Friends with Jesus

Homily for Sunday, November 23, 2025
The Last Sunday After Pentecost (“Christ the King Sunday”)
Colossians 1:11-20

He has rescued us from the power of darkness
and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son.

In a September, 2022, article in The Atlantic, Steve Walker, the Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Eritrea from 2019-2022, wrote of two concrete things the United States did during his tenure to respond to Eritrea’s politically controlling ideology.  The first was to actively counter the Eritrean regime’s misinformation.  Walker wrote:

We should unapologetically but not hostilely counter totalitarian regimes’ efforts to propagate misinformation… and misrepresent Western policies…. We had for too long given the Eritrean propaganda machine a free pass.  We began countering the regime’s disinformation, especially anti-American propaganda emanating from the information minister’s Twitter feed, on our embassy Facebook page…

The second thing the United States did was to provide accurate information. Walker wrote:

The US may not be able to rescue the Eritrean people, or any other people living under totalitarian dictatorships, but by providing accurate information and diverse views, it can empower them by thwarting regime efforts to control perception.  Many Eritreans have told American diplomats that our human-rights advocacy has given a voice to the voiceless.  This is what American diplomacy should seek to do.

It’s hard to know exactly the situation in Colossae to which Paul responded in his letter to the Colossians (from which we just heard), but from what we can tell, false teachers of an ideology foreign to the early Church were corrupting the Colossians with misinformation about (among other things) what not to eat and drink, the need to practice extreme asceticism, angels, the necessity of seeing “initiatory visions,” about “dominions” and “powers,” and about observing festivals and new moons.  Paul, knowing the witness of the book of Deuteronomy, that worshiping the wrong thing will kill us, [Paul] considered this misinformation to be dangerous and feared that it would lead the Colossians astray into “darkness” and into the company of malign “powers,” and that it would “estrange” them and – not dissimilar to those living under totalitarian systems – that their lives would be controlled by a false ideology.  

In some ways, Paul’s response to this ideology is consistent with what Steve Walker and his team did in Eritrea to counter anti-Western propaganda.  First, Paul does not give this false ideology a “free pass,” but unapologetically counters the misinformation:

Watch out [Paul writes to the Colossians] that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ. (2:8)

Or again:

Therefore,do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or drink or of observing festivals, new moons and Sabbaths…. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, initiatory visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking (2:16,18).

Then – step two – Paul provides the Colossians with accurate information. From how often Paul uses the words “all” and “all things,” we can tell that Paul believed this false ideology had the possibility of becoming“totalitarian,” of controlling the entirety of the Colossians’ lives.  Paul wanted to make sure that the Colossians knew that “all things” have their beginning and end, not it any human tradition, but in Christ.  From this morning’s lesson:

In him all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible,whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together…. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things… by making peace through the blood of the cross.

We don’t have to look far to see ideologies at work in our world – ideologies peddle their stories in the headlines every day.  Some ideologies promote life; others are toxic.  To ask, “Can we recognize when we are being told a story?” might be a helpful first step in identifying an ideology.  

This morning’s Gospel lesson from Luke’s account of the crucifixion offers a glimpse into the character of toxic ideologies.   Toxic ideologies tend to thrive when there is a victim to blame:  at the crucifixion, Jesus is that victim.  Toxic ideologies tend to dehumanize:  how could the soldiers have crucified Jesus except that they dehumanized him?  Toxic ideologies tend not to be self-reflective:  of all the characters in Luke’s crucifixion account, it is only one of the other victims, the thief who repented, who displays the capacity for self-reflection.  (“We are getting what we deserve,” he said).  Toxic ideologies tend to build walls:  how isolated and lonely those at Golgotha must have been, both victims and perpetrators. Toxic ideologies tend to be contagious: note how the bystanders, the soldiers, and even the other thief take turns mocking Jesus.  Toxic ideologies tend to be fear-based:  Luke wrote that the chief priests, scribes and leaders “feared the people” (20:19).  And toxic ideologies tend to grow out of ignorance:  as Jesus himself said from the cross, “They do not know what they are doing” (23:24).

Our hope as we are surrounded by ideologies, many of them false and toxic, and were we to “worship” them would kill us, [our hope as we are surrounded by false ideologies] is to enter more closely into friendship with Jesus, who – as we celebrate today – is the true ruler of this world.  Jesus and his Gospel are the antithesis of a toxic ideology.  Jesus does not tell lies but rather is Truth, and in him there is no falsehood, no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Jesus will never dehumanize but rather is Life, who came, “that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  Jesus is not at all about fear, in the Gospels telling his followers time and again not to be afraid (e.g., Matt10:31; Mark 6:50; Luke 5:10).  Jesus does not blame others but rather offers himself as the “saving victim.”  Jesus does not build walls but rather reconciles and “makes peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).  And Jesus does not act in ignorance but rather is the “Wisdom of our God most high… come to teach us the path of knowledge”(“O” antiphon for Dec 17; also Is 11:2-3).  As we follow Jesus who is the Way, his truth,his love, his wisdom, and his willingness to humble himself even to death on the cross will (as we heard in this morning’s lesson from Colossians) “rescue us from the power of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

About this friendship with Jesus, I will leave us with words from Pope Leo written for today, the 40^th World Youth Day, which the Roman Church hosts yearly on the Feast of Christ the King:

Christian witness arises from friendship with the Lord, who was crucified and rose for the salvation of all.  This witness is not to be confused with ideological propaganda, for… he does not want us to be servants or “activists” of a political party; he calls us to be with him as friends… Jesus chose to call his disciples “friends” and made known to them the Kingdom of God.   He asked them to remain with him, to become his community, and he sent them to proclaim the Gospel…  He alone fully knows… your heart…your desire for truth and beauty, joy and peace.  Through his friendship, he listens to you,motivates you, and guides you, calling each of you to a new life…  [His] is a unique friendship that grants us communion with God, a faithful friendship that helps us discover our dignity and that of others, an eternal friendship that not even death can destroy,because the crucified and risen Lord is its source…. You, dear young people,are invited by Christ to follow him and sit beside him, to listen to his heart and to share closely in his life.  Each one of you is a “beloved disciple...”