Pentecost 9, Year C, 2001

Trinity Cathedral, Trenton, NJ

Reading: Colossians 3:12-17

One of the things
I try to do
when I prepare a sermon,
is to think about which of the readings
assigned by the lectionary
is the hardest for us
to make sense of.

Which one is the most difficult? Which one
raises the most barriers for us?
Does one of them
speak about something
we tend to avoid?

Today
none of the readings
is particularly easy.
Ecclesiastes portrays
a picture of despair,
the apparent utter hopelessness
of all that we do.
Luke
speaks about money
and greed
and possessions.
Both, it seems, have a whole lot to do with
what sort of priorities we Christians should have
with regard to material things.

But you know, I have a sneaking suspicion
that in fact neither of those readings
is the most difficult. We might not like
what they have to say, the challenges they put
to our lifestyles,
but the are essentially
straightforward.

But the reading from Colossians, I think
is the most difficult
of the three we have today.
It's the most difficult to believe
and it's the most difficult to live
- though it might not look that way
at first glance.

When I was a kid, I used to have these little stickers
that we'd get at Sunday school
for good attendance.
They'd say things like
Love is patient
Love is kind.
The words were taken from 1 Corinthians 13, but they might as well
have been taken from our reading from Colossians. And the Christianity they
portrayed
just like the artwork on the stickers themselves -
kind of syrupy
and sickly sweet. Totally idealistic.
Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience,
they were all very well
if it was my 93 year old great-grandma,
but to a rambunctious nine year old
they seemed to have nothing to do
with the world
I lived in.
Even then I knew
that you have to fight for your self
and no one is giving away
any favors.

But I wonder. I wonder
if the world I perceived as a nine year old
is the only world,
if this text
and others like it
is setting up a vision
of something different,
a vision of what life
with faith in Christ
at the center
might be like -
even right here
in life as we know it.

Because there's a hint, there
in the middle of the passage, and it's easy to miss,
there's a hint
that this isn't just
some ideal world,
but exactly the sort of place we find ourselves in
at home, in our workplaces,
here in the Cathedral.
"Bear with one another"
Paul and Timothy, who apparently wrote this letter, write to the Colossians,
"Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another,
forgive one another, just as the Lord has forgiven you."
If anyone has a complain against another...
or another way of putting it, if anyone has cause for blame...
forgive one another.
This is no ideal world
of sweetness and light,
this is a place
where people have been hurt,
and other people have done the hurting, where there is every reason
for anger and grudges and blame.
It's a place
where the wounds of the past
still leave scars, and sometimes
the scabs
still haven't quite healed over.
But the more we worry at them, the more we pick away at the scabs,
the longer
they take to heal,
and the more chance there is
that they'll get re-infected.
Forgiveness
is one step
in the healing process.

And the way it's described here in Colossians, there is no whitewashing.
Forgiveness is not easy. Pain is real; blame
may be fair,
but as followers of Christ
there comes a time
when we are called to bandage the wounds,
and get on
with the healing.

And in the end, the reason it's possible, the only reason it's possible, is
because God
has already
forgiven us.
It kind of inverts
the way we normally hear it
in the Lord's prayer,
"Forgive us our sins
as we have forgiven others."
Here we are reminded
that God forgives us, God forgives us, no matter what we have done,
not just the big things
but the little every day
things as well,
the bad tempers,
and nasty thoughts,
the times when we hit ourselves and say "what did I do that for?"
and the times when we take out our own hurts on others.
God forgives all those, even when we're not so sure that others could,
and God calls us
to do the same.
God forgives us,
because without that forgiveness,
we can never be the healthy, whole, free people
we were
created
to be.
God forgives us, in the end,
because God loves us.
Loves us
with a passion
even greater that the first flush of romance,
loves us
with a passion
even greater than that first wave at the sight of your newborn child.
God loves us

You are loved
and you are forgiven.

And that's how
our reading from Colossians today
began. Remember?
"As God's chosen ones,
holy
and beloved..."
Chosen, holy and beloved.
We are not here by accident,
we are not just some stray collection of human bodies.
To say
we are chosen
is not so much to say
that we made it
and others didn't,
as to say that the voice of God
has been calling,
calling for centuries,
for people to join together in worship
and for good or ill
we happened to hear that voice
and have ended up here,
gathered to worship,
gathered
as God's people
in this place.
And God loves us, each and every one of us.
Whether we think we're worthy of it
or not.
God loves us.

We are God's people
and we are loved.
And
we are holy.
Not holy, as in too good to be true,
or holy, as in no earthly use,
but holy
as in set apart
to be God's people
in this world.
To be like icons,
people through whom
God can be seen.
We are God's people,
forgiven, holy, loved.
And so
it's no wonder
that Paul and Timothy urge the Colossians
to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Because those
are the very characteristics
of Christ. It's the same
as Paul writes in other places:
we are to be imitators
of Christ.
So that people
who look at us might,
just might
through us
gain a glimpse
of God.

Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. As God's people,
forgiven, holy, loved,
we are to take on these characteristics,
to take them on
not just superficially,
but at the very core
of our being. Because back when this was written,
the language that's used to describe compassion,
was not just something kind of in your head,
it was something is described as coming from your entrails, you guts,
from right down here
where your diaphragm is. It's from the place
where you get butterflies
in your stomach
the place
that knots up
with anxiety
the place
where you get that kind of inner glow
of well being.
we are called
in our very core
to be people of compassion,
soft-hearted
in the best sense of the word,
like the shepherd
who went to find
that straying one-hundredth
sheep,
like the father
who welcomed back
the prodigal son.
To be people who reach out
to those in trouble, or need, or who are hurting,
to those who are excluded
from whatever
constitutes "in."

We are called
in our very core
to be people of kindness,
generous
in what we own, and the time we have, and in how we share
ourselves with others,
being people
who follow our God
in blessing.

We are called
in our very core
to be people of humility,
not counting ourselves
as higher, or more important, than any others,
but having in us
the same mind that was in Christ Jesus
who though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself...

We are called
in our very core
to be people of gentleness,
tender as a hen shielding her chickens
under her wing, safe
to be around for animals, and children, and adults
alike.

We are called
in our very core
to be people of patience,
as long suffering
as God has been with us
through generation
after generation
of people
who go their own way,
waiting patiently
for the change
which will someday
come about.

And we are called
in our very core,
to be people of love,
encompassed in the love
which binds all creation
in unity,
and us with it too.

We are God's people in this world of ours,
forgiven,
and holy,
and loved. And we have
a high calling.
But would you have it
any other
way?

Raewynne J. Whiteley
5 August 2001