Bundle Up
December 27, 2009
12As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:12-17
Did anybody in here get clothes for Christmas? I didn’t. And it’s a good thing. Because I hate getting clothes for Christmas. For one thing, it’s boring. I mean, I can get clothes 364 days of the year. But on Christmas, I want something fun. I want some toys. There’s a reason why Santa Claus doesn’t carry dress shirts on his sleigh. It’s because nobody wants clothes for Christmas.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say nobody because I do know some folks out there who actually like getting clothes for Christmas. My wife happens to be one of them. Molly genuinely likes getting clothes for Christmas. But it doesn’t matter, because I don’t buy them for her. Why would I? Clothes are boring. Plus, how do I know what somebody else is going to like?
That’s the other problem with buying clothes as a Christmas gift. It’s a trap. Because inevitably, you pick out something that’s two sizes too large. And then, whenever the person opens it, they get offended--“You thought I could wear this?” Or maybe you pick out something very bright and very cheerful and they say, “Well, I only wear neutral colors.” It’s a no-win situation. Because everybody’s different about clothes. We all have our own style; we all have our own taste, or lack thereof. And so, picking out the right clothes can be a real challenge.
Now, I don’t know whether or not the apostle Paul was a clotheshorse, but in this passage of Scripture from Colossians, he does express some pretty strong opinions about what we should be wearing. In Paul’s words, Christians should clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. And in verse 14, Paul says that if we’re looking for the perfect accessory to tie all those things together, we should clothe ourselves with love. It’s an interesting metaphor, and it’s one I want us to spend some time thinking about this morning. What would it mean for us to clothe ourselves with all these characteristics that Paul describes?
This passage of Scripture from the 3rd Chapter of Colossians is very similar to several other passages found throughout the New Testament. Paul is writing to a certain church community and near the end of his letter, he includes a section of practical advice—things to do and things not to do. And I’m afraid that sometimes the temptation for us in the church is to gloss right over these passages because they seem so trite and simplistic--“Yes, we know we need to be more patient and yes, we know that we need to be more humble and yes, we know that we need to be more loving. We’ve heard it all before, preacher.” Since that seems to be our response, we tend to be dismissive of texts like this because we think they have nothing to teach us.
The other reason we ignore this stuff is because it is no longer popular in our culture. There was a time when people in the church talked quite a bit about Christian morality or the Christian virtues. But these days we don’t use that kind of language very much. Partly because I think we’re afraid it’s going to sound exclusive to other people, but also partly because we’ve seen some well-publicized examples of hypocrisy that have made us skittish about trumpeting our Christian morality.
Just to take one example of the past few years—Bill Bennett, who was the author of a volume ironically entitled The Book of Virtues, was later discovered to have a gambling addiction. Now, please don’t think I’m picking on Bill. Because all of us in here watch TV and we read the newspapers and we see all the time, these high profile supposedly godly men and women, who are always telling others to be good, only to be caught in some financial impropriety or sex scandal.
I was talking to Joey the other day about a new survey that just came out, says that among the American public, trust in the clergy is at an all time low. And it’s not hard to understand why. There’s a big gap between what we preachers say and what we do. Maybe there used to a time back in the day when we put our preachers up on a pedestal, but things have changed. And nowadays, preachers don’t talk too much about Christians virtues because we’re afraid that when we get caught doing something stupid, we’re going to look like hypocrites.
And of course, we are hypocrites. But in defense of all my fellow hypocritical pastors, let me be quick to include the rest of you. Because how many of us in here have known the little old man who comes to church every Sunday, but he’s still as mean as a snake? You ever know anybody like that? Or how about the Christian woman who teaches Sunday School and sings in the choir and works for missions, but she refuses to speak to her sister because of something that happened 50 years ago?
Sure, we know those folks. In some cases, we know them as well as we know ourselves. Because with all of us, there is a gap between what we say and what we do. We may talk about kindness and compassion and love at church on Sunday, but then we go out into the real world, and we cut people off in traffic and we stiff the waitress at the restaurant and we gripe about our neighbor’s Christmas decorations. That’s the way it is.
And so, to a certain extent, I think we ignore passages like this one from Colossians because it sets the standards too high. Yeah, we know we’re supposed to be humble, and meek, and kind, but we also know we’re never gonna live up to those ideals, so why bother in the first place? We may still talk about in church how important it is for us to “be good,” but we’re not really going to do anything about it, so what’s the point? That seems to be the popular position when it comes to talking about morality: Don’t be judgmental. Everybody can do whatever they want.
But y’all know me. I’m always up for a challenge. And I for one think that it’s still important for us to talk about the Christian virtues as a community of faith. Not because we’re trying to prove our moral superiority to the rest of the world, because obviously, we can’t. No, the reason I think we should talk about kindness and humility and love is because of Christmas.
You are all well aware that we have just finished the Advent season here at Park View, and now, we are in the Christmas season. It’s the time in church when we talk about Christ coming to live among us. Last week, I really hammered that point home hard. I talked about what it meant for Jesus to come to Earth as a baby. Because I wanted to emphasize how incredible it was that God has done this thing in our midst.
But I think it would be a mistake for us to stop there. Because Christmas is not just about what God does. Christmas is also about how we respond. We know from the Christmas story that God has come to Earth in the form of a baby. But other than exchanging a bunch of presents, what does that mean for us? Should God’s coming to Earth change the way that you and I live?
This passage from Colossians says that yes, it should. Paul writes that because Christ has come, we are now expected to act differently. We should practice compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love. We should forgive others. We should be grateful. We should admonish and teach. We should sing spiritual songs. Because of the baby in the manger, you and I are supposed to look different. We are supposed to be clothing ourselves with the characteristics of Christ.
So, how do we go about doing that? How do we clothe ourselves with all these Christian virtues? In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis has a chapter entitled “Let’s Pretend.” And in that chapter, C.S. Lewis argues that there are two kinds of pretending. The first kind of pretending is the bad kind, like when we say we’re going to help somebody but we really don’t. Another word for that is lying. But C.S. Lewis says that the second kind of pretending is actually very good. That’s where pretending to do something leads to us actually doing it. Lewis suggests that, “when we are not feeling particularly friendly but we know we ought to be, the best thing we can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if we were a nicer person than we actually are. And in a few minutes, we will be feeling friendlier than we were.”
All of us can remember playing dress up when we were kids. But C.S. Lewis says that when children dress up and pretend to be a doctor or a teacher or a chef, they are actually learning. Because by pretending to be a grown-up, the children acquire the skills they will need to be grown-up. And then Lewis goes on to say that when you and I dress up like Christ, that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are pretending to be something we’re not, in order that we may learn to do it better.
Now, there’s some folks out there who won’t like that. They’ll say that by pretending to be compassionate or kind when we really aren’t, Christians are just being fake. It’s back to the old hypocrisy thing again. And it’s true that I’ve come across some shallow Christians in my day. But I also think that dressing up and pretending can very helpful.
Maybe a better word for pretending would be practice. We don’t limit the people who can play the piano to just those who have already mastered it. We also allow people to practice on the piano. Because we recognize that practice is the only way they’re ever going to improve.
I think that Paul is advocating something similar in this passage of Scripture. Paul knows that the only way we’re going to become more humble and loving and kind is to practice being humble and loving and kind. With Christ, those things come naturally. But with us humans, they are acquired skills. They take time to learn. And no matter how hard we try, we never quite perfect those traits within our lifetime.
But it doesn’t matter. Because the goal is not perfection, but obedience. And as we clothe ourselves with the characteristics of Christ, we find that they start to become second nature. After pretending to be patient for 20 years, we might actually wake up one day and be patient without pretending. Maybe not. But we’ll be more patient than we ever would have if we hadn’t been trying.
In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamont tells the true story of a woman named Ranola, who was a pillar of her local church. Every time the doors were open, Ranola was there. But there was a problem. Ranola did not like Ken, another member of the church who also happened to be gay. Ranola had been raised to believe that Ken’s life was not pleasing to God, and so every Sunday, she found herself looking over at Ken and scowling in disapproval at his very presence in worship. Unfortunately, Ken contracted AIDS, and so for a long time he was unable to come to church. But one particular Sunday, he made it back. Ken was so weak that he was unable to stand as the congregation sang the hymns. And as Ranola looked over at Ken from where she sat in the sanctuary, she saw in Ken’s face the pain that he was experiencing. And in that instant, something in Ranola clicked. And Ranola went over to Ken and helped lift him up, and they both began to cry as they stood side by side, singing together.
That’s putting on the clothes of Christ. It’s putting on the clothes of someone else. It’s learning to be compassionate and loving even when, and especially when, we feel like it is undeserved.
This week, I was thinking about the lyrics to one of our most popular Christmas songs—Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town. And in that song, there’s a line that says, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good, for goodness’ sake.” Be good, for goodness’ sake. In the church, we talk a lot about being good. But as Paul reminds us in this passage of Scripture, there’s a big difference between talking about being good and actually being good. Because as Christians, you and I aren’t just trying to be good, for goodness’ sake. You and I are practicing goodness because we have experienced Jesus Christ in our midst. It’s true that practicing his virtues will require us to dress up in clothes that don’t always fit us too well, the clothes of compassion, and kindness, and humility, and meekness, and patience, and love. But maybe this year, getting clothes for Christmas is exactly what you and I really need. AMEN