Listen to the Bible

Listen to the Bible

(Nehemiah 8:1-12; Luke 4:14-21)

10:30 am, Sunday, Jan 27, 2013; Windsor UBC; J G White

I went to Synagogue once.  It was about 1995, in Halifax.  I wish I had a good memory for times like that, but mostly I remember my impression of events, not the facts and details.  I do remember the Torah was carried in, paraded in.  You know what I mean by the Torah?  The scroll, the Scripture, the Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. 

Some Christian traditions also do symbolic stuff with the Bible, carrying it forward, lifting it up, the whole congregation standing when there is a reading from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  Some of those ceremonies make an impression… especially if you are not accustomed to the ritual. 

Our Old Testament story today makes an impression upon me.  In the fall I drew our attention to this time in the history of the Hebrews when they had been taken from the Holy Land into exile, in Babylonia.  Seventy years later they got to return and rebuild.  Rebuild the city, rebuild the economy, rebuild their religion, rebuild their temple, rebuild their Jewish society.  It took a long time.  In the midst of this, the Law, the Torah, comes to light, and, one day in about the year 444 BC, big parts of it were read to the people.  They heard old words that were new to them. 

It is a dramatic scene, a big day.  The people gather together for the written Word of God.  The Bible takes centre stage. 

All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate…   the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. (N 8:1a, 2)  So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (N8:8)

The whole Bible, as we now have it today, belongs to no one group.  It doesn’t even belong to one world religion – ours – because the Old Testament is also Jewish scripture. 

But where does it take centre stage?  Where does it draw a crowd?  I don’t mean a dynamic preacher, like Graham or Stanley or Osteen.  I don’t mean a musical performance of the Bible, like Handel’s Messiah.  Simply the Bible. 

For the first time ever I attended a hockey game at the Metro Centre, last night.  We were in ‘the nosebleed’ seats, at the very top, back row V in section 40.  The Mooseheads lost.  L  More than ten thousand people were in attendance.  The 50/50 ticket winner got over $16,000! 

The Bible could never draw a crowd.  Could it?  That is just what it did in 444 BC, in Jerusalem.  And when God brings people together, to God’s Word, dramatic things happen.  People are changed.  Whole cities are changed.  What would it be like if crowds from around Hants County learned that a message from their Creator would be shared with them?  They must not believe it is already happening. 

As I read the ancient story, I wonder how and when people seek God’s written Word, are hungry for it.  It was the crowds who told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. (N 8:1b) This convocation was called for by the lay people, not organized by the priesthood.  The citizens clearly knew about the scroll, had heard it was around.  They wanted to hear it!  What had they been missing for several generations?

We are seeing, in Canada, a few generations now who do not know much of the content or the power of this Text.  Where will hunger for this come from?  There must be glimpses given.  There must be people in the midst of them who are thrilled by the Message that’s here.  There must be a bit of salt sprinkled around who are ‘biblical’ men and women, people of the Book.

Anyone out there enjoy lobster?  I do.  I like it a lot!  How did I get my appetite for lobster?  There was a time in my life when I had never tasted it.  I saw others enjoying it, and longing for it, looking forward to their next lobster-boil.  So, finally, I got to try it, and I liked it!  Well, even the Bible tells us to taste and see that the Lord is good; His words are sweeter than honey.  If someone sees us loving the Word, the hunger to try it can grow.

And, when people are hungry for a word from the Lord, they listen intently to God’s written Word.  In Nehemiah 8 we read …and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.  (N 8:3c)  Like the true hockey fans at the game last night – watching intently and responding and cheering – the God-lovers and Bible-feasters follow closely and deeply what is here.

Nehemiah 8 paints a picture for us.  We see a moment when people worship God, because of the Word, and to receive the Word.  That scene from 2,450-some years ago is a great worship scene, centred on the written-down Word of God.  …and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, "Amen, Amen," lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. (N 8:5b-6)

The basic ways humans gather and worship are common throughout the millennia.  Now, we Baptists here don’t get too excited – raising our hands up, or kneeling, not to mention bowing low enough that our faces touch the floor.  When we pray we do what someone called the Protestant slouch.  And we don’t stand to hear a reading from the Gospels, nor sing a Psalm very often.  At least here we do have scripture readings; much Baptist and evangelical worship does not even have Bible readings, save what the preacher quotes during the sermon.

Our worship together, centred on the Holy Bible, is something under scrutiny in our world today.  Some of the critics find what we and other Christians do on mornings like this: boring, unimportant, outdated, irrelevant, silly. 

Here is a worship moment… any of you recognize this?

The movie, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is a science-fiction comedy.  In this scene, we get a glimpse into the liturgy on a planet where the Deity sneezed the universe into existence, and the believers await the coming of a Great Handkerchief. 

The Handkerchief is coming, beloved; let us pray the Almighty will exhale a breath of compassion on us all.

 (Leader and congregation breathe in and face upwards.)

Almighty Arkelseizure, we lift our noses, clogged and unblown, in reverence to You.  Send the Handkerchief, O Blessed One, so that it may wipe us clean.  We ask this, and all things, in Thy precious and alliterative Name. 

(The whole congregation sneezes.) Achoo!

Bless you.                                                   (Douglas Adams)

The criticisms of our worship and scripture can teach us.  Hopefully, we can laugh at ourselves, become humble, and learn to see what others see when we sing and pray and preach, in real life.  When our singing and praying and preaching becomes about our real life – God be praised – we know grace.

We visited that scene in the Synagogue of Nazareth when Jesus was handed a scroll to read from – the scroll of Isaiah.  He read a text he selected, and then commented on it.  “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” (L 4:21) Have you ever heard the Bible read, and known, in your bones, that the words were alive, real, coming true?  It happens again and again, in the simplest of ways.

I never shall forget a little service at the end of a seminar in Kentville hospital, a seminar on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  All day had been about folk who are forgetting and loosing themselves, wandering and shuffling around.  Rev. Don Jackson was there, part of the presentation, in a secondary stage of Alzheimer’s himself. Then we heard these words from John 21, where the resurrected Jesus Christ says to disciple Peter: 

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (J 21:18)

That strange little verse spoke out to us in a new way.

The written Word of God is life-giving to people who listen.  Many people have this feeling that the Bible condemns them.  “Why read more or have it preached at me if it will give me guilt and shame?”  Yet it is the Word of life!

When those folk, rebuilding their lives in Jerusalem in 444 BC, heard what the Law of God said, it must have hit them like a heavy weight, a mighty rulebook, a description of their failures.  No wonder they wept.  But now at least they knew.  And it was all there, on the scrolls, to describe their very special life and mission with Almighty God.  One thing it prescribed was a festival they were to celebrate, that very month, honouring God’s journey with their ancestors. 

So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, "Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved." And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. (N 8:11-12)

To understand is to know what you can do now.  Do you say: Prayer changes things?  Can we also say the Bible changes things?  Changes attitudes, changes behaviors, changes people’s health, changes our work, changes our pleasure, changes our plans, changes our relationships?  The Word changes things.

Many of us do not need to know more of the Bible.  As someone has said, we believers are fat on the Word; but we are famished when it comes to living it.  What we need is to do more of what we already know, from scripture.  I plan to begin a small group study in February based on a DVD of Dallas Willard and John Ortberg.  (No one has signed up yet!) The teaching is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Do what the Master says.  We know much of what Jesus teaches.  Do it.  What’s the concluding statement of Christ’s sermon?   "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!" (Mtt 7:24-27)  Many believe, but do not act.

We listen to the Word that comes from God.  Many of us have so much Bible in here [our brains] already.  Romans 10:8 quotes Deut. 30:14 when it says, The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart"…  Listen to what you already have. 

Act upon what you now know.  To remember is not enough.  To know is not enough.  To learn is not enough.  To understand is not enough. To value the message highly is not enough.  To believe it is not enough.  To defend the authority of the Word is not enough. 

Act on the Word.    Do it. 

One – step – at – a – time, our lives get built, by God.  This is amazing!  Listen and do.  Hear and act. 

    This is cause for joy and celebration!  

The Gift of Ears (Year of Listening)

The Gift of Ears (Year of Listening)

(Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11)

10:30 am, Sunday, January 20, 2013; Windsor UBC; J G White

It was about six weeks ago that Dr. Harry Gardner preached to us, and I think his sermon was called “The Gift of Ears.” It was in the service celebrating Jeff Hosick's ordination, 25 years ago. Jeff has been given the 'gift of ears' by the Holy Spirit, Harry rightly said.

There is no gift of ears, gift of listening, or gift of hearing in the lists of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. But, can't it be a gift of the Spirit? To listen well to the Lord, and to one another, is part of life in the Kingdom of God. Jesus, when he taught, would regularly say things like, “those who have ears, let them hear.” Christ died for us so we would have access to the Father. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of communication.

The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir." It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I'm sure she had it coming."

I don't know if that story is even true. But have you ever played your own little game like this, to see if people were really listening?

I look across the weeks ahead in the year 2013, and think about my preaching and our walk together with the Lord. I believe my own theme for the year will be a “Year of Listening.” I think one thing I bring to my ministry here is my listening to others. I also think there is so much worth doing here that is about listening well and hearing better.

We listen to God. I have some confidence in how I do listen and hear from the Lord. I am a sheep who recognizes the voice of the Shepherd. I am also excited and interested in more. There is so much more for me to learn and practice. I can know the Master's voice and recognize Him better than I do today.

My relationship with God differs from yours, of course. Some things I pick up on from God are not what you pick up. Some ways you recognize the Spirit are clearer to you than me.

So, what we each have to learn varies. You may need to develop you prayer life, especially your prayers of listening to the still, small voice of God. You may need to seek the filling of the Holy Spirit and discover what God with you really can be like for you. There could be authors and teachers to read this year who will help you learn a lot and make some breakthroughs in your life. Your interpretation of the things that happen in your life and the world around you may need to grow so you can truly see the Lord at work in and around you. These are all elements of listening to our God. One I left to the last was the Bible – hearing from God in the World.

There is so much here to hear. We listened and maybe read from Isaiah 62 today. Wonderful words. The Lord said to the people who were beaten down: you will be called by a new name!This was to be the Lord's doing, His gift, His plan, His merciful intervention. You won't be called Azuba, “Forsaken.” You will be called Hephzibah, “My Delight.” You won't be called Shemamah, “Desolate.” You'll be named Beulah, “God's Bride.” Your God shall rejoice over you! What a word to hear and believe is from God. This year, will the Lord call Windsor Baptist “Listening Ears” and not “Stiff-necked People”?

Next Sunday I will preach on hearing from the Word of God. In the weeks before Easter I will preach on hearing what the Cross of Jesus means in our lives. And so on...

Also, we listen to one another. Like most spiritual teachings, we know and believe this, but how to do it – that's the challenge. Sometimes real listening to others takes a miracle of God.

Years ago, writer Chuck Swindoll found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day," he recalled (in Stress Fractures). "Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.

"I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really fast.'

"Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me -- and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly." "I'll never forget her answer: 'Then listen slowly.'"

Ahhh... to listen slowly. Not always easy for us. And this is but one kind of listening we can learn from the Master, our Christ. To listen to one another is a skill He would cultivate in us.

1 Corinthians 12 speaks of spiritual gifts, naming a bunch that were important when it came to that church getting together and worshipping the Lord. The chapter goes on to illustrate the congregation as a body, a human body, with may parts, all needed, all different, all working together as a team. Then comes chapter 13. The love chapter. All the prophecy, all the faithfulness, all the sacrificial giving of a Christian is nothing without love. Love for one another.

If we are to love one another, we are to listen. To listen for the feelings, not just to the words said. To listen to what is not being said. To listen – to see – the body language and other signals. To listen with less thinking of what we are going to say next: no, just listen to understand the other, deeply. To speak wisely, to know the right answer, to try and do better that others – do not often help the listening and the loving we are destined to do.

So I plan to preach on listening to other believers in two weeks time. In the summer I think I'll preach on what our Church Covenant with one another tells us. I hope to speak in November about what we hear when we listen to our history. We'll gain the gift of ears for all these things.

And thirdly, we listen to our world. Mainly I'm thinking about all the other people on our globe; but there is much to be learned by observing the rest of creation.

We who are believers in Christ, saved by Him and serving Him, are a rather fuzzy minority in Canada now. A minority, since practicing Christians are not 50% of the population. 'Fuzzy' because it is so unclear who is in and who is out, among all the folk who say they believe, say they pray, say they are spiritual, but are not teamed up with us and Christ's Church. So we are challenged by a mission field on our doorsteps. And one of the first active steps is to listen. Listen to them.

A famous American general of the previous century had this formula for handling people: 1. Listen to the other person's story. 2. Listen to the other person's full story. 3. Listen to the other person's full story first. (George Marshall) This is actually what I hear evangelical and emerging Church leaders say. Brian McLaren, Reggie McNeal, Richard Foster. Evangelism begins and ends by listening to them, not by telling them. Telling them, sharing, witnessing, must happen, but in happens in the midst of us knowing and loving them.

The latest Mosaic magazine from CBM quotes John Keith talking about the start of Canadian Baptist ministry in Turkey 35 years ago. Everything in our early history emphasized friendship, friendship, friendship. In the book 1 Thessalonians, Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy wrote: So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. When we care deeply for others, the Lord can teach us to listen deeply.

And as Paul's talk in 1 Corinthians 12 illustrates, we have many different gifts for listening and blessing people in our world. What I can do is different from what many of you can do.

At yesterday's men's breakfast, we saw and heard a recording of a Billy Graham sermon from thirty years ago. After, someone asked: “Who is sharing this message powerfully today?”

The answer is many of us. But few of us are Billy Grahams. Some can preach. And... some can explain. Some can interpret the times. Some can listen in amazing ways. Some can make music. Some can connect people to other people. So many gifts among us to reach our world with the Gospel. Often, one person out there who needs the saving intervention of God finds it because of many people in their lives. Each witness gives some 'light on the subject.' And the subject is Christ. In most cases, each witness needs to be able to listen to that person on their journey towards God. It is a matter of many relationship, many moments together, many glimpses of the needs of the person and the grace of God.

It may seem strange, but I thought of the old Indian story of six blind men, asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

Someone explained: "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched a different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned."

When it comes to people in our world who need Christ, each of us needs to listen a lot, and speak or do a bit. I show one part of Christ to someone. You show that same person some other bit about the Saviour. You reveal another facet of the Truth. And someone we don't even know will give that person yet another glimpse of God that fills out the picture, so to speak. In the midst of what we each give to others, there can be a lot of listening, understanding, waiting. It is an emphasis on friendship, friendship, friendship.

In three weeks time I plan to preach on listening to our world. And after Easter I hope to speak for a few weeks on various audiences “out there” who are challenging to our Gospel.

So, is there “a gift of ears?” Well, I'd say it's not like some other gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as prophecy or wisdom or healing. Ears is more like love, I think. If we all need to exercise Christian love, we all need to exercise our ears, so to speak. We all need to listen well, with mind and heart.

And if we all need to be good hearers and observers and listeners, God will provide. The Spirit will gift us. The Lord will encourage us to grow in this way. May this year be a year of listening. Listening more, listening better, listening everywhere.

Let me end with words of James, chapter 1 (17-19):

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger...

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

(Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Matthew 2:1-12)

10:30 am, Sunday, Jan 6, 2013; Windsor UBC; J G White

Today, the Christian festival of Christmas ends.  The twelve days are done, it is Epiphany!  It is the celebration of the Magi seeking and finding Jesus.  It is time to praise God for shining as a Light for all peoples everywhere. 

The story of the Magi from Matthew 2 is a biblical tale that catches the imagination.  The premise is this amazing birth of the Son of God, of course.  These magi from somewhere – Persia likely – are tracking down this new Jewish King.  Are they astrologers?  They are definitely not of the Hebrew religion.  Are they kings?  The Old Testament poetry of Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72 suggests this to us.  There is ancient Middle-Eastern politics in this narrative.

Why did they bring gold, and frankincense, and myrrh?  People’s sanctified imaginations have developed many legends about this through the centuries.  If you are a geologist, or you like jewelry, the gold catches your attention.  If you are a botanist the frankincense and myrrh make you curious. 

And the star that leads them.  It’s but one of their guides.  It’s the beautiful, mysterious, celestial element that is so amazing and unexplainable.          

                             A star, a star

Dancing in the night

With a tail as big as a kite

Humanity’s faith and walk with God is told in such stories.  What a blessing that we have the Bible, and these amazing narratives.  Oh, how we can take it for granted!  And, oh, how we need stories today.  Our movies and TV programs, video games and all, express the power of story – true and fictional – today.

So what is our Faith?  Is it facts that can be explained and believed?  Is it a story, a true story, of God and God’s people?

American Author Frederick Buechner has written, A Christian is one who points to Christ and says, ‘I can’t prove a thing, but there’s something about his eyes and his voice.  There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, his cross – the way he carries me.’ 

I want to finish quoting a song I mentioned a moment ago.  It is an expression of today’s story.

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear

Ringing through the sky shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear

A song, a song

High above the tree

With a voice as big as the sea

With a voice as big as the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king

Do you know what I know

In your palace wall mighty king

Do you know what I know

A child, a child

Shivers in the cold

Let us bring him silver and gold

Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere

Listen to what I say

Pray for peace people everywhere

Listen to what I say

The child, the child

Sleeping in the night

He will bring us goodness and light

He will bring us goodness and light

"Do You Hear What I Hear?" is a Christmas song written in October 1962 with lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne. The pair were married at the time, and wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Does that simple part of the story of the song change it for you?  Stories change things for us.

Well, a new year dawns.  It is time to listen to the story; the story of Christ, God in our world.  Now is the right time, today is the day of salvation.  (2 Corinthians 6:20)  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  (Romans 10:17)  Consider how much of God’s Holy Word is story, narrative, and parable. 

The story of Jesus is a never-ending story, for we can be welcomed into the true story today.  His is the Greatest Story Ever Told.  Listen to the Story of the Bible.  Follow the narrative closely.  Pay attention not only to what you are being told, but how the story is told. 

There are lots of tools and paths we can take.  Take up a plan to read the Bible through in a year: the One Year Bible plan, a plan from the Daily Bread, or the Canadian Bible Society, or the Gideons; or simply read it from cover to cover on your own.  I notice the Gideons have a nice, simple plan: a couple Old Testament chapters for each morning, and some New Testament for each evening.  There are plans for reading and studying the Bible chronologically too.

Also, know the story of Christ by reading and hearing the stories of other believers through the centuries.  Listen to your own life story.  One of my old devotional books – by Frederick Buechner, is called “Listening to Your Life.”  That, in itself, is good advice.  Don’t miss how the Lord has acted in the events of your own experience.  Sometimes looking back we see more of God than we did at the moment.

We also learn and live by knowing the story of our culture, and our history.  The people around us who are younger than we are have a story to tell, they have experiences that help us understand them, they have ways of communicating that we can learn.  We learn to speak one another’s language.  But first, I guess, we learn to hear and understand one another’s stories.  And we seek to see the grace and truth of God shining thru.  What is the Holy Spirit doing among those who text all the time? I’m sure that’s a language God uses as well as any other.

Okay, here’s one commercial… I’m looking forward to the Simpson Lectures in February in Wolfville.  Stephen McMullen will be speaking on Christian Witness in an Age of Change.  I expect Dr. McMullen’s presentations, and the other workshops, will be detailed and challenging, but also helpful, down-to-earth and practical.  I hope some of you can check them out.  This is part of the story we are living now with Jesus: being witnesses of Christ in this secular age, this digital age, this postmodern age.

One last hint: many of us can learn to be storytellers.  I’m not much of a storyteller.  I'm more of a lecturer/teacher on Sundays, and a listener the rest of the week.  But the power of story attracts me.  I need to read and hear more storytelling, and try more of my own storytelling.  In our Faith, this is our testimony, our witness.  We share what happened, what we saw, what went on, where the Spirit was – what He was like – and what He did.  A few of us say this from a pulpit; many of us speak this from our living-room armchair.

And so, we get to be light in this world.  We join the great Light of the World, Jesus.  We no longer hide our light under a basket – we put it up upon the hillside.  God has sent a Saviour, who is also Lord, King, Ruler. 

Do you see what I see?

Do you hear what I hear?

Do you know what I know?

Listen to what I say!

The Wardrobe Picked Out for You

The Wardrobe Picked Out for You

(Colossians 3:12-17) 10:30 am, Sunday,

Dec 30, 2012; Windsor UBC; J G White

(Not Preached – Service Cancelled due to Storm)

The New Year is just around the corner.  The new things we just received as gifts may still be sitting under the shedding branches of our Christmas Trees.  Our New Year’s resolutions are yet to be made, perhaps.  Will we be serious about them this year?  We count Tuesday, January 1^st as a new beginning.  It’s kind of arbitrary, like the date to celebrate the birth of Christ.  But it’s nice to mark the end of one year and beginning of another sometime.  For us in the fellowship of Christ, we may seek this as yet another new chapter of our life story with Him.

Chapter 3 of the New Testament book called Colossians begins:  So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.  And a bit later the words of the wise biblical author paint a picture of clothing to wear:  dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.  And so on.

Did anyone get any clothing for Christmas?  Yeah, lots of you, I’m sure.  So did I.  This sermon is going to be a show-and-tell.  Perhaps, as we think about putting on new clothes, the Holy Spirit can teach us how to put on new compassion, new kindness, new humility, and the like.

So, is anyone wearing something new?  What?

I’m not. But I brought some things to put on.  All things I received as gifts this past week.  And none of them were things I picked out for myself and had someone wrap up and give me.  These were each picked out for me by someone else.

I was given a pack of new black dress socks.  You know I need these, if you have noticed most of my socks – they are holey, not holy!  I knew I needed these; I even hinted around (just in time) so others would know what I needed ‘for Christmas.’ 

Some of Christ’s wardrobe for us is what we know we need and want.  I know I want to cultivate thankfulness, gratitude.  And the Lord has that in my wardrobe.  I like to sing and worship; and this is also what Colossians 3 tells me to do.  Some of what the Lord wants to create in our lives is what we also want and seek.  It’s good to be on the same page with the God of purpose and beauty.

Some of the things that are part of life in Christ are like socks. We need a lot, a constant supply, and we need them daily.  Such as forgiveness, mentioned here.  You may need to forgive as often as you put on a new pair of socks.  And our Lord has a steady supply of fresh socks, er, forgiveness, for us.

I got this nice, short-sleeve shirt.  It fits well, it looks good, I’ll use it a lot.  This one might not be the best for winter, but the rest of the year it will suffice. 

So it is with some of the holy wardrobe of Colossians 3.  Love, for instance.  A basic, necessary garment for the believer.  Comes from God, tailored to fit each of us well.  I think that the ways I express love to you are different from the ways each of you show it.  There are similarities, and it is all love, but it shows up in many beautiful ways. 

Pastor and counsellor, Gary Chapman, has taught that there are five main languages of love.  There are people who show and understand love in terms of words of affirmation, for others it’s in acts of service, or receiving gifts, quality time, or physical touch.  How I show and receive love can be different from the ways Sharon shows and accepts love.  So we learn from this.  We learn the love languages of others, and become bilingual, trilingual, and more. 

Colossians 3 says, regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment.  Never be without it.  I guess I’d say, as the old American Express add said, Don’t leave home without it.  Love.

Of course I was given a tie – a seasonal tie.  Candy canes upon it.  One or two days a week I wear a tie, and this one I will use just in December in the years ahead.  It’s purely decorative, of course; but it may bring some joy.

To wear a tie like this one needs a bit of skill, a bit of training, or know-how.  I tie a half-Windsor knot.  It’s the only knot I know.  Some of you guys and gals may tie the full Windsor, or the Four-In-Hand.  Some of you may not bother with this, and have found enough clip-on ties to keep you going.  Some of you guys wear a tie once a decade. 

God’s wardrobe for us includes many things that take some skill development, some training, some practice to make more perfect.  Kindness and patience often need to be developed.  We may take up some spiritual practices to help us become more kind in our ways, more patient with ourselves and others.  Then, it becomes natural.  We don’t have to think through all the steps – we just start doing it naturally.  Our conscience gets trained.  Our automatic responses that we blurt out become grace-filled. 

The Lord works with our insides to make us into folk who naturally do better.  Jesus said, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart…  (Matthew 15:18)  God’s wardrobe for us is clothing for the heart and soul.  It is beautiful, and shows itself in Christ-like moments.

I got this other tie as a gift.  This one is handmade, I believe.  Crocheted, actually – can you believe it?  It’s a bit long, which makes it a bit tricky to tie just right.  And it’s a bit tacky, eh?  Or is it?  Almost like having macramé hanging around one’s neck.  I wonder if I will wear it once in a while.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we say.  What do you suggest?

Some of the qualities the Lord picks out for us are not things we would go out and choose for ourselves.  Like I said last Sunday about a bit from Proverbs 30, I might not ask the Lord to make me neither poor nor rich.  Yet that attitude may be an attitude Christ wants me to put on.  Humility is on the list in Colossians 3:12.  Do I like the way humility looks on me when I first put it on?  Maybe not.  But if the tie fits, wear it.  If it’s of the Lord.  This tie is from my Aunt Mary Ann.

I received this sweatshirt.  Acadia Divinity College, it says.  Let me try it on.  Hmmm… a bit too large, wouldn't you say?  It’s labeled Large, but seems Extra Large.  Maybe this would suit someone else better.  Maybe I will ‘re-gift’ it.

Some of the spiritual gifts, the changes of attitude, the new apparel of the Spirit are much bigger than we imagined we needed.  More patience may be needed than we thought sensible.  Let Christ be your teacher.  Let the Spirit of God supply you with the graces as the Spirit sees fit.  Don’t toss out generosity if it seems too generous, or the song in your heart just because it seems too loud and embarrassing.  Discover if it is from God.

I got another piece of Acadia Divinity College apparel:  this hat, a ball cap.  It’s not the kind of thing I use much, as you may well know.  But, maybe I should.  My hair is not getting any thicker in the summer sunshine.  Putting sunscreen up there is not something I enjoy.  This could be better.

Some of the things for you, in your spiritual journey, are not tools and resources you thought you’d need.  Yet they become available in the Kingdom of God, and you will need them for your life here. 

For instance, I think I now realize that, back when I signed up to be a Baptist Pastor, twenty Decembers ago, I did not sign up to be a leader.  I said YES to being a pastor, a preacher, a visitor, a Bible-studier, and a worship leader.  I did not sign up to be a leader of people.  But this is part of my calling.  And certain gifts and lessons must get integrated into my life as a servant of the Lord.  I did not ever want to wear a ball cap, but God has one for me that fits, and I had better get into using it when necessary.

One last thing, by the Christmas Tree: I got this.  I wonder if it will fit?  My Christmas Stocking.  Is it left or right?  I don’t think I am supposed to wear this.  It is in the form of a piece of clothing, but it’s not really good to wear.  So I’ll take it off.

There are actually many things we have taken into our lives that are not to be worn by the human soul.  They must be cast off.  Before the reading we had from Colossians 3 are words that speak of killing off everything connected with the way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy.  …you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

When I was younger, on Christmas morn some of us would keep putting on clothing whenever we opened up something new.  New pajamas?  Put them on over your pants and shirt.  New gloves?  Put them on as you sat in the living room.  New T-shirt?  Put it on over the PJs that are over your first shirt! 

We need to get rid of the rags that we cling to so that new apparel from the Lord can clothe our hearts and minds.  Christ comes to deal with sins, so that new things can take their place. 

That’s my show-and-tell.  That’s some good news, I believe, about what’s in our lives and how it can be changed by Christ.

To conclude, let us hear and receive some more words from Colossians 3, translated by Eugene Peterson.  More about what life is like when we put our confidence in Jesus, and put our whole life in His hands.  We put on Christ.

Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.