3:12 As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.     13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.  16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

 

It is early Christmas morning.  Dawn is just starting to break in the sky.  Looking outside you can see the frozen dew glistening in the yard-or if you live in Mobile, the frozen puddles from last night’s heavy rain.  Your family has just woken up to exchange gifts and everyone loves what they got this year.  A hearty breakfast is on the table; there is coffee brewing in the pot, and a parade just waiting to be watched on the television.  Well done my good and faithful servant, you deserve your rest today.  This quiet calm, the love of the family, the joy at the birth of our savior Jesus of Nazareth, truly this is what you were singing about last night at church!

And then you hear a car door slam out in the driveway.  You remember that this was the year you agreed to have the family--and I mean the whole extended family--over for the holiday.  And, yes you love them all very much, but that does not always mean you like them as well.  There is always the chance someone will get mad about something, some long-ago slight will be dug up, or that you might just get frustrated about all these people stomping around in your clean house. And can’t those kids be quiet? Just like that the peace of Christmas Eve is gone, shoved to the side by the confusion and noise of everyday life.  Oh well the holiday is over.  Back to the real world!

Do we always have to wildly swing between moments of peace and moments of stress?  Is the rejoicing we experience at Christ’s birth only meant for one specific time and place?  How do we bridge the gap between Christmas joy and everyday living?

It is very appropriate then that the creators of the Lectionary put the reading from Colossians the week after Christmas.  Paul’s letters are pastoral in nature-he writes them to address a specific issue that a church is having at a specific time.  He is writing to a church divided over how much sway the outside world’s practices and beliefs will have over their own faith.  These debates still take place in the church today- for the ascetic practices of the Greeks--substitute the Prosperity Gospel, for arguments over Jewish ritual practices--think hymn selection. 

Paul is writing to a church whose loyalties are divided, a people confused over how to bridge the gap between the joy of faith and everyday living.

Notice that our reading does not start with Paul admonishing the faithful or telling them that they are inherently bad people.  He calls them “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.”  They have been chosen not because of what group or tribe they belong to or because of anything they have done.  All of humanity has been chosen because of God’s gift of grace through his son Christ Jesus.  This is the same gift that we celebrate every Christmas.  This church has experienced the same type of joy and peace that we celebrated on Christmas Eve.  You are chosen and beloved!

But being chosen comes with great responsibility.  Paul makes an interesting turn, although it may not look like it from the language that he uses. He is balancing instruction with understanding.  He lists several practices that the chosen ones of God are to adopt: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.  The use of the word clothe implies that Paul knows that this new way of being is not natural to us. It is not like our skin-something that we just naturally have on us all of the time.  It is part of our new nature given to us by the gift of Christ.

Paul also realizes that Christians do not exist alone.  The Christian life is not a solo activity.  Look around you-we do not worship alone.  Believers are asked to bear with one another and if complaints arise forgive one another like the Lord has forgiven them.  This acknowledgement that we live our lives out in community runs so very counter to our own cultural expectations.  There is no lone cowboy or rugged individualism in Paul’s view of the faith.  Love binds everything and everyone together like ligaments binding together the body of Christ.

As beautiful and as stirring as all of these words are they are just that:  words.  If you end the reading after the first three verses all you have are a series of moral exhortations wrapped up in the language of Christian faith.  Paul would just be teaching us how to be better people. 

The vast majority of people, no matter their faith or lack of faith, can agree that the virtues Paul lists are a good thing.  An ethicist can say that they help lift up the good and create a stable society.  An evolutionary biologist can say that altruistic behavior is part of evolution and helps to sustain the species.  The Christian can ask themselves “what would Jesus do?” and try to live accordingly. 

But at the end we are still left with words.  Ethical exhortation alone makes Paul into the biblical Ms. Manners.  Trying to forgive others just like the Lord has forgiven you sounds like an effective management technique.  I get along with you, you get along with me, and we work well together as a church.  Jesus becomes the world’s greatest life coach. 

We think that if we just try really hard to be better people then our lives will improve.  Then we fall, or slip up, or everything does not go according to plan, and we are right back at the beginning. We are still left waiting, wanting to close the gap between Christmas joy and everyday existence.

Thanks be to God that Paul does NOT end there.  Paul writes that believers are to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”  This idea of ruling sounds very foreign to modern ears.  It sounds as if we are just going to let Christ take over our lives and do everything for us.  Say the prayer, recite the creed, and then here comes a better life.  If that were the case why is the world in the state that it is in?  If I say I believe should that not just automatically make me a better person?

It is better to go with the literal translation for this verse: “Let the peace of God be the umpire in your hearts.”  Now before you laugh, think of Christ wearing helmet, a chest protector, and making ball and strike calls--this is actually not a bad image.  Paul uses an athletic image for a reason.

The apostle knows that for all of our faith in Christ and joy at his birth we are still a broken humanity.  Yes, we are God’s chosen ones but we still fall short of the mark. Even Paul, source of one of the greatest conversion stories and mountaintop experiences in all of the faith, had his weak moments.  He wrote and spoke with passion, at times bordering on anger, to his fellow believers.  Paul knew that even if Christ dramatically seized control over your life that everything would not fall into place.

An umpire does not hover over a game or control everything that happens. An umpire rules over matters of dispute and makes the correct choice. The best umps are the ones that barely make their presence known on the field.  They are just there.

So when we get into arguments with fellow church members or when we feel ourselves being pulled into two different directions, Christ as the umpire or decider in our heart will keep us in the way of peace and help us to keep the Church clothed in love.  If we place Jesus as the arbiter of right and wrong in our lives then we cannot help but to be pulled toward the right direction.  The peace of Christ will rule in our hearts and our lives.

This is not an easy peace.  This is not peace as the mere absence of conflict--nor is it the Pax Romana of Paul’s day or Pax Americana of our time.  It is not a peace imposed by force of arms or manipulation.  It is a peace brought about by the reconciliation of humanity to God, gained by the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.  This peace is greater than we could ever imagine and is hard to live out. 

This peace of Christ is one in which you “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  It is not a peace that is limited to 11:00 on Sunday or Government Street Presbyterian Church or just Christmas and Easter.  It is a peace that includes our families and coworkers.  It is a peace that is seen in Coffee Club, IHN, Youth Ministry, and in countless ways large and small.  It affects how we spend our money, how we prioritize our lives, and how we deal with conflict.  It is the peace found in the joy of Christmas Eve as well as the despair of the lowest parts of our lives.  It is the peace of Christ.

You are probably thinking at this point, “Well that is really easy for the intern to get up there and preach.  God is requiring something else of me?  My life is incredibly busy as it is!”

This peace, this letting Christ rule and be umpire of your heart, is not meant to be a painful burden.  It is an incredible gift, the gift that we celebrate at Christmas.  Paul asks of the reader to “be thankful” and “with gratitude in your hearts sing” songs of praise to God!  God has come to earth in his son so that we may be saved!  Rejoice!

Over the past several years I have had the honor of preaching and being a part of worship at many different Presbyterian churches.  These have ranged from urban cathedrals like Government Street to a little church in the Texas Hill Country where a cat came in and sat on the Communion table while I was preaching.  No matter where I have been, the congregants have always exchanged the peace of Christ.  They do it in many different ways either responsively or getting up and greeting smaller churches.  Christians historically have always exchanged the peace as part of their worship- from exchanging the literal kiss of peace in the early church to the handshakes of today. (I will let you be the judge of which is more effective).

Although we often treat it as such, this exchange is not meant to be an empty gesture.  We are asking our fellow believers to have the peace of Christ in their hearts and are expecting them to do likewise for us.  This binds us in the ties of love of which Paul speaks. 

I ask that, as we move into the New Year, we try to take that exchange, that desire for the peace of Christ beyond these church walls, into a world that so desperately needs to hear the Good News of the Gospel.  I pray that the peace of Christ will help you bridge the gap between Christmas joy and everyday living.  I pray that that peace of Christ will be with you now and forevermore.  Amen.