It seems kind of right to me to sigh at this particular service, having traveled through the festivities of Christmas, and now on the verge of moving through the New Year. And here you are dressed and in church. It looks to me like you’ve survived. You’ve made it. And you’re fairly functional – at least you’re here at this hour this morning.

 

Maybe some relief is a part of what you feel, and that seems right to me. I think worship should be, in part, a place where you can feel some relief. Sometimes. Not the only thing. It’s also a place to feel inspiration, and a place to feel challenged. But it seems to me that on this Sunday we might feel some relief.

 

I like to quote the line from W.H. Auden’s poem about the end of Christmas, which says, “Now we have all tried unsuccessfully once again to love all of our relatives at exactly the same moment.”

 

And you’ve survived.

 

Now, here we are gathered on New Year’s Eve, in church, which I think is exactly the right place to be on New Year’s Eve. I’ve journeyed in my own life from my adolescence when I thought the place to be on New Year’s Eve was at some sort of a party, to this side of fifty, where it feels right to me on New Year’s Eve to be in church, in worship.

 

I think that’s true about New Year’s Day, too. I like it when New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday, or when New Year’s Eve falls on a Sunday. That seems very appropriate to me. If I were in charge of the calendar, I would always have New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, one of the two, fall on a Sunday so that we could start the year or end the year by gathering together in worship.

 

Of course, if I were in charge of the calendar, I’d add an extra day between Saturday and Sunday as well, and I’d call it Funday for recreation and activities. But I’m not in charge of the calendar, and the Lord has given it to me this year, and last year as well, when New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday. Now we’re off into the wilderness for another seven years or so ahead of us.

 

But it feels right to end the old year by gathering together in worship. It seems the right place to be, to me.

 

The Lectionary gives us a reading from the Epistle that deals with, well, kind of Christian creed. It’s a passage from Colossians that may be very familiar to you. It’s one that is often used as a kind of exhortation, especially at weddings (although I don’t think it should be limited to weddings). But it’s often read at the end of weddings, speaking to couples about how they are to go out and to live the Christian life together.

 

I want to invite you to read the Scripture with me this morning. The ushers have tried to hand out to you, as you came in, this page. I think Paul tries to be sure that the choir had one as well. It’s a passage from Colossians, the third chapter, that the scholars from all of the different Christian traditions that put together the suggested readings say, on this Sunday, this is the right Epistle text to read. Let us read it together as a kind of a creed for entering the New Year.

 

 

It is a kind of New Year’s exhortation. There is a sense in which this passage is admonishing us to live a certain kind of life as we walk into the year ahead of us. But it’s not just an exhortation to be good. No, it’s more than that. It’s kind of a consideration of what the well-dressed Christian will be wearing in the year 2007.

 

If you’re going out tonight, you may already have picked out the outfit that you’re wearing to the party or to the restaurant. Take some time at least, to consider also what in terms of your Christian character you will wear into the year ahead. The apostle is laying it out for you here.

 

The apostle is sharing what they think you should be wearing in the New Year. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love. Those are the garments the scripture says you should put on as you enter into the new day, and indeed, the new life.

 

Rather than just being an exhortation to be good, it’s more than that. Because you see up at the beginning, it’s a statement of identity. It says, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” It’s telling you who you are. These are not just garments you choose. The scripture is saying here that because you are people in whom the Spirit is at work, resurrecting you already in sanctification, to become the people that God is making you to be, that you are already being clothed with these things. The Spirit is going to dress you this way. This is the character of the life that you are going to grow in to, in the life eternal. You are going to clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. And above all, clothe yourselves in love.

 

Why not begin to dress like it now, says the apostle, to match what it is you are going to become. “What?” you may say to me, “Is that what we have to wear again? Those same Christian clothes we are always having to wear? Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience? I wanted to wear something snazzier tonight!”

 

Maybe you wanted to put on that righteous indignation shirt you have. Well, I want to tell you, I’ve seen you wear that, and it doesn’t really become you.

 

Or maybe you wanted to put on that greedy, materialistic, slothful, long bathrobe that you have, that you like to wear around the house. Yes, but you know, it doesn’t show your profile off as well. And you need to get rid of that old bathrobe.

 

The apostle says, here’s what you should be putting on. It’s what God in the Spirit is going to be putting on you: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. One translation says compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, and self-discipline.

 

It should look familiar to you, because the Spirit has been at work trying to get you to learn to dress this way for some time already. It’s who you are. It’s your identity. You are God’s chosen ones, the text says. You are holy and beloved. And because you are holy and beloved, you’ll have to be able to sigh, to relax into that identity, and not worry so much as you enter the New Year about trying to be a somebody.

 

The apostle is trying to say here, you already are somebody. You’re somebody God loves. You’re someone God has chosen. Dress like that person that God is creating you to be. Practice dressing that way. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. You’ll practice, and that’s a part of why I had you read the text today, because I want you to practice reading it so that it will begin to get in your minds and in your hearts, and it will be in your step and in your walk as you journey into the year ahead.

 

Then the apostle lifts up, by my count, five things here…. Maybe you count more, that you can do as a part of this dressing yourself, working with the Spirit to dress yourself. Not only do you clothe yourself with these gifts of character, but also you clothe yourselves with love.

 

One translation says, “Dress in the wardrobe that God has picked out for you.” Indeed, find yourself dressing in love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it, says one translation. Practice dressing this way.

 

Then the apostle says that while you’re at it, put on the tie of forgiveness, too. Hmmm…. Bear with one another. That’s what the apostle says we are to do.

 

I know that it is hard work for some of you, but try relaxing into the Spirit’s working in you to do it this year. Some people put that tie on more naturally than others. But it’s the garment the apostle says we are to wear. Bear with another.

 

And if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. This is why we want you to dress in forgiveness, because you know what it means to be forgiven. God has forgiven you, and so you also must forgive, even as the master is forgiving.

 

Then the apostle says to put on the peace of Christ. Let the peace of Christ be a kind of gyroscope at your center. Let it guide your steps.

 

There was a reporter who was talking this year about how difficult people find it to keep resolutions that they make through the year. She was interviewing on the radio a psychologist from the University of Chicago who was saying that her studies indicate people find it much easier to keep a resolution if they make it just for the month of January. Indeed, she said, the ones people have the most success at keeping, even for the full year, are the ones they try to honor just a day at a time.

 

I think there is some wisdom we could gain from our friends who take part in 12-Step programs that way. For just this one day. Start with this day. Indeed, maybe just the hour after worship, and try and let the peace of Christ rule your steps, so that the worries that can tend to assault you are seen through that lens, that the peace of Christ, which God says is present and real, might be the ear through which you hear the information the world sends.

 

This will work together, this gyroscope of peace, with the love that you are clothing yourself to build harmony, says the apostle. This is indeed an audacious claim, but it is what the scripture says to us. This thing of love is actually the sinew that is holding together the whole universe, says the apostle.

 

Clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So that you can’t simply go off, doing your own thing. You are in some way working together with the fellowship. You are mindful of what they are doing, and you are doing it with them, watching out for each other, and listening to each other, and looking at one another, so that there is a kind of harmony that has peace at its center, that paints your Christian fellowship.

 

It’s natural, at that point, for the apostle to begin to say, And when you start to live that way, when you put on these virtues of compassion and humility and forbearance and patience and kindness, and you try to hold it together with the sinew of love, and you lean forward into the gyroscope of Christ’s peace, you’ll make a beautiful sound. Indeed, you will not be able, says the apostle, to keep from singing. With gratitude in your hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

 

One translation says, “Sing. Sing your hearts out to God.” The Christian community will make a beautiful sound, says the apostle. Even some of you who don’t think you have very nice voices. As the heavenly ear hears them, you sound wonderful when you are singing in harmony this way.

 

So we are grateful for your leadership of the song, but we need your voices too. And that’s why we always sing hymns in worship as a part of helping the congregation to model out what the apostle is saying here, that our living in compassion and meekness and patience, held together with love, should produce singing. We are practicing what the apostle says will come naturally. Even like we practice what we are going to wear by putting on these Christian virtues now.

 

With gratitude in your hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. It will come forward as a beautiful sound when we seek to walk this way. If not for the whole year, then for this afternoon. If not for this afternoon, well then for the first hour after worship.

 

Leaving one year and entering another is a time when we see lots of images and sounds of the year behind us. And some of them are not attractive ones, particularly some of the images this week in the media and the news, have not been happy images for us. Not the ones I would choose to celebrate the old year.

 

But this text calls for us to lift up other images as well, through the example of our living, through the example of our life together, as a way of trying to let that harmony that comes out of the love of God be heard in the world. So we work out of our daily identity, believing that out of that identity, the Spirit will work to impact and to witness amongst the problems of the world.

 

Here is your resolution for the New Year, I propose. I have printed it out so you can take it with you. It’s a good thing to read at midnight tonight. It’s a good thing to fold up in your pocket and carry around this week, and certainly in the year ahead.

 

You ought to read it once in a while so that it gets in your mind, and from your mind in your heart, and so that it begins to become a part of your life.

 

Won’t you read it out loud with me again, in unison:

 

 

 

©John T. DeBevoise 2006