Nov. 23, 2025 - Colossians 1:13-20 - Proper 29

My brother in law and I had a discussion not long ago about the state of the church. He’s a pastor too. We see eye to eye on most things, though his focus in ministry is a little different than mine, so we still have somewhat unique perspectives when we’re talking shop. Usually our discussions revolve around the big problems facing the church and how we’re going to fix them. The topic of our recent discussion was about a troubling trend that connects with a number of other facets in our church and our theology. It influences the contemporary vs. traditional worship debate, women in the ministry, the qualifications for ministry in general, the place of the church in the world, and all manner of other things.

The slogan this camp goes by is, “Good enough.” There are things that are ideal, but in most cases we’re not talking about ideal. We just need good enough. Our synod has always put a heavy emphasis on education. Pastors have to understand the fundamentals of Greek and Hebrew. They need to be conversant with the major themes of Scripture and how the big pieces fit together. They need to have some understanding of the practical side of pastoral ministry, counseling, administration, education. They need to have a sense of history, of the early church, of the Reformation, of the modern day, so they know what has come before and why things today are the way they are. They need to know the basics of the worship service, so they can lead worship without being a hindrance. They need to know how to preach. A sermon isn’t just a motivational speech. It has a specific goal. If you don’t understand the goal or how to write a sermon that achieves it, then this preaching exercise is a waste of time. A pastor may not be an expert at any of those things. A master’s of divinity isn’t really aimed at making someone an expert. There just isn’t time. Even in three years of course work, most seminary students get only one class on teaching, one on counseling, unless he takes an elective or two. There just isn’t time. At the end of three years and a year of vicarage, there is still a great deal a pastor doesn’t know. But, if we waited until he was 100% ready for every situation, he’d never actually end up in the parish serving. A pastor’s life is one of discipleship too. He must continue to learn and grow in his faith and knowledge of God.

But, if your view of ministry is driven more by pragmatism, then you might come to a different conclusion. Sure, all of that education is great, but some guys aren’t really able to handle learning new languages. All of that studying is nice, but every year that man isn’t out in the parish is another year a congregation could have been served by a pastor and wasn’t. Pastors don’t need to know all of that to help people and proclaim the gospel. If they can do that, that’s good enough.

If you start thinking about “good enough” then some other ideas come out as well. Why not have women in ministry? Women are capable of proclaiming the gospel. They can teach and do the other things required. If a church is in need, we should focus on getting that congregation a pastor who can do the job right away, not wait around for some ideal candidate that may never arrive.

If your style of worship isn’t really what people go for these days, then change it! Sure it would be nice if everyone went for the same thing, but we can swap out these bits or those bits. It doesn’t matter all that much. As long as people are still coming in and getting the basic stuff they need, that’s what’s important. We don’t need it to be perfect. We just need it to be good enough.

Pragmatism can be a very helpful way to look at the world. If I’m in the market for a car, I could get the luxury sedan with all of the bells and whistles, the all leather interior, heated steering wheel, and automatic scalp massager. But that’s a lot of money, a lot more insurance, maybe I don’t need all of that extra stuff. I just need to get to point A to point B.

It makes sense. If it isn’t really critical to what you want or need, then maybe you don’t need it at all. You can get along just fine with something that’s good enough to do the job. That’s how most things are. Sure, you can pay for extra if you want. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you want the frills and the luxury, you are more than welcome to go for it, assuming you can afford the extra money, or you can afford to wait the extra time or whatever it is to get what you want. If not, then good enough is good enough.

If only God worked according to pragmatism. Perfection is a pretty tough bar to reach. If you’re going through school, you can probably get 100% on a test if you know you’re stuff. You might even ace a few classes if you study, but getting 100% in every class, much less from your whole time in school is a rather different thing.

God knows perfection is a completely impossible goal for us to reach. He knows that. It doesn’t make much sense for him to make us shoot for something he knows we’ll never achieve. Even if we didn’t have a predisposition to sin, it would still be tough to keep everything on the up and up every single moment of every day forever. We do have this sin problem, but there’s no reason perfection has to be the goal for us. The Catholic Church talks about how God just expects you to “do what is in you.” Just do your best and he’ll take care of the rest. That’s a much more reasonable standard to have. Instead of aiming for perfection and always being stressed about falling short, if I just do the best I can, then I can be assured that I’ve done what he’s asked of me. That’ll be enough. He doesn’t need perfect. He just needs “good enough.”

Pragmatism may work in many instances, but it does not work here. The standard isn’t one that can be fudged or tweaked. It must be perfection. The standard is set by God. The standard IS God, not in terms of power, but in terms of righteousness, living according to the order God built into the world. As God looks down at his newly formed creation, the three persons of the Trinity agree to make man like him, perfect. Imperfection can’t be tolerated, because imperfection means accepting sorrow, grief, anger, greed, and death as normal. God doesn’t want that for us or for his creation. We were not made for these things. Only perfection allows for a perfect world free from death. Any imperfection will eventually cause everything to collapse. A snag in fabric will eventually, over time, pull and tear. A crack in a gear will eventually, with use, shatter and make the whole mechanism grind to a halt. An imperfection in creation eventually means death, widespread death across all of creation.

God doesn’t tolerate imperfection. He doesn’t tolerate sin. He doesn’t tolerate death. Where once his creation was perfect, now death is everywhere and you, being imperfect, will never be able to fix it.

The early church had a great deal of difficulty sorting out the idea of God becoming man. Many said the very idea wasn’t so much impossible as it was something God just simply wouldn’t do. God wouldn’t stoop down to becoming a man. The Creator doesn’t become a creature. He is too great, too majestic, too perfect for that. Muslims reject Christianity for that reason as well. It just isn’t something in God’s nature to do.

God loves he creation, but he also demands perfection. Anything less just won’t be good enough. Death has no place in his creation because he does not want his people to ever have to suffer the grief that comes from it, the separation, the pain that death brings. None of the effects of sin are meant to be here.

As we go throughout the church year, we see Jesus living his life. We read the story of his birth. We read some scenes from his childhood. We read about the beginning of his ministry and how he goes about teaching and preaching. He does some miraculous things that cause us to wonder. The let a little of his glory, his majesty shine through, but not much. It’s still pretty easy to treat him as a man, a special man, a man who can do amazing things, but still a man. Being a bit removed from Jesus’ life helps us to maintain that picture of him in our heads. Usually when artists depict Jesus, they use some scene from his life, or themes that are connected to him. Jesus playing with children. Jesus tending sheep. Jesus teaching. Jesus healing people. Even Jesus dying on the cross. They’re all very human. Perfect human, but still human. St. Paul reminds us that Jesus is still God. He hasn’t lost any part of his divinity since becoming a man. He hides that side of himself most of the time in his ministry, but there are moments when he pulls back the veil just a bit and that glory, that power, that majesty, that authority, all come rushing out.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” We were made to be like God. We failed, spectacularly. We fail and keep failing. Sometimes, lots of times, we aren’t even trying. Creation is so broken there is no fixing it, because every single bit of it is tainted by the imperfection of sin. God showed us what is necessary to deal with the problem. Sin must be wiped away. Through Noah, God demonstrated what must happen. Sin must be utterly destroyed. God showed us in miniature what it looks like when he resets the world. A tiny ark floating on an endless expanse of water looks very much like the world in the first moments of creation.

We were made in the image of God. If that image is to be restored, God himself has to come here to do it. Where humanity began in righteousness and ends in death, now God and man together in the person of Christ would begin in righteousness and end in death...and then keep going. The Creator himself came into his creation to begin the process of restoration. Life for us always led to death and now, through Christ, death will lead to life. He reclaims his creation, washing us clean in baptism just like he washed the world clean in the Flood. Where we are powerless before sin, Christ joins us to his own death and life though baptism.

The Creator himself loves you so much that he’s willing to redeem you with the life of his own Son. God spoke the world into being through a word, through that word, all things were created. Now that word has become flesh to redeem his fallen and sinful world. God looks at you and knows you’ll never be good enough. You’ll never achieve what you need to be free from death. So the only recourse is to make you to be like him, to give you his own perfection, his own life. Jesus is man so that he can pay for your sin. He is God so that you can become holy and perfect, just as he is holy and perfect.

We give thanks that our God was willing to lower himself to become a man in order to save us. This day, of all days, we remember that is precisely because he did so, that we have a perfect creation, a perfect life, a perfect future to look forward to when he returns to join us forever.