Sermon: A New Wardrobe!
August 25th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Colossians 3:1-17
Old Clothes, New Clothes
It’s the back-to-school shopping season! Not just for school supplies, but also a new outfit or two to replace the old clothes that don’t fit anymore or have gotten beat up during the summer, gotten holes in the wrong places so they’re no longer appropriate for school (though nowadays they sell new clothes with holes in places that seem inappropriate to me!). I remember back-to-school shopping being a lot more difficult when I was growing up as a missionary kid in India. My aunt would send us the big Sears Fall catalog as soon as it came out. I’d pour over it circling the things I wanted. My mom would narrow it down to a couple essentials and write back to her sister with the item numbers and sizes. They would find someone who was coming to India, a returning missionary or a visitor, who would graciously fill half a suitcase with clothes for the Carman kids. And happy day! New jeans to replace the old, worn out ones.
In chapter 3 of his letter, Paul writes to the church about their wardrobes, about the clothes that just don’t fit them anymore and are no longer appropriate for their new life. Frankly, their old clothes stink! Only Paul’s not talking about real clothes, he is talking about the behaviors and the attitudes that they used to wear; used to wear before they were baptized into a new faith in Jesus Christ. Paul is explaining to the believers in Colossae what is important to stay strong in their Christian faith, or as he said in 1:28, “so that we may bring each person to maturity in Christ.”
There was a practice in the early church to use the season of Lent, leading up to Easter, as a time for new believers to learn about Jesus, about their new faith and prepare themselves for baptism – as we did this spring for 2 young people in our church. Unlike us, their tradition was that worshippers would arrive before dawn on Easter morning and as the sun rose the candidates for baptism would come forward, strip off all their clothes and be immersed in water. Then, as they emerged from the waters of baptism, each would be given a new set of clothes to wear – white clothes, to signify the purity of the new life they had just been given. (That would be one way to get a big turn-out at an Easter morning service!)
As strange as it seems, what they were doing was acting out, literally, what Paul is talking about in this letter, figuratively. In the reading last week, you heard Paul tell the church, “having been buried with Christ in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith.” Paul concludes that thought at the end of ch.2, saying, “Since you died with Christ to the spiritual forces of this world, why would you keep following the old rules?” Why keep wearing the old, ill-fitting clothes? He continues where our reading started this morning, “Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts, set your minds, on your new life that is hidden with Christ in God.” Hidden. With Christ. In God.
This isn’t just washing your old clothes in the baptism tub, mending and patching and putting them back on, hoping they look a little better. It’s a whole new wardrobe. When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are given totally new clothes; the old has gotta go out with the trash. Our bodies, our lives, are covered up (hidden) with the new clothes of Christ Jesus himself.
Stripping Off the Stinky Clothes
So what it is that we are stripping off, what are the stinky clothes that gotta go? Paul focuses on the behaviors and attitudes that must have been particular problems for the believers in Colossae, the dysfunctional and destructive practices that were threatening their church, their faith, their witness.
He begins by listing sexual sins. This isn’t an attack on sexuality itself, as some in the Puritan era believed that sex itself was shameful. God created us as sexual beings, our sexuality is part of God’s good creation and part of what cements a marriage relationship together. What Paul is insisting they strip off is the hurtful, destructive, selfish misuse of sex that harms and destroys people. We see it today in the proliferation of pornography, the objectification of women, the abuse of children. There is the lie that somehow sex can be “casual” that denies how it affects us deep in our souls. There is no place for destructive sexual behaviors or thoughts.
Paul moves on to address greed – the thing that drives us to want more and more of something, to not be satisfied, to not be content. It’s that need to grab for the things that attract us – in our consumerist society, even more so than for those in Colossae, it is easy to reach out to grab whatever we feel like – more shoes, more food, more video games, more movies or TV shows, more guns, more, more, more. Whatever it might be, however happy it makes you or innocent it seems, it is harmful when our lives are shaped by things more than by Jesus. It may require the drastic step of getting rid of some things in order to put on Christ.
Then there is the list of destructive emotions and dysfunctional communication that we must get rid of – anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, dirty language and lies. Sounds like everyday life and language on the political campaign trail! These are the emotions and the behaviors that will destroy community, destroy relationships, destroy trust. How can a group of people come together as One Body in Christ if some are turning up their noses at others in distain? How can a family stay intact when anger and resentment simmers under the surface? How can we trust each other when we hear the language of outrage, of cursing, of deception more than the language of love and humility? It is all around us, we hear it everyday, yet Christ calls us to get rid of those things from our hearts and our mouths.
Speaking of the impact of the political in our lives, last week as Will Swierenga pursued thoughts of what Paul might warn the Church in American against today, he noted that Paul’s biggest concern would be the ways in which the Church today is married to the political system. The church has gotten into bed with political parties and leaders in order to gain power and capture control. I wonder if Paul, chained in prison for his faith, could have even imagined this threat against the church. But today, we as the church must be willing strip off the desire for power and control, in order to stand up for justice, to speak up in support of the poor and those who lack opportunities, to defend children separated from their families and locked in cages. The church is called to wear Christ, not Nationalism. 3:16 “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives.”
Finally, among the wardrobe to get rid of, Paul directs the church to get rid of unhelpful human distinctions that are no longer relevant in Christ. “It doesn’t matter if you are Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free.” In a similar list in Galatians 3:28, Paul also adds “male or female.” I believe the list Paul might make today would be, “It doesn’t matter if you are a citizen or a non-citizen, religious or irreligious, conservative or liberal, male, female, or non-gendered, black, or white or brown, English-speaking or non-English speaking, dressed to the nines or wearing thrift store cast-offs, for Christ in all in all.” Or as the Message puts it, “From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.”
It’s important for you to understand that Paul is not just making up a random, theoretical list here. Sitting in the room, listening to this letter are two men who would have heard this list in a very pointed way. Philemon, who hosted the church in his home, was a free man, a wealthy man and who owned slaves. Onesimus, who had come with Tychicus who was carrying the letter, had at one time been one of Philemon’s slaves. We know from Paul’s letter directly to Philemon, that Onesimus had stolen from him and then run away. That was a capital offense. Philemon had every right to feel anger and rage, to insist that Onesimus be punished and put in his place for his disobedience and disrespect. Onesimus, too, may have felt malice toward Philemon for the ways he had been subjugated and mistreated. Paul was asking them both to strip off their old ways of relating to one another as defined by their positions, their racial or cultural backgrounds, even as defined by prior behavior, and to see each other as covered, as hidden and clothed, with Christ.
Changing Clothes
How do we do this? How do we strip off those lens through which we look at people? How do we rid ourselves of those powerful emotions by which we justify our hurtful behaviors? How do we quit engaging in behaviors that are dysfunctional and destructive?
I believe the most effective way is to start with prayer, and as Paul suggests, with gratitude to God. In prayer, we invite and submit ourselves to God’s work in our lives. The form of Centering Prayer that the group meeting on Tuesday evenings has been learning, offers a helpful guide for taking time to breathe out harmful emotions, harmful thoughts, harmful desires, and then to breathe in Christ, breathe in the Holy Spirit, breathe in God’s transforming love.
It’s important that we don’t see the setting aside of harmful behaviors and thoughts as one more chore required of us by a demanding God. Often times those who cling to destructive behaviors defend them by accusing God/religion of wanting to take the fun out of life. Just the opposite is true. God made us and guides us to the kind of life God knows will make our joy full.
It is also important that we do not see the removing of those worldly clothes and the putting on of Christly clothes as a requirement for being acceptable to God. This is not something you have to achieve, but it is something that has already been done for you in Christ. Paul writes, “Since you have been raised in Christ…” It has already happened. With your baptism you were re-clothed with Christ. God already filled your closet with your new wardrobe! You simply choose each day to put on those clothes, and to keep them on!
The New Wardrobe
So what are the clothes you are wearing today? What’s hanging in your wardrobe and filling your dresser? Paul writes, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. With an unflappability that tolerates one another’s idiosyncrasies. With forgiveness for anyone that offends you. With peace and contentment and unity. All with the coveralls /overcoat /poncho of love.
Seminary professor Marion Soards (workingpreacher.org), reflecting on this passage, wrote, “On the one hand, we are called to wear those things every day like a shirt, a jacket, a favorite sweater. On the other hand, the image [Paul uses] is not just of specific articles of clothing but of being clothed. Just as we don’t walk out of our homes without clothes, we are called never to leave home without putting on our love for each other, our love for our neighbor, without wrapping ourselves in the new life that embodies the life and ministry of Christ.”
You may ask, if this is the wardrobe of all those who claim Christ as Lord, why is it that so much brokenness and pain and hatred still exists in the world, especially in a nation that claims to be ‘under God’? I heard a story about a pastor having a conversation with a soap-maker about this very problem. The soap-maker complained that Christ has been around for 2000 years, yet there were still wars and meanness, hunger and hatred. The pastor replied, “You’re right, but the fact is that soap has been around for even more than 2000 years, yet there are still dirty hands, kids covered in mud, filthy clothes, and germs being spread.” The soap-maker jumped to the defense, “That’s not a problem with soap! Soap only works if you use it.” “It’s the same with Christ,” the pastor replied, “Christ only works if people use Him.” (adapted from John Timmer, How Long Is God’s Nose?)
Choose this day to use and to wear the clothes of Christ. Strip yourself of the old, harmful clothes, and put on the wardrobe Jesus has given you. And above all, wear that all-purpose garment of love. Never be without it.
Closing Song: “This Is My Commandment” # 600
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