June 21, 2026 Reflection

OK, let’s start with the part that makes Paul sound like a misogynist racist and a possible enabler of child abuse. We can’t see this from our historical context but the Christians reading this letter in the early 60’s after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and other letters with similar content, would have recognized right away that something odd was going on. They would have seen that: “…[the apostle Paul, and Peter who wrote some of the other letters, were playing with common [beliefs in the] Greco-Roman world about how a household should run. Central to the [thinking] of the day was the idea that a free man ruled over his household as a sovereign, exercising unilateral authority over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves. Preserving this household structure was thought to be critical to preserving society as a whole. So critical that laws were passed ensuring its protection. Christians were finding themselves at odds with some of these law and no wonder. Remember Paul’s inclusion of women in leadership and his affirmation that in Christ there was no difference between Jews, Gentiles, women, men, slaves and free. But as time passed and early followers began to either feel squeezed between living in Christ’s way and the way of the culture around them, or perhaps began to lose their passion and commitment, the writers of the letters needed to address the slide, offering a radical Christian remix of the traditional understanding of the patriarchal household rules. So they’re not imposing a new system, but critiquing the one that was already in place for many years. (https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/aristotle-vs-jesus-what-makes-the-new-testament-household-codes-different)

When I say Paul, we’re not sure that Paul actually wrote Colossians. Traditionally it is believed that either he did, from prison in Rome, or he dictated it to Timothy. But more recently scholars think there are too many differences between Paul’s style of writing and imagery and what is found in this letter and others that follow. But we’ll go with Paul just so I don’t have to keep qualifying the uncertainty.

The source of the shake-up of the household order came with Jesus. Jesus had no time for established hierarchy. As you know he went first to those on the edges: women, lepers, small men hiding in trees, those who appeared to be dead and those who lived in misery. He touched the untouchables and ate with the pariahs. He did not adhere to the established societal codes, nor to the normative way of dividing people.

At the risk of repeating myself, in his letters Paul is emphasizing this one message, that we are part of one body, one mind, that of Christ or the Way of Love. And so, he subverts the household codes, breaking down rather than reinforcing the hierarchal boundaries [of the Greco-Roman society]. But if we’re not really familiar with the codes, his critique is easy to miss – which was partly on purpose. To hide from the Roman authorities his criticism but signal for those with eyes to see Jesus’ flipping of the traditional social structure. Try to follow what he writes in Ephesians: ‘Wives submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ. Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:24-25) And both husbands and wives, slave and masters submit to one another. (Eph 2:21) So, who’s really ‘in charge’ here? No one!’” (Evans) The relationships, all relationships, could only be ones of humility and respect, with all parties imitating Christ, who again and again gave of himself rather than gathered all he could attain.

While subversively twisting the traditional codes for living with the insertion of the Way of Love, Paul and later writers are also doing something else with these passages. They are trying to keep the believers out of jail or worse. In saying things like women shouldn’t speak in church and should keep their heads covered they are essentially suggesting ways to disguise their allegiance to God, in order to escape the notice of the religious and Roman authorities. Remember at the time of Paul’s writing, there was an expectation that Christ would soon return and the realm of God would finally and fully take shape on earth. So the instructions are ways of hiding in plain sight, just for a bit, until a new world order is complete.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard more about women developing the early church than men. Lydia was the first person baptized by Paul in Europe – not just the first woman – the first person. She founded the first house church. Chloe was a prominent woman of Corinth. It was from “Chloe’s people” that Paul, then at Ephesus, learned of the divisions in the congregation of Corinth. Paul sent Phoebe as his envoy to read his letter to the Romans. A woman – to deliver Paul’s most important work on doctrine and faith. Priscilla and her husband Aquila took him into their home and were leaders of the church in Corinth. In the letters Priscilla is usually mentioned first, giving scholars the impression she was the head of the household. And let’s go back a bit further – the risen Christ first showed himself to women. How does all this align with what appears to be Paul telling women to be subservient? It doesn’t.

Letters written later, which are attributed to Paul but written by others, do begin to reflect a slide back into adopting the ancient codes of hierarchy. And sometimes those authors may have slipped their thoughts into the letters of Paul, making his work seem more in line with how the church slowly and tragically began to adapt to the culture around it. But we must always remember in defense of Paul and of the Church at its true core, that in Christ we are one – neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free. But all beloved and precious in God’s eyes.

And before we feel too relieved that the household codes are a thing of the distant past many of you will recall that the decline of our society is often laid at the feet of women breaking unwritten household codes. Women left the family to work outside the home, and society has gone to hell in a handbasket ever since then.

Now on to the much more fun part of the reading. The Bible is full of metaphors about God. We have to use metaphors because there is no language to completely describe the ineffable. God as Lord, Father, Shepherd, howling wind and still small voice, a hen brooding over her chickens…all the images that you are familiar with are metaphors for God. In his letter to the Colossians Paul works with another one – God as clothing. Much of what I’ll say from here is from a book by Lauren Winner, called “Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God.”

Clothing is of course both a verb and a noun. At the very beginning of the Bible God acted by clothing Adam and Eve. Just before they left the garden of Eden, we read in Genesis: “And the Lord God made garments of skin for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.” (Gen 3:21) Lauren Winner writes, “I imagine that God is sad while stitching, and I imagine God’s gift as one of utter tenderness: I know you have to leave, but here is one last thing I can do before you go.” (Lauren Winner, Wearing God, p. 35) How beautiful is that, like a mother not only telling you to put on your coat before you head out but shaping the coat with her hands and then encircling you with part of herself. Clothing us in love.

Paul wrote: “…you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self…As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience….Above all, clothe yourselves with love…” (Col 3:9,12,14) Clothe yourself with the nature of God, known in Christ. “God doesn’t just clothe us with skin (or rabbit fur [or whatever you imagine God used to clothe Adam and Eve]; God clothes us with God’s own self.” (Winner, 36)

Fashion, like cloth, is both verb and noun. As a verb “It means ‘to mold or to shape.’ We fashion dough into the shape of a bread loaf; we fashion clay into a pot or a bowl. ‘Fashion’ had that meaning – the action of making or shaping something –[before it] came to [refer to clothing], precisely because clothing shapes us.” (Winner, 38) So what does it look like to be shaped by Christ, to be clothed in the Way of Love?

In early Christian baptism the one being baptized would strip off their old clothes and when they emerged, they put on something new. They would take off the characteristics of the old life, which Paul earlier in the letter describes as anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, lying – and put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness and above all love. We clothe ourselves in the nature of God and we are fashioned, we are formed and reformed with that clothing.

Which got me thinking about that now faded tradition of wearing new clothes to church on Easter Sunday. I used to put new clothes in my boys’ Easter baskets, completely unaware of what historical and religious memory might have been the basis of that. Easter – that moment marking death and rebirth – evolving into a time of Easter bonnets and our Easter best.

And then I got to thinking about what clothing seems most comfortable to me. Quite honestly – it’s my pajamas and housecoat. When I’m at home I stay in those for as long as I can. Dog walkers come, parcels are delivered, neighbours drop by and I am unashamed to be in my working clothes – my pajamas. Is it when we are most comfortable that we are most at one with God? That we most feel the embrace of God? The more I get dressed up, the more uncomfortable I become. Last night I went to a function where I was very aware some people would be dressed very nicely. And so I agonized about my dress, just the right dress. And to Bob’s horror, I was sure I needed just the right shoes to go with the right dress. I even got a pedicure that matches the colour of my dress. How far am I from God when I obsess like that? How far am I from being clothed in the one who calls me precious no matter what? And certainly, no matter what I’m wearing. I move from the most intimate embrace of God, unashamed of who I am in my housecoat, to an uncomfortable distance, seeking to impress and fit in.

Another image of being clothed in God is the prayers shawls you make. Each stitch carries your love and compassion, and so carries the healing power of God. The act of being wrapped in one of the shawls is an experience of being clothed in God, wrapped in deep love.

I wonder what it means for you, what you might feel like if you imagine being clothed in God, fashioned by God, who Christians most recognize as Christ? What does that feel like next to your skin? How does it feel to be embraced like that? How do you move through your day wearing God?

As we leave the letters of Paul, I hope I have been able to redeem him, and so the Bible, maybe even the faith, in the eyes of a skeptical world. To be clear – Paul was no saint. My New Testament professor assumed he was married as all Jewish men would be by that age, but he was so difficult his wife left. But in his letters, we have the encouragement and the challenge of a man thinking through how to follow the Way of Jesus, the Way of Love in a messy time. We, living in similar times, would do well to reread them and consider how to live as followers of the Way of Love in such as time as this.