August 4, 2013 “Old Clothes, New Clothes” Colossians 3.1-11 [God guides us to new ways] Rev. Jacqueline Hines

Apostle Paul is said to have written 14 letters of the New Testament.  His writings are so political that it is no surprise that four of the books were written while he was in prison. Our reading from Colossians this morning is one of them. He was often arrested and confronted wherever he went because his preaching and teaching was so controversial.  Paul did not hesitate to talk about sexual issues. Even today, 2000 years later, sexuality is still very much a politically loaded topic, whether the headlines are from the football field, the mayor’s office, or the church. Besides sex, Paul talks about something that can be even more controversial. He is talking to the church about right attitudes, like anger. He dared to tell people how to feel about certain situations. His standards were in direct opposition to the ways of the world and sometimes the ways of the church.

Eighty-year old Pastor Eugene Peterson has a master’s degree from John Hopkins’s University in biblical languages and he developed a contemporary version of the bible called The Message. This is his translation of Paul’s letter to the church at Colosse filled with what for some are controversial perspective on sex and attitudes. It says  :

quote -1-2 So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

3-4 Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life.…be content with obscurity, like Christ.

5-8 And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

9-11 Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. – end of quote.

How sweet it is to have the Holy Spirit move in our lives in such a way that every day, we can have a cleaner heart, a cleaner mind, a cleaner attitude, a cleaner life.

Pascal was a child prodigy who lived in the 1600’s. He invented a mechanical calculator when he was a teenager. He was also a Christian philosopher who observed that ‘having God in our life can be the greatest thing we can imagine, or it can be the most miserable as it reminds us that something is missing.’

Sharing a table of communion today is our opportunity to kneel before Jesus and soak in his presence and receive anything that we may be missing: his light, life, healing, strength, power, music, visions, hopes, and dreams. Communion opens a spiritual door for us to enter into the presence of God and receive what we need most.

Since the resurrection, there have been debates about exactly what happens when we communion together, when we remember that Jesus died for us, that he came to love and save all the people of the world,  when we remember that he  was rejected by many, yet he still chose to stay and sacrifice his life.

Some say during Communion Jesus shows up and sits among us in ways that are majestic and mysterious. Others are convinced that bread and wine take on magical powers that transform us from the inside out, making us more divine.  Rev. John Wesley, the founding father of Methodism said since Jesus instructed us to have Communion, we should do so often – even every week- because it gives us the spiritual strength we urgently need if we are going to be a light in this troubled world.

Indeed, Communion is our best chance at having unity in the midst of our diverse understandings and expressions of how to be faithful Christians. Communion is our path toward peace and reconciliation when Satan threatens to divide us during our controversial conversations. Communion is our time to give thanks for God’s love that makes all things possible. Love is so much bigger than right or wrong. Love finds a way to do the right thing, to make great things happen in spite of the odds.

The Greek word for Holy Communion is “the Eucharist” which means “Thanksgiving.”  We receive the Lord and each other in our hearts and we give thanks and work with it, accept each other, sacrifice for each other, until God makes something better with each of us than God would without one of us.

Thirty-year old *Rachel Hale Evans was featured in CNN – the Cable News Network.  She talked about the hunger young people have for Church. They are turning away from a church that is hostile to anyone who might be different from others. They are looking for a church that has genuinely learned to get along with all the others. She agrees with the experts who say, young people are not looking for a friendly church. They are looking for friends. Rachel says, “You can’t hand us a latte and then go about business as usual and expect us to stick around… We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.”

It’s our privilege to be a church where Jesus is welcome, no matter who he brings along with him, no matter how controversial their sexuality or their attitudes. It is our privilege to be a church. May our church always be a place where Jesus can be found in me and in you. Amen.

* (http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/)