How’s your attitude?   Those of you who were here last week know that I am speaking about an “attitude of gratitude”.  Did it change your week to practice?  I hope so because I have another assignment today.  Just like a teacher you just don’t ever get finished with those assignments, do you?  You hand in your homework and they just hand you another list.  Today, the title of the sermon is “Friends with Compassion”.  Are you friends with compassion?  The Scripture comes from Paul’s writings, the Book of Colossians, beginning with Chapter 3, Verse 12, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another but 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 to 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 heart, 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.”  Amen. 

            Well, the call normally came on a Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.  I got to where I recognized the routine; the voice on the other end of the phone was often a woman who seemed like she was very much searching for an answer.  She wanted a short answer.  It finally became evident for me that she was preparing her lesson for a Bible study to the affect that she wanted an answer that would fit in the line, the blank that had been left for her in her study book.  Pastors get asked a lot of questions.  Sometimes on the phone she would ask me a question and I would say, “The answer that I’m going to give you is not going to fit in the line.  Take what you can use.”  Pastor’s get asked some serious questions like a death-like question, about circumstances that people are going through, situations, even about life hereafter.  For some reason, pastors are supposed to have “the answer”.  But the answer doesn’t always fit on a bumper sticker.  We get short answers.  We could always say Jesus is the answer to everything.  But when people have a big problem and they perceive it will take a lengthy answer to answer a big problem, they don’t want a short answer.  And Jesus just seems too short.  But Sheila always had a Bible question, more or less, so Jesus worked a lot of the time. 

            But I asked a question one time about the Bible and it was what Jesus did and it was a parent who asked the question.  She said, “Well, my son has found out that Jesus cursed.  I had to make sure that he knows that he doesn’t have permission to do that just because Jesus did it.”  She said, “Why would Jesus curse a fig tree?”  Well, it didn’t have any fruit on it and He was hungry.  “Well, couldn’t Jesus just shoot at a fig on a branch, I mean he fed people lunch out of the little boy’s pails.  Couldn’t He feed himself by just touching that tree and popping out a fig?”  Well, that was a good question.   Yes, He could have; but He didn’t.   

            Laura Beth Kellams, who was a motivational speaker with a Christian bent, and the North Carolina Conference had her speak to the annual gathering of pastors and lay people for their summer session.  She said her answer to that question is that Jesus cursed the fig tree probably because it was withholding life.  It was withholding, in its due season, the life power that should have been imminent.  And then she goes on to say that we’ve probably all met some people who are so determined not to be taken that they refuse to give.   

            That wasn’t such an easy question to answer.  That was when I wish that the question had come after I had heard Laura’s answer.  Some days though, as a pastor, you get some very easy questions.  I got an unusually easy one just last week.  It was a personal appearance question.  Not so serious in the realm of life.  “Tell me, Nancy, how does it show?  Is it the light?”  It was a question about my sparkling glow.  Again, a short answer was not enough.  I couldn’t remember if it was Cover Girl or Revlon or Max that helped me get the glow.  “The shimmers to my skin,” she wanted to know.    I said, “It came out of the bottle.”  I really wanted to say, “It was just the Holy Spirit making Himself evident, but I was afraid God would strike me dead.”  But she had to have the right answer because to get what I had gotten she had to go where I had gone.  Did you get that?  It would take going where I had gone. 

            Not long ago Jesus made the cover of Newsweek and Time magazine.  No makeup required for Jesus.  But the painter of that particular image did seem to give Jesus a glow.  And then if you happened to get in to the article itself, there were ten to twelve more pictures of Jesus, paintings, famous paintings from Italy mostly.  An Italian artist had painted Jesus even as a child with a glow.  Jesus as a child speaking in the synagogue with a glow.  Jesus with a child along the hillside with a glow.  Many of the modern art, even in our particular church, Jesus has a glow—a post resurrection glow.  It’s the way that these authors depicted.  A shiny glow.   

            So how does it show, your glow?  Do you depend upon Max?  That’s the question that made me ponder the topic for today.  How does my compassion show?  Paul calls it “people of resurrection”.  There should be bit of glow about us.  He said that we have been raised for Christ not that we will be.  But the word that he uses is “you” are resurrection people.  You have been raised for Christ.  In fact he says, “for Christ not that we will be.  But the word that he uses is “you” are resurrection people.  You have been raised for Christ.  In fact he says, “You are holy in the law.”  Are you glowing? 

            The text today was written to a church that didn’t get the glow either.  They were like, “What is the answer?  If we are called to be holy and beloved and to have the glow of Christ in our lives, what’s that look like?”  So they became fascinated by the mysterious.  The church that Paul was writing this letter to had become enthralled with mysterious ceremonies, with special knowledge.  Such things as today might be the equivalent of psychic readings, fortune telling, experiences and ceremonies that even have been walking in the middle of the air—elevation.  That was their one way was to participate in that type of unusual thing—the spiritual, mysterious.   

They also had their mottos—religious mottos that Paul pretty much disposes of.   They had a motto that says, “Do not handle, do not paste, do not touch”.  I swear that my mother must have had that when she prepared us for Sunday morning.  We had our church clothes but it was along those lines—don’t handle anything that will get you dirty, don’t eat anything that will get you dirty and don’t touch anything.  Paul shut down what they thought was making them religious.  He said, “Its show.  It’s just a religious show.  It’s not a glow.”  He said, “Throw away your show clothes, your high performance outfits and wear the new clothes.  Wear the new clothes of resurrection people.”   

So what do the clothes of resurrection people look like?  Well, Paul keeps it pretty simple, doesn’t he?  In fact, he keeps it very short.  If you look at Verse 12, there are about five qualities there.  We now call them virtues.  They are distinct qualities.  And how do you get virtue?  Well, William Bennett thought you can get it by reading a book that he wrote.  It was called, “The Book of Virtues”.  And it had many childhood stories in it and things that you could read to your children and take into your own life, perhaps.  Except he didn’t write and keep what he wrote to himself so his book went out of favor when it was shown that he did not live what he wrote.   

But Paul, you think, do you think he might have been a virtuous person?  Well, to begin with, I have a real hard time that Paul was writing these people telling them to have compassion.  Compassion!  I mean, this is Paul!  He’s kind of a hard-nose guy.  Compassion!  Yet, when you get down to “what does compassion mean”?  It means having that feeling in the gut of yourself for some one else.  And maybe because Paul had persecuted the church, maybe he had a developed sense of compassion.  It says in Luke that Jesus had compassion.  He frequently had compassion. He would look at the crowd and say, “They are like sheep without a shepherd.”  And He had compassion on them.  He would look at the one who was blind and have compassion or the leper and have compassion and move and act and heal and touch.  Nine out of thirteen times in the Gospels when Jesus is moved with the compassion that touched in His gut, as it were, the vivid term for compassion is “bowels of mercy”.  Womb could also be used—Intestines—Where the seat of all emotion is.  Or that folks that were accustomed to it, they felt that it was not the heart, it was in your gut.  Compassionate woes that moved Jesus to action. 

That’s the key about compassion.  We put on different outfits when we get ready to do different sports.  I went in to Gander Mountain and Gander Mountain is one of those camping, clothing, athletic type stores.  A super store they call them now days.  To my right I realized I could no longer have all purpose shoes.  There are tennis shoes, soccer shoes, running shoes, walking shoes.  To my left there are helmets for biking, there are gloves for biking, and there are now special shoes for biking and skateboarding and golf shoes. All to get you ready for action!   

And so Paul is telling the folks at Colossians it is not about these special, mysterious things.  Now, we know you can kick a ball, a soccer ball, and you do not have to have a special shoe or a special outfit or socks that come up to your knee, but boy do you look good.  Paul was saying, you know, it is not so much about what you look like.  The clothes that I want you to wear are invisible.  Yes, I want you clothed by what’s on the inside.  I want what’s on the inside to come out in action.  J. D. Phillips translates the word “compassion” as being merciful in action.  Not just feeling sorry for someone or having pity on someone.  That may be our first thought of compassion, with pity upon.  But to be so deeply moved by another’s pain that we seek to ask in their behalf, that’s what life in Christ is about.  These virtues and it’s about cultivating them and helping one another to cultivate them. It transcends, Paul says, what the Colossians’ church was saying elevates one person above another.  It’s not your special religious knowledge or practice, it’s not your special, mysterious ceremonies, it’s not your social condition or your cultural differences.  He pleads for them and for us to release the affect of our baptism and get down to earth with virtue.  That even as we celebrate with baptism that there is an inner working and this is just an outward symbol of what is happening on the inside.  Paul says, “Let the happen on the inside reflect outwardly”.  Be done with the old way.  He really told them.  He said, “Just take them off, put them off, lay them aside, be done with it.  Put your life-affirming stance out there. Have these distinctive, ethical qualities that characterize a new life style.   

Barkley says it this way and given the name of our church I kind of like it, “Wear garments of grace”.  Church, the body language that we have gives us that without words.  What we do flows out of who we are and we are to be expressing a pride in how we serve and treat others.  Aristotle was asked, “What is virtue?”  And he had a rather long answer, some of which was to be in the state of character by repeatedly performing good actions.  Shaquille O’Neal put it a log shorter.  For such a big guy he had a really short answer—practice, practice, practice.  That’s how virtue is formed.  And as we come together in the church as the body of Christ, we help form it in each other.  And Paul says it’s this way, this is how you form virtue—with one another.  Virtue and compassion especially, take at least two. He says, “Bear with one another, forgive each other, let love bind everything together.”  He says, “Let the peace of Christ dwell, and be thankful.”  There is that word again, gratitude!  If the word of Christ dwells in us richly we’re teaching one another.  The peace of Christ is when we come and we help each other become whole.  Gratitude in your heart and with wisdom—sometimes wisdom is not speaking.  The old sages and philosopher’s many times, like Shaquille O’Neal, little to say or they said much with little.   

And how are we to worship? Paul says, “Come with gratitude in your hearts singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”  When we come together that is what we do in worship but it explodes and gives off a glow in honor and glory to God.  Paul says that that is how we form virtue and that is how it shows, this glow.  That we come together as a body and it’s not just a hurting for someone else, it’s an action toward someone else and with someone else.  Occasionally it manifests itself like this—there was a group last Sunday night and we met thinking that we would form a type of ministry that connected people. In fact we said we’ll call this a connections group in which we help form friendships and link one another in our congregation with each other with fun and fellowship.  And from that group then, as we revealed ourselves to one another, we learned that there are those that are widowed who need support.  Not of a financial nature but more of a coming together with someone to walk the same path.  And three women said, you know, we could form a group, “Widows to Widows”, to have fun but also to share information of “How do you do this, we’ve never walked this road before?”  That’s compassion in action coming alongside.  Joey and Amanda Ott, Joey said, “You know, I don’t have a lot of time but I’m pretty good with a hammer.”  In the meeting last Sunday night another man said, “I never heard of Hand’s On Missions.  It’s one of those quiet programs of the church.  Joey formed it and said, “There are people that we need to have compassion on because they don’t know how to fix things—men and women!” He said, “I can fix things.  I’m a handy man.”  And so formed the ministry, Hands on Mission--compassion in action! 

There is a multitude of ways for you to glow.  The world will try to convince you that it is through power or possessions to get an everlasting glow, to get something that goes after you are gone.  Jesus says and Paul says it is not.  It’s about letting the spirit of Christ who is at work among you, perhaps in you the hope of glory.  And how can we live a life that just follows a model or example?  How will you let compassion glow this week?  I hope you are able to look around and not just feel the wrenching but to be moved to act, to relieve, to be merciful.  It might be a small thing, but it could make a large difference in the life of someone who is hurting, who feels incapable.  I hope you will consider it as you look around as you look at your life this week.  Where can I practice the glow of Jesus by letting it show in compassion?  Amen.

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins

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