Putting on New Clothes - Sermon for Pentecost 8C (Colossians 3)
Mark Twain famously said that “Clothes make the man.” Even in this more casual era, clothes still stand for something. There are times when we need to purchase a new set of clothes. It could be that our old clothes no longer fit, or we’re attending a big event that requires a clothing upgrade. After all, we don’t want to be underdressed!
In his Colossian letter, Paul speaks of stripping off the old self and clothing ourselves with the new self. He directs this word to people who exchanged their old pagan ways for a new life in Christ through baptism. At least as early as the second century, baptisms took place after a lengthy period of instruction. Then on the day baptisms took place, the candidates would strip off their old clothes before entering the baptismal. When they came out the other side, they received a new set of clothes to symbolize their new life in Christ.
This exchange of old clothes for a new set represents the change of lifestyle that accompanies baptism. With that in mind, Paul offers us a list of vices that represent the old life and a list of virtues that represent the new life in Christ. The list of vices includes sexual immorality, evil desires, greed, anger, malice, lies, and much more. The list of virtues that accompany the new life in Christ includes compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience (Col. 3:12).
Since most of us grew up in a church setting and have always identified as Christians, we might wonder whether what Paul writes here applies to us. I believe it does since even if we were never “pagans,” we may have indulged in a few of the vices listed here. Living as we do in a consumer culture, greed is always standing at the door and knocking. I’m sure we’ve all had some experience with anger. As for the rest of the list, I’ll leave that to your consideration. This is where repentance comes into play, even for people who have put on their new selves in baptism. In other words, we may have kept some of those old, tattered clothes from the old life hidden in our closets. So, maybe we should clean out our closets and replace the old clothes with the new set Jesus is offering us.
What is this new set of clothes Paul speaks of here? According to this letter, this new set involves love. This love that we clothe ourselves with “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14).
While Paul calls on us to clothe ourselves with love, which comes to us from God as we follow Jesus, he calls our attention to the divisions that existed in Greco-Roman society. We know something about societal divisions. In this case Paul told the Colossians that when it comes to putting on the new clothes that come with the reign of God in our lives, “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all! (Col. 3:11). When Paul speaks here of Scythians, he has in mind the rural folk the city folk living in Colossae might look down on. We still see that rural-urban divide in our own time. The message here is that your social status doesn’t matter when it comes to God’s family. We’re all equals. Of course, we can add to this list of social divides that don’t matter when it comes to God’s family. Even if divisions exist in the larger world, we’re all one in Christ.
We may have put on new clothes, but the work of God in our lives is not complete. The clothes might be new but the memory of those old clothes often stays with us. So, we need to be continually renewed in our faith. This continuing renewal is represented by the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. While we are baptized only once, we continually come to the Table to experience renewal through our encounters with Jesus at the Table.
As we move toward maturity in Christ, we need a gift of patience, something that the fifteenth-century monk Thomas á Kempis wrote about in his devotional classic, The Imitation of Christ.
Patience is necessary in this life because so much of life is fraught with adversity. No matter how hard we try, our lives will never be without strife and grief. Thus, we should not strive for a peace that is without temptation, or for a life that never feels adversity. Peace is not found by escaping temptations, but by being tried by them. (Devotional Classics, Foster & Smith, eds., pp.185-186).
Although this process of transformation will last throughout our lives, we can still see ourselves in a new light. We may not reach full maturity in this life, but when we clothe ourselves with Christ, we will see ourselves as having become new persons. What is most important, this involves clothing ourselves with love, “which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14).
So, how do we clothe ourselves with love? The answer to that question is found in the opening verses of Colossians 3 where Paul tells the readers to “seek the things that are above.” Although we often hear of people who are so heavenly minded they’re of no earthly good, the kind of heavenly-mindedness Paul has in mind does lead to earthly good. He might tell us to focus our minds on things above rather than earthly things, but what he has in mind are the kind of behaviors and actions that are destructive. By pointing us to the things above, he’s telling us to focus on living lives that reflect God’s love for God’s creation. This love leads to perfect harmony.
Paul wrote this word to the Colossians because it’s tempting to return to the old life. This was especially true for this group of relatively new Christians who lived in a cultural context that was not conducive to living for Jesus. Everything Jesus taught and embodied was counter-cultural. While we live in a different world from the Colossians, we face similar temptations. We may live in a country where a shrinking majority claim to be Christians, but even churches that proclaim Jesus to be Lord and savior can become captive to the culture. Jesus’ teachings, especially the ones we find in the Sermon on the Mount can look rather strange. It’s one thing to love our neighbor, as long as the neighbor looks and thinks like we do, but loving our enemies like Jesus commanded, that’s rather radical.
We might want to consider the message found in Jesus’ description of the day of judgment in Matthew 25, where Jesus speaks of separating the sheep from the goats on the basis of how they treated him when he was found to be hungry, thirsty, a stranger, unclothed, sick, or in prison. The righteous will ask when had they done this for Jesus. He answers, when they had this for the least of the members of Jesus’ family. As for those judged to be unrighteous, they had failed to care for Jesus when they failed to care for the least of Jesus’ family members.
The Colossian letter provides a wake up call to people who might be tempted to stray from the things of God. Here in the Colossian letter Paul calls on us to be formed according to the life of Jesus.
In the first chapter of the letter, Paul offers a hymn to Christ, the one in whom we are being formed as we mature in faith. So Paul invited the Colossians to sing this song of praise to Christ:
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:15-20).
To be a follower of Jesus is to put on new clothes through our baptisms that reflect the one who is the “image of the invisible God.” The message of Colossians is that Christ has come down from heaven to be like us so that he might bring about cosmic reconciliation, such that Christ might be “all in all.”
So, now that we have rid ourselves of our old clothes and clothed ourselves with Christ in love, let us grow into spiritual maturity so that together we can be of earthly good.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
Penecost 8C
August 3, 2025
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