Colossians 3.12-17
It has been wonderful to accompany Bishop Jonathan in visiting some of the churches, chaplaincies and projects around Rochester Diocese this weekend. Thank you for the invitation to be with you here this morning at St John’s, and to reflect on God’s word with you.
Today, we are looking at the theme of patience and reflecting on Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”
I wonder if you are a patient person, or an impatient person? I wonder if you find it easy to be patient with other people, or more difficult?
I’m sure all of us find it difficult to be patient at times. Perhaps you can recall moments when you’ve been ready to head out the door with your coat on and your bag on your back, and then you hear those familiar words, ‘Oh, sorry – I just forgot something…” as the person you’re waiting for runs back inside the house! Or, when you’re in the queue at the supermarket, and all of the self-checkout machines in front of you seem unable to process even one item without having to call the cashier! Or when you’re waiting for a big occasion – a special birthday or celebration, and it’s hard to focus on anything else!
St Paul invites us to clothe ourselves with patience – along with compassion, kindness, humility and meekness. To put on patience, perhaps like your favourite t-shirt or cosiest jumper – to ‘clothe’ yourselves with this gift, this virtue.
I wonder what this means to you?
I find that I think a lot about patience when I’m walking. I enjoy walking, and I’m known for being quite a quick walker! I like to keep up a good pace. We all have different ways of walking – a unique pattern or gait to our walk. I expect if you know someone well, and saw them walking down the street, you could recognise them by their walk as much as anything else.
We all have our own way of walking – a speed, style and gait that is unique to us. However, find that when I’m walking in a busy city or, particularly, when I’m walking alongside others, I have to change my pace and my gait – the particular pattern or shape of my own walking – to accommodate others. I find this particularly true, when I’m walking on pilgrimage – something I enjoyed here in the Diocese of Rochester prior to my installation at Canterbury Cathedral.
One of the lovely things about a pilgrimage is the sense of companionship, of people walking side-by-side, talking, sharing, spending time in quiet, as you walk together. But, if you’re walking with other people, that means you’re walking with people whose gait and pace is different to yours, and that can be difficult.
When I walk with others, it makes me pay attention to my footsteps in a different way, and even though I might want to walk more quickly, or with a longer stride, it’s hard to do so when you’re alongside others – and sometimes, yes – it’s hard to be patient with those you’re walking alongside. And sometimes those feelings of impatience outweigh the joy of walking together!
There’s a saying I like, that I’ve quoted before - ‘If you want to fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together’. To me, this says a lot about patience.
When we’ve got a clear goal in mind – whether it’s a pilgrimage path or some other kind of goal in our life, and we know where we want to be, and how we want to get there, it can be very easy to become so focused on our needs, and so self-absorbed in our desire to get there, that we get impatient when our plans get disrupted or our routines have to change.
It seems like St Paul knows this well, or at least, that he’s writing to a community who have perhaps struggled a bit in their relationships with one another – look at what Paul invites them to do: ‘Clothe yourselves with patience’.
What a wonderful invitation! St Paul isn’t saying, ‘you might like to try to do this out once in a while’, or ‘if you’re having a bad day this might help’, or ‘here’s a new life-hack’ – but, ‘clothe yourselves’. I imagine what Paul is saying as much more fundamental. In the same way that you get yourself up and dressed for the day, so too, put on these virtues, these gifts, as an everyday kind of thing, and not just when it’s really needed, but as a day-to-day habit: ‘Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience’.
Paul is writing to the small Christian community in Colossae around the year 60 AC. This nascent Christian community were living close to the bustling port of Ephesus in Asia Minor. Colossae was a crossroads of cultures where different religious and philosophical ideas converged. The followers of Jesus were faced with challenges and pressures as they tried to discern and live out the Christian faith amongst their neighbours. So, Paul, in his letter to his community, gives them these ‘everyday’ Christian ethics - ways to live, practical instructions for their time and place, and above all, urges them to live in love, peace and mutual respect. Perhaps this is why Paul is so concerned, not just that they learn these Christian habits and virtues as a kind of philosophical exercise, or something not connected to how they live – but to inhabit these virtues and gifts in their bodies, in their actions and in the way they treat one another – to be ‘clothed’ with these virtues of the Christian faith.
What does it mean to ‘put on’ this virtue, this gift, of patience? I wonder what that means to you? What does it mean for you in your day-to-day life, in the everyday way that you inhabit this in your body, in your actions, in the way you treat other people?
If we look again at our reading, Paul isn’t only inviting us to clothe ourselves with patience – he also mentions compassion, kindness, humility and meekness. You can almost imagine yourself on a cold day, putting on layer after layer, making sure that when you walk out of the door you are equipped for what the day will bring – clothe yourself in these things.
But above all – Paul writes – above all (or ‘over all of these things’) put love! Imagine that, you’ve got all these lovely layers on, each one helping you live out your day-to-day relationships with others, and over all of them, you put love.
I like to think of this like an outer garment, a coat or jacket, the first thing people ‘see’ when you approach them – yes, underneath are the good layers of the compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, that are close to your heart – and over them all is love!
And this love, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians and many other letters to the Christian communities of his time, this love, is indeed the greatest gift of God – shown to us in the love of Jesus Christ who laid down his life for our sins; this love, to which we are called, directs our life – our everyday living and moving, and our relationships with others; this love, which is first and foremost a gift from God, a gift of the Holy Spirit. Clothe yourselves with this love, with this gift of God – with the compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, that are the habits of this love in our everyday life.
The final verses in our reading today also teach us about the way in which we approach these virtues in our life, our relationship with others and especially our relationship with God: ‘And be thankful. 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. 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.’
And be thankful! That’s a good verse to remember – Colossians 3.15 – ‘And be thankful’. Paul invites us to not only clothe ourselves in these virtues of kindness, compassion, humility, meekness and patience – and to put love over all these things – but as we’re putting on these clothes, these habits, these virtues, to do so with gratitude in our hearts. ‘Be thankful’ – whatever you do, in word and deed (in the ways you speak and the way you treat one another) – do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
As we reflect on God’s word today, we think about our own habits and behaviours, the things that we find easy in loving one another and the things that we find difficult; we reflect on this invitation to clothe ourselves in the gifts of God, so that our lives might be shaped more and more into the likeness of Jesus. And I pray that, as you put on Christ, as you clothe yourself in patience, kindness, compassion, humility and meekness, and over it all, love – that you will be filled with gratitude, and be thankful!
For ‘whatever you do, in word and deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’ Amen.
