(Note: This sermon was delivered on November 30th, St Andrews Day, which was observed with a Kirkin’ O’ The Tartans at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church).
As a true Scott, I love any opportunity to wear my kilt and to celebrate a part of my family heritage.
There is something about the clothing we wear that has an impact on the way we feel about ourselves.
I have noticed in recent years, as you may have also noticed, that there is a growing trend toward stricter dress codes in schools.
In fact, in many schools, especially the private schools, there is a move toward requiring uniforms. Even many preschools and kindergartens have adopted uniforms.
The uniforms are usually very simple. A shirt with an academy logo on it, with a certain style and color pants or dress.
And yet, as simple as the uniform was, one teacher told me that the first year her school started using uniforms, there was a change in the students.
They were calmer.
They were better behaved at the first of the year.
Was it the uniforms that made the difference? Maybe. A lot of the teachers thought so.
There is a dynamic relationship between what you wear and what you are.
Put on a kilt, and you feel connected to your heritage and ancestors.
Put on a highway patrol uniform with one of those flat rimmed hats, and no matter who you are, you suddenly project an air of authority.
Put on a nurses uniform, and you project something that enables people to trust you, even though they may never have met you.
As the old saying says, “The clothes make the man.”
St. Paul would agree.
He tells the Colossians to put on a very specific style of uniform.
He begins by telling us that there is a unity in the church. Our opening hymn proclaimed, “In Christ there is no East or West.” It is a concept that comes from our reading in Colossians when Paul said, “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
He could have been preaching to us at Good Shepherd. “There is no Anglo or Hispanic. There is no Black or White. There is no white collar worker or blue collar worker. There is no Scott or English or Mexican or African. But Christ is all, and is in all.”
Christians are united in such a way that no matter what else may divide us, Christ unites us.
Paul tells the Colossians that Christians should be united, and then he tells us to put on the uniform -- “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
The uniform of the Christian is a set of attitudes.
Now when we clothe ourselves, we project an image.
And Paul wants us to project an image as we clothe ourselves with these attitudes.
There are five items in the Christian wardrobe – compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
We could go through each of these five items and study it and unravel it – and we could learn a lot about how to live the Christian life.
In fact, we could spend weeks on compassion.
We could spend months on kindness.
We could spend a lifetime studying humility. Of course, we would probably spend only ten minutes studying patience because we’re in too big of a hurry.
But if you look at each one of these items that Paul says we need to clothe ourselves in, they all boil down to only one uniform.
And that’s love.
Every one of these items is simply a characteristic of love.
In fact, if you have your Bibles handy, turn to I Corinthians 13.
The subject of that chapter is, of course, love.
Paul begins this great chapter by saying, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” And Paul continues by talking about the importance of love.
Love is central to everything in the Gospel. You cannot live the Christian life without living a life that seeks to master the ability to love other people.
When Jesus was asked, what are the two great commandments, his answer was love. (Matt 22:37-40) Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.
When the Apostle John was an old man, perhaps the last living Apostle, he lived in Ephesus, and legend has it that the people of the church would often invite him to speak.
This old man who knew Christ personally, in the flesh, could have risen to share some parable that is not recorded in the Gospel. John could have told about a miracle that the Gospel writers didn’t mention. But no. Instead at the end of his life, the only thing this man found worthwhile to preach about was a little one sentence sermon. “Little children, love one another.”
Love is what our lifestyle as Christians ought to be about.
And all of these garments Paul tells the Colossian Church to clothe themselves in – each one is nothing more than a simple expression of a different facet, or expression, of love.
I
Compassion, for example. Compassion is the ability to care for someone. The only way to truly care for someone is to love that person. If you don’t love that person, then you don’t care what happens to them.
In many ways, this text is a reflection of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
If you have your Bibles turned to I Corinthians 13, take a look at verse 5. It says that love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects”
If you want to live the Christian life, you have to live a life of love, and one way to live a life of love is to have compassion.
II
Another thing that Paul says in our New Testament lesson from Colossians is that we should clothe ourselves with kindness.
If you still have your Bible open to I Cornithians 13, what does it say in verse 4?
Love is kind.
Have you heard the phrase “random acts of kindness?” We live in an age of random acts of violence, and in recent years some people have nurtured the phrase, “random acts of kindness.” It could be as simple as letting someone pull in front of you in traffic, or sending a birthday card to someone who is lonely, or saying a kind word.
Compassion is feeling love for someone.
Kindness is doing something loving to someone.
In the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells about the Judgment Day. He talks about how God will separate the people like a shepherd separates sheep and goats. And Jesus says (Matt 25:33-40) God “will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ’Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
"Then the righteous will answer him, ’Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
"The King will reply, ’I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Now contrast that with an interesting little essay I came across recently.
I was hungry and you formed a humanities club and discussed my hunger.
I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so close to God; but I am still very hungry, and lonely, and cold.
In other words, love needs more than feeling and compassion. It needs action, or kindness. Compassion and kindness are both expressions of love, but love needs both.
Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with certain items. He describes a uniform of love. Imagine clothing yourself in a literal uniform and forgetting one part of it. It’s incomplete.
Right after the attacks of September 11th, a friend of mine was asked to take part in the opening ceremony at a professional football game. This was the very first game after the September 11th attacks. He was a chaplain in the US Navy and he was part of a larger group of military personnel taking part in the opening ceremony right before the game.
As I watched on television, the camera zoomed right in on him just at the moment that he gave this salute.
Man – he really looked sharp.
I told him so the next time I saw him and he looked at me sort of sheepishly and admitted that he’d had a bit of a scare right before going out on the field.
He was inside an office area and was waiting and when he was told to follow someone, he reached for his hat – and it wasn’t there. He thought he had put it on the table next to him, but it wasn’t there.
He felt a sense of panic!
Now, it only took a moment for him to find his hat – he’d hung it on a hook on the door. But for that brief, but painful moment, he was horrified that he had lost part of his uniform – no way could he go out with an incomplete uniform.
Imagine wearing the uniform of the Christian, but forgetting to clothe yourself in kindness.
You can have all the compassion in the world, but if you don’t show it with kindness, you are out of uniform.
III
Still got your Bible open to I Corinthians 13? Take a look at verses 4 and 5. It says love “does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.”
Now in our reading from Colossians, one of the items in our wardrobe is humility. Now, what is humility? We’ll, it’s not boasting. It’s not being proud. It’s not rude. It’s not self-seeking. In other words, by looking at I Corinthians 13, humility is an expression of love.
What is humility? It’s knowing your place in life. It is putting God first. It is putting others above yourself.
Gail Sayers was a football player who wrote a book, “I Am Third.” The book later became the basis of a classic movie, “Brian’s Song.” The name of the book came from a sign that Gail Sayers saw in a coach’s office. “I Am Third.” Strange sign to see in an athletic facility. You’d normally expect to see something like “I am first” or “I want to be first.” But instead, it was, “I am third.”
Gail Sayers asked the coach about it, and the explanation was, “God is first, others are second. I am third.”
That is knowing your place in the universe. God is first. You place others above yourself. And if you do not have humility, you are out of uniform as a Christian.
IV
Still got your Bible open to I Corithians 13? Take a look at verse 5 again. It says that love is not rude. Now if you are not rude, what are you? You’re gentle.
St. Paul says in Philippians 4:5 “Let your gentleness be evident to all.”
Most of us don’t allow our gentleness to be evident to all. We let our rudeness be evident to all.
But if you clothe yourself in rudeness, then you are out of uniform. You haven’t abided by the rules of the Christian dress code that Paul is placing before us in Colossians.
Getting back to my buddy at the opening ceremony of the Dolphin’s game – I really do think that hat was cool. Really sharp. But what if he had worn a different hat. Let’s say… an army hat. Or highway patrol hat. Or a firefighter’s hat. Now, those are cool hats also. But my friend is in the US Navy Reserves. He has a specific hat to wear. If he had worn anything other than the Navy’s hat, people would have noticed that and nothing else.
If you clothe yourself in rudeness, people will notice that and not notice anything else. They will not see Christ in you. They will not notice any of your kind acts. They will not care how compassionate you are. They will simply be aware of how rude you are -- That there is something in your uniform that does not belong.
V
Paul tells us, “Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness…” and finally, he says, “with patience.”
Still have your Bibles open to I Corinthians 13? Those of you who have closed your Bibles are probably impatient!
But take a look at verse 4. What are the first three words?
Love is patient.
I want everyone here to picture in his or her mind a person you have been patient with.
Hopefully, everyone can picture at least ONE person you’ve been patient with.
Get a good picture of this person – someone who is difficult to be with – but you are patient with that person. Someone who is demanding, or inefficient, but you are patient with that person.
Now that you have a picture of that person in your mind, think about who that is. Probably it is someone you love. Your child. Your husband or wife. Your parents. Your best friend.
You are patient with those people whom you love. Because as I Corinthians 13 says, “love is patient.” And you can’t clothe yourself with love without clothing yourself with patience.
You want to live the Christian life? Then abide by the dress code. Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. And remember Paul’s final remarks about this Christian uniform. In Colossians 3, verse 14, Paul says, “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
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Written by Maynard Pittendreigh
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