SERMON
Life is tough: there is no getting away from it, although
sometimes I’m sure we all wish we could. And life as a Christian sometimes
feels even tougher because of the example of Christ that we are trying to live
up to and because of the continued seeking of God in every situation. Sometimes
an unholy life seems far more attractive than a holy life. And this is where
Paul’s letter to the Colossians finds them. They were struggling with living a
holy life—their past attitudes to life were creeping back in. God’s plan was
not just a little difficult to make out; it was completely unintelligible. The
only way they seemed to know how to inform their present and their future was
with their knowledge of their past. But Paul in his letter called for this to
stop because the past was not to be determining the present and future anymore,
for the past was buried when they died with Christ. He reminded them that the
present and future were now determined by Christ, because of the new life they
received when they were raised with Christ. What Paul was doing was reminding
the Colossians of their baptisms and what it means to be baptised.
Baptism: the sacramental act which is first and foremost a
gracious initiative of God—as St Augustine put it: baptism is an outward sign
of an inward and invisible grace. However, this means that baptism is not just a
gift of God , but that it is also our human response to that gift[1]. As a
human response it is a means for us to confirm that we recognise we are one of
God’s people and brings us into membership of the Church. It also marks the new
life in Christ that has been embarked on—a new life metaphorically represented
by Paul as clothing. The clothing which is your old life stripped off and your
new life put on. In some Christian traditions the taking off of your old
clothes and putting on a new white robe after emerging from the waters of
baptism has turned Paul’s metaphor into a symbolic act. As the waters of
baptism have the significance of washing away the dirt that encrusts our lives,
so the new clothes give another dimension to our baptism that is often lost sight
of. But as hard as it is to keep ourselves clean, white robes are notoriously difficult
to keep clean too.
But firstly, what do these new clothes help us do? Well as
any uniform does, they allow us to be identified, but as the argument went with
school uniform when I was growing up, they are also the means for us to be undistinguishable
from each other. There is no way for us to discriminate each other because we
all look alike. So as Paul tells the Colossians to realise that once they had
become one with Christ there was no longer Greek, Jew, circumcised,
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free (3.11), so must we see that
in the Church there is no longer black, white, rich, poor, employed,
unemployed, Cambridge United supporter or Cambridge City supporter. Putting on
Christ in our baptism means that our only defining feature becomes the image of
Christ, and maybe more pertinently the image of God, we reflect. The same
defining feature as every other member of the Church, whatever their
denomination or theological stance. This is because through our baptism, not
only have we been made one with Christ, but we have also been made one with
each other as part of the body of Christ. A theme that is not only here in
Colossians, but something Paul tells other congregations he writes to. It is
there in his letter to the Galatians and in his first letter to the Corinthians.
We may have differences underneath our outer garment of Christ, but it is that
outer garment that the world should be seeing and therefore what should unite
us as we strive in our common goal of proclaiming the gospel. Actually,
recognising this and acting in accordance with this, is as much a part of the
proclamation of the gospel as is living a holy life and going out and telling
people the good news that comes from Christ.
So that’s what our new clothes do for our relationship with
each other, both with those inside and outside the Church, and for our communal
life as the Church, but what about our individual lives? How does putting on
Christ and wearing Christ affect that? Well if wearing Christ affects our
relationship with each other then it must affect our relationship with God.
Wearing Christ puts us right with God and right by God. God is not at a distance,
but closer than touching distance. God allows us to see the world through him,
but God also gets to see the world through us. By this I mean that through how
we pray for the world, God get to see how we interpret the world. This
closeness between God and humanity that wearing Christ brings means that how we
view our lives must also change. When putting on Christ our living should
become holy, our lives should become God-centred rather than self-centred. In
Luke’s gospel we have the parable of the Rich Fool (12.16-21) who sets out to
store up all his earthly treasures in one place, believing that with this done,
he could live his life to the full. But then he does not make it, death comes
before he has chance to live and his earthly treasures, well, there is no place
for them in heaven. The Rich Fool misses the point of life and demonstrates the
life which needs to be left behind when we put on Christ. Earthly treasures—our
possessions, things that are material to life—should no longer be the focus of
our concern. Our concern should be to live a life that is truth. This is more
than just speaking or living honestly, it is about a life which as God-centred is
free to see the reality of life, and importantly the reality of our own lives.
For being clothed in Christ, isn’t just a means of covering up what is underneath.
You don’t put new on over old, the old is removed before the new goes on. Paul
reminded the Colossians that they had stripped off their old life and put on a new
life. Baptism is part of that journey, part of that transit from old to new. And
going back to the approach that has been and is taken in some Christian
traditions of taking of old clothes, going through the waters of baptism and
then putting on a new set of clothes, speaks of the cleansing of the old before
the new. However, although Paul’s metaphor appears to make it a one step
transition and is used as such in the act of adult baptism particularly, it is
far from that, and maybe why the Colossians ended up slipping back into their
old ways.
Baptism happens. We either make a conscious decision
ourselves to be baptised, or the decision is taken for us. But at whatever
point we take that step it doesn’t mean that we won’t struggle with what it
means to live a holy life. It does not mean that our nice white robe won’t find
itself getting a little grubby and slightly tatty looking. Baptism as that
gracious gift of God and that human response which either marks for us the start
of a new life in Christ or is for us simply a response to that life that God
has made possible through Christ, does not entirely bring to the end what has
been. It does not prevent us from getting distracted by the ways of the world. We
are human after all and get easily distracted. Now, there is only one
baptism—at whatever point we are baptised we have been welcomed into the family
of God and are among the saints. But this does not mean that we should never
revisit our baptism; that we should not look again at the promises made on our
behalf or by ourselves. We do need to sometimes give that robe a bit of a clean
off and make running repairs. That is why it is important we take time to make
our confession to God; to look at the reality of our lives and recognise that
we are not getting it quite right, that we have distanced ourselves from God’s
guidance and sustenance. That is why it is important to reaffirm our baptismal
promises and rededication ourselves to the service of God. Taking time to
remind ourselves that to live a holy life, to live that new life in Christ,
does not just require us to make one decision, to accept that gracious gift of
God’s grace and go through one sacramental act, but that it requires maintenance.
We need to repeatedly acknowledge God’s gift to us and how we loose sight of
what that should mean in our lives and reaffirm the fellowship we have with
each other and with God.
So as a community of God’s people,
let us remember that we have been baptised
and reaffirm our commitment to follow Christ.
In baptism, God has set us as a seal upon his heart.
In baptism, God has brought us into union with Christ,
made us one with all his people in heaven and on earth
and assured us of everlasting life.[2]
let us remember that we have been baptised
and reaffirm our commitment to follow Christ.
In baptism, God has set us as a seal upon his heart.
In baptism, God has brought us into union with Christ,
made us one with all his people in heaven and on earth
and assured us of everlasting life.[2]
Amen
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