Christmas Day has passed – for weeks we thought it would never come and then suddenly, there it was – and it was snowing so hard that we cancelled Christmas Eve worship and the road conditions continued to be so bad that many of us stayed home and missed out on family gatherings that have been perhaps been cancelled or postponed. In either case, Christmas 2009 is little more than a memory – except of course for the ice box full of leftovers, the mountain of wrapping paper and ribbon in the trash, and all those decorations that have to be taken down and put away.
Today, just 2 days away from Christmas, we turn our attention from the coming of the child of Christmas, to figuring out what to do about the reality of that child of Christmas coming among us as a human person. Something monumental happened on Christmas. The world order was – is – forever changed. God has left the heavenly realms and lives among people – walking about, playing with children, comforting adults, eating and drinking with friends. A new thing has begun. God’s relationship with people is forever different – old things have passed away and everything about the universe is new – well almost everything.
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This morning’s gospel portion gives us scripture’s only glimpse of the life of the child Jesus. It is our only taste of what 90% of the life of Jesus might have been like. What we see is a boy – a young man really – who is already interested in the work of God. In Judean culture, the boy Jesus would have been studying Torah in preparation for his bar mitzvah. He would have been studying the history of his people and their culture, learning to read Hebrew and learning how to live as a faithful Jew.
As he comes to the temple with his parents to celebrate the feast – perhaps the Passover – Jesus is anxious to ask others about what he is studying. Theologians are not sure whether Jesus yet fully understands who he is, but already he is seeking after the things of God – consciously ‘putting on’ the things of God – the faith, the law, the life – to which God called the chosen people. He was still a boy, but already he was about his father’s business, anxious to better understand as he grows into manhood.
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In just a few days, we will celebrate New Years and all its attendant hoopla and celebration. Everyone has their traditions – some make sure they eat black-eyed peas for luck. In
All over the world, this is a time of new beginnings. We throw out old calendars and start new ones. If you are reading through the Bible in a year, you are starting to read the book of Genesis. If you keep track of your mileage or your progress, you are busy resetting your charts. Our paychecks will soon start reflecting the earnings and tax rates for a new year.
Even the days are getting longer (the day light hours anyway). Everything seems new – except for us, perhaps – we all woke up this morning to find out that the same person who fell asleep in our bed last night is the same person we awoke to find there this morning – it is the same person we were yesterday and the day before. But, we want to feel as new as the rest of the world - and so lots of us will be making New Years resolutions – me included. We want to make a fresh start to match the fresh start in our lives of the year. We want to put off the old and bring in the new.
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We make them – and we break them. Studies show that of all those well intentioned resolutions:
- 75% make it past the first week
- 71% past 2 weeks
- 64% after one month
- 46% after 6 months
‘While a lot of people who make new years resolutions do break them, research shows that making resolutions is useful. People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions’[1]:
And a lot of us focus on a lot of the same things. I checked a few web sites this week and discovered what the 10 most popular New Year resolutions are:
1. Lose weight
2. Stop smoking
3. Stick to a budget
4. Save or earn more money
5. Find a better job
6. Become more organized
7. Exercise more
8. Be more patient at work/with others
9. Eat better
10. Become a better person
Each of these resolutions is pretty admirable – and each, taken on its own, might be a successful project. But isn’t it interesting that ‘Lose Weight’ ranks as #1, but the things we have to do to lose weight, ‘Exercise more’ and ‘Eat better’ are 7 and 9 on the list?
And ‘earning more money’ is more popular than ‘finding a better job’.
– but there are a couple of things wrong with a lot of these. Of the 10 that we just listed, 8 of them are focused on ourselves. The first one that focuses on others is #8 ‘being more patient’. And the only other one comes in at #10 – ‘being a better person’.
8 out of 10 focus on our own welfare and all of them assume that whatever we resolve to do, we can do on our own. – Maybe this is why 25% of all resolutions are broken before the end of the month.
The problem seems to be compounded when we think about all the things we read about in the Bible that tell us God expects even more of us than this little list of resolutions. But it doesn’t have to be like that.
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The first half of chapter 3 in Colossians tells us what not to do – but this only gives us half of the story. Knowing what not to do doesn’t help us know how to live – we know what to put off – but not what to put on. We know what not to wear, but not what to clothe ourselves with.
The second half of chapter three - this morning’s scripture shows - us a better way to become something more than we were yesterday and it gives us some lofty goals that might just be attainable even as lofty as they are. They are Paul’s version of the New Year’s resolution – in these resolutions, Paul tells us to ‘put on’ not things that focus on us, but things that focus on the community of believers and those who are outside the faith. Paul encourages us to ‘put on’ the virtues that mark the fruits of God’s Spirit living inside us.
One of the shows I watch occasionally on TV is a sort of ‘style’ program where some person is selected for a makeover – not plastic surgery or anything like that – just a clothing makeover.
The hosts start with a rather dumpy-looking woman who dresses in baggy clothing because she believes she has a figure flaw to hide. First, they go through her wardrobe and (not very kindly) convince her to throw out most of her old clothing. Next, they analyze her figure, lifestyle and personal taste to recommend things that will suit her much better. Their premise is that we tend to dress like our vision of who we are rather than clothe ourselves will who we can be. We dress not to maximize our good points, but to hide parts of us we’re not happy with. We dress to confirm our vision of our identity not challenge ourselves to new appropriate ones.
What the program does is show people that they can be more than they think they are. There is a little truth to the saying that ‘clothes make the person’. In this show, people get a chance to ‘put on’ something other they think they are by getting a new vision of who they are.
In this mornings’ scripture, Paul does the same thing. In the first half of this chapter Paul has already gone through the closet, checked out our wardrobe and told us to get rid of all those things we used to be. Next, Paul gives us a list of virtues, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience and says we are to ‘put on’ these virtues like a garment, a covering, something that protects us from the elements, expresses our own sense of values and gives us new identities in Christ.
Unlike most New Year resolutions that focus on the hard work we need to go to whip ourselves into shape, Paul asks us to ‘put on’ to ‘dress ourselves’ in virtues that give us an identity in Christ and a witness in the community.
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In the first centuries of the church, baptism was a pretty serious thing – not that it isn’t now - but for the first few hundred years, people would prepare for as much as three years before they could be baptized. When they were baptized, they would disrobe and descend into running water. When they came up out of the water, they would put on white robes to show their passage from the old life to the new – from lives as slaves of the world to lives in the freedom of Christ – from lives of sin, to lives of purity. It is this moment in time that Paul is talking about here when he uses the words ‘clothe yourselves’. Paul’s version of the New Year’s resolution is new life in Christ.
Since God has already reached out and chosen us – God has done all the hard work needed to empower us to keep those resolutions. Since we have passed through the waters of baptism, to the life of faith, it is the most natural thing we can do with our lives - not a hard task at which we must apply ourselves to fight human nature, but something as natural as breathing. Is anyone in the congregation terribly uncomfortable wearing what you’re wearing today? The Christian life can be just as comfortable.
Instead of doing everything for ourselves – like 8 of those 10 most popular resolutions, Paul tells us to do everything in the name of Jesus – clothing ourselves with virtues – forgiving one another as God has already forgiven us – and loving one another as God has already shown us is possible.
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So as God’s chosen what if our New Year’s resolutions included this top ten from Paul’s list:
1. Have compassion – even for those who care only for themselves.
2. Treat everyone with kindness and meekness – even those of mean spirit.
3. Have patience even with the slow.
4. Forgive what seems unforgivable – just as God has forgiven you.
5. Show everyone the love of God – even if they never do the same.
7. Let peace rule in our hearts – stop making room there for anger.
6. Teach one another - with our example not our tongue.
8. Be thankful for all that God has already done.
9. Sing and worship God joyfully.
10. Do everything in the name of the Lord.
I can think of no better New Year’s Resolution than that.
Amen.
