Let us pray. God, let us hear what you want us to hear so that we might be who
you want us to be and do what you want us to do. Amen. Our reading continues from
Colossians 3 starting with verse 12. Let us listen together for God's Word to us.
Therefore as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and
if anyone has a complaint against another forgive each other. Just as the
Lord has forgiven you so you also must forgive. Above all clothe yourselves
with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the
peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body
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. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Joseph Richardson lived in New York City in the late 1800s and somehow he came
into ownership of a very unique piece of property. He owned a corner lot at
Lexington and 82nd Street which ordinarily would be of great value but
his lot had very peculiar dimensions. It was 35 yards long but just a few yards
wide. This very very narrow strip of land was practically impossible for him to
develop so his only hope to profit from this property was to sell it to the owner
of the adjoining lot. So eventually the owner of the adjoining lot came to him
and offered to buy his property offered him a thousand dollars this was in the
late 1800s offered him a thousand dollars for his corner lot. Well
Richardson was not willing to take so low a price for that lot so he came back
and said he would take five thousand for it. Gasp and the owner of the other lot
refused to pay that price. Richardson refused to come down and so the owner of
the other lot decided to go ahead with his plans without that little strip and
built up an apartment building there on that land right up against Richardson's
property. At this point Richardson did what any of us probably would have done.
He went ahead and built the strangest apartment building that New York City
has ever seen. This building was four stories tall, 104 feet long, and just five
feet deep and despite those very very strange dimensions he managed to squeeze
into that space eight apartments each with three bedrooms and a bathroom
probably did not meet ADA requirements and Richardson lived in one of those
eight apartments until the day he died and this apartment came to be known as
spite house. This is an extreme case of something that we all share namely being
set in our ways. We commit ourselves stubbornly to particular paths and when
things don't turn out the way that we hope the way that we plan rather than
adjust we often just settle in to bitterness and spite or maybe we're not
so much stubborn as we are just determined we have goals we have
ambitions we have dreams and we commit ourselves to our fulfillment to our
comfort to our success or maybe it's not even as intentional as all of that maybe
we are just traveling the well-worn paths that we have created over a
lifetime of habit and routine we've grown accustomed to a particular way and
it would take an act of God to dislodge us from the path that we have gotten
comfortable on. Whatever the case may be whether we have built up monuments to
our own spite or we have just settled comfortably into our own way of things
we are not likely to deviate you and I are not likely to change course because
change is hard. We've begun a new series for these weeks of Easter we're calling
it new life and we're looking at what it means to have new life in Christ what
difference does Easter make and it might seem overly simplistic to say but some
one of the things that it means to have new life is to have a new life a new way
of living a new way of going about life and this is what Paul is often talking
about and in Colossians he's not at all subtle about what that means for us he
says you have died you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in
God he says put to death whatever in you is earthly Paul's language here points
us to a difficult truth and that is there cannot be new life without death
there is no resurrection without the crucifixion if we want to live there are
things in us that first have to die and Paul is more than happy to point out
what those things are there's the usual dose of sexual sins which he includes
but there are other problems too in us things like anger and malice and
dishonesty and coarse language and wrath we might take all of these things
together and put them into the single category of the ways of the world what
Paul calls things of earth it doesn't mean that everybody then did all of
these things all of the time but what it does mean is that these are the kinds of
things in the world that are accepted these are the kinds of things that are
even expected from others these are even the kinds of things that the world
openly celebrates it's just part of how the world works it's just part of how a
person makes it in this world if you want to get by in this world this is the
road that you have to walk these are the actions that you condone these are the
tools that you use and Paul says these are the things that have to die if we
want to live whatever is earthly whatever is self indulging and self
seeking and self serving whatever is tuned to the key of this world and its
pursuits and its values now here's the heart of this challenge that Paul is
giving to the church what we've been talking about is the fact that there is
a way to walk in this world a way to live in this world that is very
specially calibrated for the world as it currently is it's the path of least
resistance in a broken and fearful world if the world is an ice skating rink it's
like having the skates and the skills to use them but new life means something
different new life means setting aside these things but not leaving the world
taking off the skates but not leaving the ice and this is a real challenge
because not only are we all of us to some degree set in our ways committed to
the path that we are on to the outcomes that we've been working toward but we are
also all reluctant regardless just to change change is hard for all of us but
it's even worse than that because embracing new life is not just about
changing it's not just about taking on something new it means setting aside
certain tools and choosing to walk the path of greatest resistance before
Easter before the cross and the resurrection one could be forgiven for
imagining that virtues like compassion and kindness and generosity and humility
and sacrifice that these are all nice things and worth a decent effort but the
world being what it is these things are ultimately dead ends the world won't ever
value these things the way we would like them to and the world certainly won't
ever reward them even the disciples right up until they hear that news on
Easter morning I wonder if this was how they saw the world believing that now
that Jesus is dead they have come up against the limits of those values they
have come up against that dead end that this is as far as compassion will get us
this is as far as humility and love and generosity will get us but what Easter
reveals is not that the world is suddenly made new it's not that the
world suddenly discovers the value of self-giving love what Easter reveals is
that there is a higher good than what passes for success in this world what
Easter reveals is that there is deeper truth than what a broken world honors
and promotes what Easter reveals is that there is greater victory than simply
coming out ahead whatever that means in this world as a kid I loved the movie
Ben Hur the Charlton Heston film it was so long that it was on two VHS tapes
and if you've seen the movie you know that at the end of the movie Ben Hur
Charlton Heston's character is looking upon the crucifixion and Jesus dies and
Jesus speaks those words father forgive them for they do not know what they are
doing and then a rain falls a storm and the camera follows the effects of this
rain as the rain spreads the water spread and things begin to happen when
that water reaches them things begin to be transformed lepers step out of their
cave and into the rain and they are healed and I think sometimes we imagine
that this is what Easter is somehow supposed to be that Easter happens and
suddenly everything is magically fixed but look at the world we know that's not
true look at our lives look at our hearts we know that's not true we know
that work isn't done we know this world isn't fixed we know that we aren't fixed
what Easter reveals to us is that even as this as the post Easter world goes
about all of its ordinary business the things that the world tells us we should
be aiming for the things that the world tells us we should be striving for are in
fact the dead ends and that these things don't even come close to life having new
life in Christ means accepting that the world does in fact work in a certain way
but choosing nonetheless to live our lives differently very early in the life
of the Christian Church before they were self-consciously a religion and calling
themselves Christians they called themselves the Way very simple name to
refer to their movement to their community and the word in Greek for way
is also the word for road or path and they called themselves this because they
understood that they were choosing to travel in a different direction they
were choosing to deviate choosing to walk a different road to live in a
different way a way that would raise eyebrows but especially a way that would
probably get them sideways with Rome with the powers that be it was the path
of greatest resistance and they saw that this is what it takes to embrace new life
in a world that has not yet been made new in 2008 the author and poet Wendell
Berry published a collection of poems called the mad farmer poems in the
author's note to this collection he writes this the joke of the mad farmer
poems is that in a society gone insane a man exuberantly sane will appear to
be mad so he has this collection of poems one of these poems actually
contains the phrase which I think Barry coins the phrase practice resurrection
which is the subtitle of our sermon series but another of these poems is
called the mad farmer flying the flag of rough branch and you should know rough
branch is just a tiny Kentucky holler the mad farmer flying the flag of rough
branch secedes from the union and the poem begins this way from the union of
power and money from the union of power and secrecy from the Union of Government
and Science from the Union of Government and Art from the Union of Science and
Money from the Union of Ambition and ignorance from the Union of Genius and
war from the union of outer space and inner vacuity the mad farmer walks
quietly away. Now for Barry this is not just a walking away from something but
it is also a walking toward something else it's a change it's a new path the
poem closes with these words from the union of self gratification and self
annihilation secede into care for one another and for the good gifts of heaven
and earth. The new life that is ours in Christ is a call to walk a new path it's
an invitation to walk away from the things in us that need to die so that
we can walk toward the things that will make us come truly alive and this is not
an easy thing to do. Change is hard we are stubborn spiteful creatures and this
is not an easy road to walk so we need to walk it with good company and we
need to be properly prepared we need to be properly clothed so as God's chosen
ones holy and beloved clothe yourselves with compassion kindness humility
meekness and patience forgiving one another as the Lord has forgiven you
and clothe all these things with love which binds everything together in
harmony now this is not what we need to make it in this world but it is what we
need to live let us pray
God we are walking the road of discipleship and we do not walk it
perfectly very often we do not even walk it well so we pray that you continue to
guide and strengthen us along this journey help us to take the path of
greatest resistance the path that sets aside the things of this world and turns
toward you toward life in Jesus name amen