The language of inevitability is he language of the empire. Wherever we hear "we have no choice" our ears should perk up. It is precisely the strategy of the empire to take our imagination captive so that we should think we have no choice. When a certain lifestyle seems to be inescapable, you need to realise you are imprisoned. Page 213

How things change!

I was fitting a tap into a work top that did not have the holes pre cut yesterday. The difficulty with that kind of job is marking the holes in exactly the right place. I was talking to a lock smith the other day (another story entirely) and he suggested using lip stick as a way of accurately locating or marking and door or fixing. So I gave it a try, and it is fantastic. I painted the base of the tap with lipstick and placed it carefully where I wanted it to go. I drilled the holes and it fitted first time! I was thinking while I was fitting the tap how things have changed since I first started plumbing 10 years ago. In our first house everything was done with copper. It took ages to prepare each joint and solder them together. When we moved to our second house I was able to use some plastic joints which just plugged straight on to the copper pipe. To fit this tap there was no copper in sight. I cut through the platic pipe in seconds, clipped the plastic connectors in, fastened the tap connectors in and ""hey presto" a working mixer tap in under an hour. No solder, no burns, no mess... well not much any way!

Rob Lacey

Rob Lacey, author of "The Street Bible" lost his battle with cancer on Monday. It is sad news, and there is a fitting tribute on his publishers blog: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm? fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=67942648& blogID=116556986 Thanks to Mark, for telling me.

Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 10: An Ethic of Community

We return to the fictitious friends to help us engage back with the discussion about post-modernity and to illustrate their point that:

A post modern culture wants us to keep our options open. Page 170

Brian and Sylvia see the moral choices that their characters have to make like the supermarket of the empire of consumerism. They set the call of Colossians as a call to a different kind of community. A community that reflects God by imagining him. One that takes on the story of God and becomes that story in the light of the empire. A subversive community is one that has allowed the "word of Christ to dwell richly" (3:16) and become an alternate to the domination of the empire.

The word of Christ dwells in his community richly when the community indwells the liberating narrative as it engages in the mutual ministry of teaching and admonishing each other "in all wisdom". Page 176

The Christian life is an alternate to the multiplicity of options. It is a subversive way of living in an individualised world.

An alternative to the empire requires different dreams, animated by a different narrative. (Page 171)

The life of the reimagined community transcends the taboos of race and gender, of politics and wealth. It is a community immersed in the story of Christ. That kind of community living under that kind of narrative begins to have a different political vision. We should observe that Brian and Sylvia live in the context of a "war on terror". The book begins to take an anti war stance as they see the peace making nature of the community envisioned by Paul. Anticipating reaction from their readers they return to the imaginary reader-author dialogue. Thankfully the imaginary dialogue leads us away from war to a discussion about alternate ways of living. They suggest that Christians should think hard about the way they live, particularly in relation to where they spend their money and how they travel. An ecological ethic Discussion about an ecological ethic comes from engagement with the principles of community and secession that they have drawn from the book of Colossians. They suggest that Paul's thoughts about compassion, meekness, patience, forgiveness, love and worship can be directly applied to an ecological ethic.

Pauls ethic in the third chapter of Colossians is routed in the narrative of Christ - died, buried, risen, ascended and coming again. This is not a narrative that imposes a series of absolutes to oppress us; it is a story of liberation from an empire that would take captive our imagination while it rapes and plunders the earth. Page 200

Colossians Remixed, Walsh and Keesmaat, Chapter 9: An Ethic of Secession

Colossians Remixed Chapter 9: An ethic of secession Brian and Sylvia love telling their story through the eyes of their semi-fictitious encounters. Chapter 9 contains introductions to two such characters, "Elanna" and "Eric".

Elanna and Eric are both postmodern, but they respond to the postmodern shift differently. They both live in a plural universe in which choice reigns supreme and life is void of any final legitimation. For Elanna, the multiplicity of choice and cacophony of voices result in anxious paralysis. (Page 150)

Eric is a different character who embraces the choice offered to him by the change in culture. He attempts to live his life without "illusion or pretence" (p.151). The little introduction to these characters leads to a discussion about the ethic of Colossians chapter 3. Reminding us of the context of the Roman empire they see it in different lights:

1. a resurrection ethic it refuses to bow the knew to the empire.
2. an ascension ethic it is not bound to the view of normality that the prevailing culture espouses.
3. a liberated ethic it is liberated from the prevailing culture.
4. an eschatological ethic
5. a relational ethic it reflects a way of life with Christ.
6. a narrative ethic it involves the the community in the life of Christ.
7. an ethic of secession it leads them from one thing to another.

Brian and Sylvia pay particular attention to the secession because of the language of sexuality that is used by Paul. Seceding from imperial sexuality

Sexual sin is not sin because it is sexual but because it is invariably covetus (Page 160)

The talk turns to relationship and community, suggesting that the sexual liberation that has been pushed on to us by late modernity has created an atmosphere of predation and recrimination (p.161). The ethic of sexuality is moved into the arena of idolatry.

There is no point getting all morally absolute about sexual promiscuity of Christians are screwing around with the same comsumerist way of life as everyone else.

Seceding from imperial idolatry. The context of empire worship sets the scene for a call to be empowered by taking control of your own destiny. Being subversive by being faithful. The violent nature of the language used by Paul is used to illustrate the difficulty of secession. It is set against the context of the empire where violence is the means of domination. It is the life once followed by the readers of Colossians but now they are called from.

The anger, wrath and malice he warns us against all entail the reduction of another person to an object of contempt with whom we have no connection, no compassion and no community. (Page 165)

It is the language of empire to which they return as they conclude the chapter. The call of Paul through Colossians is to have our eyes opened to the empire that dominates our lives, to become uncomfortable with it and leave it behind.

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