What Are You Wearing?

Colossians 3: 9-17

            It’s Christmas. For me, Christmas always means new clothes. Beyond the customary socks and tee shirts, there is always something designed to freshen me up, to make me look more in keeping with whatever it is that I am supposed to be in keeping with. This year the freshening included a knit shirt in a new color and an over shirt. It’s not a sweater, but it goes over another shirt. That would be an over shirt, wouldn’t it? Any way, my understanding is that my clothes are too bulky and I need clothing that makes me look more trim. That may be asking a lot from a shirt in my case.

Thank God for my wife. Left to my own devices, I would wear nothing but one pair of blue jeans and one pair of khaki pants with a few knit shirts. They are my friends. I see no reason to go out without my friends. Men are bad that way. We never change. We just wear things out. Renewal is not part of our mantra.

          Sometimes though, renewal is precisely what is called for, and not just in clothes. Even when we find the right way to go in our lives, we still don’t follow it very carefully. We keep drifting off the new path, looking for something old and familiar. We keep wandering toward the next new thing, thinking it may be the answer we are looking for. It is precisely because of such thoughts that we need to keep getting renewed, particularly in our faith journey. Otherwise, we will sell out to the newest fad, the biggest box office draw, the best salesman, the most entertaining movement or event.

          Paul’s letter to the Colossians is perhaps the most Christ centered letter in all of his writings. It contains many descriptors of Christ. He is referred to as the object of the believer’s faith, the image of the invisible God, the creator of all dominions, the head of the church and the firstborn of the dead, to name only a few. The book has several themes, as Paul writes to the church in this small inland town about a hundred miles east of Ephesus. The Colossians have found some new material and it is leading them away from what they have been taught by Paul. Colossians should be read and studied with that in mind, but in this message, we will concentrate on a broader theme that is illustrated here, not just for the Colossians, but for believers in any time and place.

          We are just days on the other side of Christmas. We have spent weeks talking of the coming of the Christ child. We have looked forward to the memory of the Incarnation with all its familiar props: shepherds and angels and new songs from young and old; Mary and Joseph and the manger. And now, the “coming” has happened once again, though only as a celebration of that which we have learned to remember, almost as though it happened in our own memories. But even that has now passed once again. Now we are left with that warm feeling of the infant and the message he will bring, but we are again alone. We are in that vast ocean between the comings. He came. He will come again. What do we do when we are in the middle of the comings? How do we navigate steadily between the buoys and stay the course toward righteousness with all that sea of temptation and false prophets to throw us off course? Jesus has come. Jesus has gone. Or has he? Paul says not…that the nearness of Jesus lies in the way we live our lives. When we put away all those Christmas decorations, we are not supposed to put away the warm feelings that they inspired. Though the decorations are gone, the feelings they engendered should remain. The same is true of Jesus, with or without Christmas.

          Paul says that if you believe, then you too have been raised with Christ. I know that most of the time we don’t feel like that, but it’s true. That is, it’s as true as we let it become true. If we are born again, as Jesus talked about to Nicodemus, then we have begun to put earthly things to death. That is, we are changing our priorities. We begin to live for Christ and to use those earthly possessions and responsibilities as vehicles for witness instead of badges of bondage. We are to put away the selfish things of life and in their place, we are to adopt that unselfishness that Jesus taught us.

          Paul says to the Colossians, and to us, that we have put on a new self. That self is the new and improved model. According to Paul, it is a “one size fits all believers” suit. It is in God’s image. That new self puts on a compassionate heart. Hearts such as this come with humility, meekness and patience. They bear up under pressure. They carry one another. They even forgive. And last but by no means least, the new self puts on love, a binding love that makes everyone get along.

          In Colossians, Paul is more than likely trying to correct a group that has wandered away from their new found faith in Christ. Something even newer has come along and they are being swayed. Paul is trying to adjust their course. In the context of today’s message, I think his words also hold true as a measure for what we do with the Christmas message. While it is fresh in our minds, it is easier to think about peace on earth and good will toward men. While it is the season of giving, it is more appropriate to pick out a family or two to help out during Christmas. But what happens in January? Does the water bill that was paid by the church at Christmas now disappear? Do the needy neatly and conveniently disappear until next Christmas?

          At Christmas time, we put on our nice new clothes. At Christmas, we also put on the mantle of generosity as people and churches and institutions. But then, Christmas ends. What then? As if we did not already know, Paul gives us the answer: “Put on the new self…Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts…And above all, put on love.” These are the clothes of renewal. They are the garments of righteousness that set us apart from others. This is the way for Christians to dress. Paul goes on to remind us that we have inside clothing as well. He encourages us to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and the word of Christ dwell richly in us.

          It takes practice to wear the clothing of God, both inside and outside. In many ways, it does not come naturally. We want for ourselves. We are selfish by nature. Even when we are being unselfish, we often compartmentalize our generosity so that we can do it at our convenience. Wearing the clothes of the new self takes time and practice and being very intentional about why we do the things we do.  

           I think about the clothes that I was given this Christmas. They are very nice and tasteful and yet, if I am not intentional about wearing them, they will just take up space in my closet. They are not my old friends like my blue jeans and khaki pants. But…what if I wear them? What if I am intentional and what if I make it a point to wear these new clothes? They won’t stay new very long, will they? And with some persistence on my part, these “new” clothes will become my friends just like my jeans.

          Putting on a new self is like that. It won’t feel very comfortable until we break it in. But the more I put on love, the more it feels natural. The more I am compassionate, the less comfortable I am being selfish. That new self wears in and I am at home in my own skin.

          Philip Yancey and Paul Brand say this: “God with skin on. God in the flesh—with beating heart, healthy mind, and blood coursing through his veins. God come to earth in the skin of our humanity in order to bring the message that he is eager to relate to us, know us, understand us, intercede for us. This is Jesus.”

What will you wear this year? This month? This afternoon? What will you do when you settle down to watch your favorite football team on TV and someone in need knocks on your front door or rings you up on the phone. What clothes will you be wearing then? Will they be different from the ones you wear to church?

God put on our skin to be with us. He built a bridge for us that we could never build for ourselves. Even when he left us, he sent us a new set of clothing to wear throughout our lives. It’s called the Holy Spirit. From the moment we try it on, it changes us. It feels right, like an old friend. No matter where we are, no matter what we do or who we’re with, it never seems to be out of style.

What will you be wearing this year for him?

Let us pray

12/29/13

        Magnificat

         Luke 1: 39-55

            It is the fourth Sunday of Advent, the last Sunday of this season of preparation. We prepare for the coming, the coming of the Christ Child. The themes most commonly associated with advent are faithfulness, hope, joy and love or peace. Each theme helps us in its own way to anticipate, to think about what is happening. The Incarnation, the birth of the Son of God as a mortal man, is about to happen. It will change everything. It is the coming for which the people of God have so long awaited.

          Advent, the coming. What does it mean? Today, we look at another of the three hymns in the first two chapters of Luke. We have heard from Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Later, there is the Benedictus hymn of praise from Simeon, as he sees the child for whom his whole life has been served in waiting. Now, we pause to look at the Magnificat, a song from Mary as she praises the changes taking place in her body, in her life, in the lives of all who will follow this moment in history.

           Mary was young by any standard. Most scholars suggest she was a young teenager.  She was betrothed to Joseph to be married. She was not yet sexually active. She was naïve, young, inexperienced. She was a small town girl in a small town town. She was Jewish and obviously a pious Jewess or the Lord would not have chosen her. Her condition was not unusual for her time, but the events which were about to unfold had no precedent, no parallel. They still don’t. Only once in the history of mankind has God been born into our midst as a human being. Only once has God had fatigue, hunger, thirst, pain. Only once has God bled the blood of a man. Only once has God been a newborn baby. And it all started with little Mary, the small town girl from Nazareth with the big time blessing.

          Mary may have been a small town girl with little or no credentials, but she was no stranger to the law and the prophets of old. Her song borrows heavily in word and even theme from Hannah’s song in the book of First Samuel, where Hannah praises God for rewarding her prayers with a little boy who will become Samuel, one of the great judges of Israel. In fact, Mary’s song is loaded with references to the Old Testament. But Mary has more to say. She goes farther than Hannah. Mary understands her job. She is a vessel for the most important birth in the history of mankind. She is the caretaker for the Son of God himself. But Mary understands much more than that. Mary seems to understand that the roots of revolution are growing in her womb, that nothing will ever be the same. Listen to the words of this teenager.

“He has scattered the proud in the plans of their hearts,” she says. We have heard about pride before. We read about it in Proverbs. We know it as one of the so-called seven deadly sins. And Mary says that this newborn child will scatter the proud. Mary is speaking of a moral revolution where those of distinction have lost their position. Not only are they no longer able to justify their pride, but also they are scattered and unable to act in their superficial unity. They now will have the example of Christ as the Son of Man to use as their mirror and they will see themselves as they are. Pride withers in the sight of Christ.

“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate,” says little Mary. Prestige and position, first cousins to pride, are now about to be vanquished. Now Mary is talking about a social revolution. In the days of Hannah, she was proud for her son as she saw him able to sit with princes. In the world that Mary sees, there will be no princes to sit with, as those from humble means will sit where princes once sat, not as the new rule, but as the obedient servants of our Lord.

“He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” Now Mary moves to articulate an economic revolution. From moral to social to economic, the world that her baby will usher in will be the upside down world of Jesus. Mary prophesies a world where Christian charity and generosity trump pride, avarice and greed. There is loveliness in her hymn but as theologian William Barclay reminds us, in that loveliness there is dynamite, for the coming of Christ and Christianity fosters a revolutionary approach that continues to change the world. All we have to do is look around. We are in church today to worship the God who once more reached down to redeem us on that Christmas morning so long ago. We are in church today because we seek that redemption in our own lives from the Savior that Mary so ably prophesied.

Does this sound like an innocent little teenager to you? Not to me it doesn’t. I know and accept that Mary was as pure and innocent as the driven snow. But she was certainly well schooled in her history and well visioned in her understanding of what Messiah was to be. Perhaps someone else wrote this and attributed it to Mary. Perhaps this is just the platform of an evangelist and Mary was the vehicle for him to get it said. If that were true, which we will never know, would it matter? The words are still brilliant. The thoughts are still revolutionary and revelationary in their import. But I have no reason to think that Mary did not say such things except that it may have been unusual for a young girl to have such vision. Well yes, it probably was unusual. But then, there was plenty about Mary that was unusual. How many women do you know who have been visited by the angel Gabriel? Mary was, and is, revered for a reason. God picked her as his vessel to make himself known to us as a man.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” says Mary. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him.” Yes, his name is holy…set apart. Yes, his mercy is for those who fear, for those who have faith, for those who have hope, for those who have joy…for those who love him.

It is advent, the season of expectation. Let us join with Mary, the young girl, with Mary, the expectant mother, with Mary, the prophetess, with Mary, rocking that newborn baby as though hope itself rested in those newborn limbs. Let us, too, magnify the Lord. It is advent. He has come, he is coming again.

Let us pray.

12/22/13

    Giving Light; Guiding Feet

         Luke 1: 68-79

My name is Zechariah. I’m a priest. A Jewish priest. My wife is Elizabeth. We’ve been happily married for a long time. We were never able to have children. Until now. This has been by far the craziest year of my life. I’ve always tried to live by the Scripture. So has Elizabeth. We have prayed for many years for the coming of the Messiah, but that’s not news. My people have been offering up that prayer since the days of Isaiah. But a few months ago, everything changed. Boy, did it change!

I was on duty at the temple. It was my division’s turn. On that day, it was my lot to enter the inner temple to burn incense. I came inside to do my job and there stood an angel! You heard me. An angel! He scared me half to death. He said don’t be afraid. He said my prayer for a child had been answered, that Elizabeth was going to bear a son and that we should name him John. Right! I’m sorry. I mean I know this happened to Abraham and he was even older than me, but that was Abraham, the father of my people! I’m just an old priest. So I said to him: How shall I know this?

He didn’t like my answer. He said he was Gabriel and that he gets to stand in the presence of God. I guess he thought I was being impudent or didn’t believe him. Really, I was just dumbstruck. How many times do you get a chance to talk to an angel? I wasn’t prepared. And then I really was dumbstruck, because Gabriel struck me dumb for over nine months. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t say a word, until today.

Well, it happened just the way he said. Elizabeth conceived. Six months later her cousin Mary also got a visit from Gabriel. Her news was even bigger, if what she tells Elizabeth is true. She’s pregnant now too, just like Gabriel told her. Gabriel let her in on what is going on with my Elizabeth and soon after, Mary came to visit us. She and Elizabeth had this incredible experience. Elizabeth’s baby, our baby, leapt in the womb at the sight of Mary. It was quite a scene, watching them together. And that’s all I could do… just watch. Mary ended up staying with us for about three months, very close to the time that Elizabeth delivered our son. All the neighbors came by to congratulate us. I guess we’re quite a curiosity item because we’re so old.  They rejoiced with us for our good fortune.

Today, we went to the temple. It’s the eighth day after our son was born. Our tradition requires us to go there to have him circumcised. This is our way of visibly showing that we are people of the covenant. They started to name him after me, but Elizabeth spoke up and said to name him John. Everybody thought sure that was wrong because no one in my family has that name. Someone got a writing tablet and handed it to me. I scribbled on it to name him John. Right then, my speech was restored. The first thing I did was to bless God.

I guess between the strange name that had nothing to do with my family, the restoration of my speech and us having a child at such an old age, it was just too much for everyone to take in. We were the talk of all the hill country of Judea.  People thought the hand of God was on this child. They have no idea how right they were. The question on everyone’s lips was “What then will this child be?”

I know the answer. I was full of God’s Spirit and he gave me voice. I prophesied. It sounded like a poem or a hymn. Some people call it the Benedictus. I was so full of God’s Spirit that it just came pouring out.

First, I blessed God, and not just for me and Elizabeth, but for all God’s people. We have prayed for this for so long and now it’s happening. God promised to visit and redeem us. The prophets told us that our redeemer would come from the house of David and he will. That time is very near. Our salvation is near. We use the word horn to indicate power, because it reminds us of the power of the mighty rams and other horned animals that inhabit our land. He who my son will announce is the horn, the power, of salvation, and I know that he is on his way to us.

I sang about that mighty covenant given to Abraham by God himself; that he would deliver us from the hand of our enemies. He has done that many times for us over the centuries. No matter what we did, he always forgave us. But it’s been a long time that we have prayed for the promised king to come. This time, it is different. I don’t know the details, but I do know that our god keeps covenant with his people. The time is near when we will be able to serve him without fear, for we will be delivered. That’s what all those old scriptures and prophecies are all about, you know. There are a lot of stories and there is a lot of history. But the common thread that runs from the beginning to right this minute is that God keeps covenant with his people. God’s kingdom is about to be introduced. I can feel it.

I sang about my son, my blessed son John. I told them what I know in my heart, that he will be called the prophet of the Most High. He will go before the Lord. He will prepare his ways. He will set the table for who is to come. He will bring the knowledge of salvation to those of our people who will listen. Many of us have long thought that when Messiah came, he would be ushered in by the great prophet Elijah, the one whom God called up to heaven in a whirlwind surrounded by horses and chariots of fire. But now I know; it is not to be Elijah, but John. Can you imagine? My son, this little baby boy, will grow up to pave the way for our Savior. That means that after all this time, after all these centuries, Messiah is on the way! I haven’t said it aloud, but I’m thinking that my son will be a baptizer, getting people to turn from their selfishness to see the light that is coming.

While I was praising God and singing this song of prophecy, I began to see a new truth. The salvation that is coming lies in forgiveness… forgiveness of our sins by God, forgiveness of our neighbor by us, forgiveness from our neighbor to us. I began to see that it all comes from God’s tender mercy toward us. I never realized until now how glorious and powerful is that ability to forgive and be merciful. He truly is God if he can bring that to us.

As I sang my praise, I realized something else. I know that God has spoken to his people through covenant and I know that covenant was with Abraham. I always thought it was for us, the Jews. I’m sure that is still true, but it’s not the whole truth. Like the new truth of God’s forgiveness, I see a new truth about God’s people. God is like the sunrise, but so much more powerful. I see now that God gives light to all who sit in darkness. I see now that God brings deliverance to all who sit in the shadow of death. God’s light is the light of the world. He will guide us and he will guide us to the way of peace. I don’t mean peace that is just the absence of war. I mean peace that is the presence of faith and hope and understanding and righteousness. And now, I think I understand what God meant when he said that his salvation is for all his people. If we believe in him who is coming, if we believe the message of the Most High whom my son and others will be privileged to introduce…then…we are God’s people! We will be known to him not by the mark of circumcision, but by the mark of our faith.

What then will this child be, ask the people? He will be a messenger. His name will be John. He is my son, but he will belong to the ages.  He will never be forgotten, but even so, he is not the story. The great prophet Isaiah said this so many years ago:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness, the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will be seen upon you.

And nations shall come to the light,

and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Isaiah 60: 1-4

The story is about to be told and it will change the world

forever. For John will introduce us to him for whom the world has waited. He will introduce us to our Lord.

Who then will this child be? He will be as we can be. He will be a messenger of the coming of the Lord. Think about it. In no time, he will pass the torch to others. Our Lord will come, and with it the beginning of the end of the age. My son cannot tell everyone. We will need other messengers. Our Savior is coming and he has a message. Will you hear? Will you help?  

Let us pray.

12/8/13