November 23, 2025

“All Things”

There are all kinds of interesting discussions I could enter into about this morning’s reading from the epistle to the Colossians.  We could talk about authorship of the letter (it’s inscribed with the name of the apostle Paul, but the authenticity of its Pauline authorship has been questioned by several biblical scholars).  We could delve into the circumstances in which it was written and the heretical teachings that engendered a controversy apparently raging in the church at Colossae.  Or we could talk about the centrality of Christ that Paul was lifting up for the Colossians to embrace.  But I’ve decided to preach a whole sermon instead on two words found in this passage.  In the course of four sentences, Paul uses the phrase “all things” five times.  I found that quite interesting.  But the one that jumped off the page at me was the final time he used it.  He writes, “. . .God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things . . . .”  I’d like you to stop and consider that with me for a moment.  It’s clear from the earlier sentences and use of the term that when Paul writes “all things” he means “all things.”  That includes “things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things [that] have been created.”  In other words, trees and stars and cucumbers and photons and wacky ideas and Honda Civics.  “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.”  Wouldn’t you have expected Paul to say, “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all people,” or “all believers,” or “all Christians?”  What can it possibly mean for the Lord of Life to reconcile to himself “all things?”

As you might have guessed, I have some thoughts.  First of all, it strikes me that you and I tend to live in a chopped up world – a place where “all things” are divided up and placed into their proper categories and those categories are set in an appropriate hierarchy.  You and I, of course, are at the top of that hierarchy.  After us comes people who are not like us, then people who are laughable, rude, or evil, then probably good food, then dogs, next, houses and other important buildings, followed by cars.  Somewhere down at the bottom of the list are things like dirt, dead animals, garbage, and, of course, black flies.  It certainly makes the task of moving through our days and navigating our complicated lives a lot easier if everything has its place, so to speak, and “all things” are in their places.  But Paul seems to be suggesting that the Almighty is not much like us.  If God is “pleased to reconcile to himself all things,” that throws you and me into the same pile with terrorists and tulips and earthworms.  In other words, Paul is suggesting that in the eyes of the Lord all of creation, every tiny speck of it, is a unified whole.  Wouldn’t it be something if humanity could finally grasp that notion?  We may be getting there, but the jury is still out on whether we’ll get there soon enough.  We’ve learned so far that the earth is round, and that everything in it is made out of the same stuff, atoms mined from primordial stars.  We’re starting to figure out a few more things – that there is no such place as “away,” for instance, when we use the expression “to throw something away.”  And it’s beginning to dawn on us that what we put into the atmosphere affects the whole planet, and has a critical impact on ourselves.  And some folks are making the connection between the things that we humans build, grow, dispose of, and monkey with and the very food chain that keeps us alive.  Who knows?  Maybe in time we might come far enough to gain the level of wisdom about ourselves and our world attained by the native peoples who originally settled this land.  My point?  All of creation is a unity.  It is not a collection of categories.  Everything we do affects everyone and everything else.

Secondly, when Paul says that God is “pleased to reconcile all things to himself,” I take that to mean that “all things” were not reconciled to God, and that the act of bringing all things into harmony, resolving them, making them consistent and congruous with Divine purposes is a pleasing thing.  To me, that suggests movement over time toward a goal, and that the achievement of that end is a divinely delightful idea.  Now, I know that a lot of religious folks are not big on evolution.  It seems that some people think that science and biblical faith are somehow incompatible.  But I think evolution is a very biblical idea.  I think the entire record of scripture is the story of an evolving people, the people of God becoming very, very gradually what the Lord of All intends them to be.  But more than that, it seems that all of creation – “all things” – are evolving in the direction of that divine design. That may not seem apparent when we look at the ways humanity has mangled our world, or when we see the bizarre side roads and dead ends that technology often takes, or when we notice how often our proclivity for violence rears its head and seems to send us two steps back for every one forward, but I’m convinced that somehow all of those experiences of failure, misdirection, and backsliding are part of the journey we are on together and that the journey has an objective, and that the Divine Power at the heart of existence is “pleased” – smiling on the progress . . . overall.

And, finally, I take note of how the apostle begins this portion of his letter.  He writes, “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”  You and I have been given an inheritance by those saints who have advanced the ball ahead of us.  And we have been given power to take up the challenge ourselves of sharing in the work of reconciling all things to God, and to those Divine purposes.  With these great gifts how can we choose not to do as Paul suggests, and “joyfully give thanks to the Father?”  That’s what this week’s celebration on Thursday is all about, after all, joyfully giving thanks.  Sometimes thankfulness ducks around the corner and we lose sight of it.  We can be seized by the enormity of social and global evils.  Sixty-two years ago yesterday, we all remember how deeply we were grieved by one of those evils when our president was slain on national television.  And it’s also easy to be overcome by our daily problems, so easy to lose perspective on life and to forget what we have to be thankful for.

I think I’ve told some of you before about “Charley,” but his story bears repeating.  It was about thirty or more years ago, and I was senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Beverly, Massachusetts.  We had a number of homeless people in the city, and our church hired a social worker to counsel and support them in any way possible.  “Charley” was one of the homeless men.  He was mentally disabled, had no money, no job, no place to live, no family, no resources.  Every morning he would come in off the street to the lobby of the church and walk over to the door of the office where the secretaries worked.  We would always ask, “How are you this morning, Charley?”  And he would invariably flash a giant grin and reply, “Could be worse!”  Could be worse.  I have never forgotten that phrase, and will never forget it as long as I live.  How, in the name of all that is holy, I wondered, could it possibly be worse?  How could a person be in a worse situation than this poor man?  But I have taken that huge grin of his to be his way of expressing thankfulness.  To this day, I’m a bit baffled about what exactly he was thankful for.  But he was thankful.  Every time I start to feel a little sorry for myself about something I remember “Charley,” and I remember, “Could be worse!”

So, we are reminded by Paul that this universe in which we reside is not a series of compartments, it is a grand unified whole in which we participate and for which we bear responsibility; we are reminded that the Lord of Life has intentions for it and for us to be reconciled to divine purposes; and we are admonished to remember to give thanks with joyful hearts.

I don’t know of a better way to illustrate all this than with a story related by the preacher, writer, and college chaplain, William Willimon.  He wrote about a young woman he encountered several years ago at the college where he worked.  “She had a miserable time the second semester of her Sophomore year,” Willimon writes.  “She had unwisely signed up for a couple of killer courses.  She was flunking both of them, in way over her head.  Then, her mother had a heart attack and was reduced to being an invalid.  To top it all off, her boyfriend of three years unceremoniously dumped her.  ‘How on earth do you keep going?’” Willimon asked her.  “’I think of May 14, 2012,’ she responded.  ‘May 14, 2012? What’s that?’ I asked.  ‘It’s the day of my graduation.  Sometimes I picture myself in my cap and gown.  I can hear the music of the orchestra.  In my mind’s eye I can see myself processing down that long row of graduates, see myself receiving my diploma from the hands of the President.  That dream, that vision of the future, keeps me going.’”¹

It is the vision of a future to which we are gradually but inexorably growing, a future of wholeness and shared responsibility, a future worth investing in, that keeps us going, and keeps us thankful . . . for “all things.”

¹ William Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Logos Productions, December 11, 2011.