Sermon (30 SAP) January 15, 2017 Colossians 3:12-16

Transcription

1 Sermon (30 SAP) January 15, 2017 Colossians 3:12-16 From the Apostle Paul this morning we hear five short, beautiful verses. These verses describe life in the Kingdom, and they are filled with words and images that are radiant. We will walk through these five verses. To better hear the words of the Apostle. 12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. We are the elect of God. God has chosen us. And he has chosen us for one simple purpose. He has chosen us to love us. We are the Father s beloved. If we could get this one fact through our skulls. If we could trust this, the beating heart of the Gospel, then for certain the experience of the Kingdom of God would never leave us. And because we are God s beloved, we are holy. And our holiness is not based on who I am, or who you are. Our holiness is always a reflection of who we are. Holiness, says the Apostle Paul, holiness is ours when we show compassion. When we enter the suffering of others. Holiness shows up when we are kind and meek and humble. This is the holiness of Christ. Holiness which is not reflected in legions of angels or in the power to create and destroy. The holiness of Christ is not displayed by him as any kind of earthly power. The holiness of Christ is displayed through his earthly weakness. Through his humility. His gentleness. Jesus does not embrace control. He chooses a cross. He chooses the widows and lepers and the rejected. He even loves Judas and says to him follow me. So there is this one verse. Brothers and sisters, we are God s beloved. The second gem in the basket is verse 13: 13 bear with one another, and forgive one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. This is life in the Kingdom. Is there a brother or sister in the church who drives you crazy? Or maybe even someone who has harmed you with words or actions. If so then we are called to do two things. Forgive them, and bear with them. 1

2 Forgive them -- decide that whatever darkness that person has caused, the darkness stops here and now. But also bear with them -- this is key. Do not cut them off. Do not avoid them, minimize them, or say to them that you are dead to me. Bear with them. Sometimes we think of forgiveness as self-care. I forgive you because I want to forget you. You are toxic and I want to unload all your negativity and just get you out of my thoughts. This is not forgiveness. This is madness. It is the devil who separates. But it is Christ who unites, and who tears down all dividing symbols and all walls of separation. The Father does not forgive us because he wants to walk away from us. God does not look at us and say, you know what I forgive you because I need to stop thinking about you. I need to stop making your mess my mess. No. The Lord forgives us, and he bears with us. And he does this, remember, because ell, we are His beloved. His hope for us never dies. Our hope for one another should never die. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Bear with us, O Lord, even as we bear the unbearable ones around us. Two verses, two images of life in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is where the beloved of God bear with one another. A third verse. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. This sounds nice. But what does it mean? Put on love the bond of perfection. The word bond is syndesmos. Syndesmos also means sinew and ligament. Syndesmos is the strong and fibrous connective tissue that joins muscle to bone. Love is syndesmos. Love is connective tissue. If the church were a chicken wing, then love is what gets stuck in your teeth. The stretchy bits that hold the wing together. This is what the Apostle means. Let love connect you to one another no less than ligaments bring together bone and muscle. Ligaments that bend and stretch and rarely break. Ligaments that allow a body to stand up and walk. 2

3 Love is ligature that supports the organs and keeps everything in place. Love allows us to move as the Body of Christ. Tear your ACL and you can t walk. The same happens when we tear up the love that joins us. *** The Church without love is like a body without sinews. Just a pooling bag of bones floating uselessly on a jello sea of innards. But with love, the Church stands. The church moves and runs and serves the world with grace and beauty and power. So the Kingdom of God is where the beloved of God bear with one another and are bound by love just as muscles and bones are joined by sinews. A fourth verse: 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of peace. Not peace in the sense that I am now insensitive to the world around me. This is fake peace. Christ did not walk around Palestine shouting not my circus, not my monkeys. Christ engaged the world. He did not shun the crazy-makers he reached out to them. He offered them a healing presence. Peace is not the absence of pain. Peace is the presence of health. Peace is not relief from something bad. It is the presence of something good. To say, I am at peace is not to tell you something about my mind. It is to tell you something about my relationship with God. A good 3 or 4 times during the Liturgy the priest turns to you and says Peace be unto all. This is a moment when Christ himself in the person of his servant turns and gives you His peace. And what Christ gives to us is a share in his own relationship with the Father, perfect and joyous and life-giving. 3

4 Put it this way: Peace is a piece. P-E-A-C-E is a P-I-E-C-E. The peace of Christ is a piece of something it is a piece or a part of the feast that he shares with the father at the heavenly banquet. The peace of Christ is not a controlled substance. It is not there to numb the mind. The peace of Christ is the fellowship He shares with his Father and with his Holy Spirit. And this peace is now our peace. Christ s relationship with God becomes our relationship with God. Peace then is the armor that makes compassion possible. Knowing the truth about God s love for you and for me, we are now called to join others in their pain and suffering so that we might give to them what has been given to us. And this leads to a fifth verse. A final brushstroke of a painting of life in the Kingdom. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. We are God s beloved. We bear with one another as Christ bears with us. Love joins us like ligaments and sinews. And we now receive a share of what Christ enjoys with his Father. And all this is sustained, the Apostle Paul writes, all this is sustained by two things: by worship and by work. We pray, and we teach. We sing, and we speak. We honor God in song, and by speaking truth in love. In the kingdom, we are angels, and we are prophets. The holy altar table behind me is connected to every altar table in this world. Both inside and outside churches. Your heart is an altar table which you then take home and to school and to work, offering yourself in love for the life of the world. The people around you. Each of these is an altar table on which Christ offers himself in love. And we are to worship God around those altar tables no less than we do here on Sundays and Feast Days. The rich young man this morning walks away from Christ because he only recognizes one altar table -- he only recognizes himself as worthy of love. The next president of this country faces the same choice. Pray for him. Just as we will do in our divine services starting on Friday. How many altar tables in this world will he see? Just one, or billions. How many altar tables do you and I see? 4

5 Is St Nicholas Church the only place we worship? Or do we take our worship of God into the world? Do we surround others with hard work and prayer just as we surround this table on this day? Brothers and sisters, worship and admonish. Teach the world about the dignity of each human being, beloved by God and invited into the Kingdom. Sing like angels, and then rattle the cage like prophets. Give thanks to God for his law, and then honor the law. Love God and love your neighbor. And teach others to do so the same. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. 5