I came across this quote the other day. It’s by Thomas Traherne, a cleric who lived in the middle years of the 17th century. He was someone who could have been a ‘high flier’ – educated at Hereford Cathedral school and Brasenose College Oxford, he served as Vicar of Credenhill (just outside Hereford) and then as private chaplain to Charles II’s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, in Teddington. He didn’t write much. His works weren’t known in his own day but were found many years after his death, in a pile of documents set to be thrown out of Lambeth Palace. There is now a Thomas Denny window commemorating him in the Lady Chapel of Hereford Cathedral.
Anyhow, this comes from his work called ‘Centuries of meditations’
“That That a man is beloved of God, should melt him all into esteem and holy veneration. It should make him so courageous as an angel of God. It should make him delight in calamities and distresses for God’s sake. By giving me all things else, He hath made even afflictions themselves my treasures. The sharpest trials, are the finest furbishing. the most tempestuous weather is the best seed-time. A Christian is an oak flourishing in winter. God hath so magnified and glorified His servant (Christ), and exalted him so highly in His eternal bosom, that no other joy should be able to move us but that alone.”
I love that phrase ‘A Christian is an oak flourishing in winter’. I suspect, from its context that Traherne is thinking of someone who is constant, who is steady, secure and strong against what life might throw at them. But, when I first read it the image that came to mind was of a tree in full leave in winter time, something extraordinary, something that stands out and draws the eye…wonderful and beautiful. (Perhaps I have seen the Narnia films too often and leapt immediately to Aslan releasing creation from a season that was always winter but never Christmas?)
If we are talking in pictures, our New Testament reading (it would be useful for you to have it in front of you) is packed with imagery. It tries to show us what a Christian looks like but most especially (because Paul is writing to a community not just to an individual) what a church might look like.
So ‘God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved’ (isn’t that a phenomenal description of who we are?) ‘clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another…’ As I read these works, who do you think of in this congregation? Who has revealed these characteristics most to you? For whom might you be able to give thanks for their gentle ministry of the presence of Christ to you? For, as we, together, put on these Christian virtues we are reflecting Jesus aren’t we? Indeed, earlier in this chapter, Paul tells us to ‘put on Christ.’ The image used is of a new set of clothes…a change of wardrobe…a new look for a new season.
I am hopeless in a clothes shop. I have no idea! Clothes shopping is a nightmare for and with me. One step into the store, a quick glance around and I know I’m not going to be buying anything: not for me. But these clothes. These virtues: these are for us all. If you are going to be employed in the service of the Almighty you have to put on the right gear – you can’t pick and choose, you can’t say ‘yes to humility, but no to patience: yes to compassion, no to forgiveness.’ This outfit is of a piece. It hangs together and wearing it is not always easy.
Again, earlier in the chapter Paul told his hearers to step out of an old set of clothes, an old grubby way of living. ‘Put those things away: they are done for’, he says. The imagery is very much of a ‘full immersion’ baptism: old clothes stripped off, new ones to hand – and if that wasn’t you, think of the origin of family christening gowns, think of why clerics wear white: To remind you of your baptism. The old has gone, the new has come. The call is to live differently: as differently as our ‘oak flourishing in winter’.
What has gone, what must be put aside? What went as the wardrobe was changed? Paul gives us one of his lists at the beginning of the chapter. (Verse 5) Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). These are all sexual sins: even the word for greed here referring to uncontrolled lust. More importantly, they are sins that use other people for our own ends. It’s not moralistic to say that these things are not appropriate in the Christian community. Instead of using and abusing others the new life is marked by giving and forgiving, by building people up rather than dragging them down, learning to live with difference and disagreement rather than dividing one person against another. How far we can fall? How high we can rise?
Why must we live and act differently? Because Christ is all and in all (another phrase from this letter). By the end of this passage we are singing: overflowing hearts offering praise to God through Jesus. A few years ago, these verses about music and ‘dwelling’ in God’s word led the PCC to spend a whole year pondering this passage, letting it sink into our common life. But look at verse 14 ‘Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’. Maybe it was the use of the word harmony that set Paul off thinking of Christian worship and music making but the verse is about ‘putting on’ an especial article of clothing. So, for those (unlike me) who think in colours, who enjoy getting dressed up, putting on something smart for a special occasion here we are in the realms of the one item that brings everything together. A tie perhaps? A wrap or scarf? A brooch or a coloured handkerchief in your suit’s breast pocket. ‘Put on love…that binds everything together in harmony’. Aren’t all the other virtues mentioned just aspects of love anyhow? forgiveness, patience, humility and meekness and so on. Put on love.
I asked you earlier to think of someone in this congregation who embodies these virtues for you. How did you get on? Did a name come to mind? There’s an exercise sometimes done in churches (especially with youth groups) where people are asked to write anonymously on post-its something for which they are grateful for in the life of each of the people in the group. You then stick it on their back. And once that’s done the individual privately can take them and read what has been said about them. ‘I love your smile’. ‘You are one of the most generous people I know’. ‘ When you did this…you helped me through a hard time. Thankyou’. ‘Be thankful’ says Paul. ‘Be thankful for the small and the unnoticed’
We’re good at failure. We’re good at getting it wrong, saying the wrong thing, messing things up. We’re very good at guilt. On a bad day we are capable of putting people off coming to church forever – and we have done that, or played our part in it. But we are the church of God. We are God’s chosen ones. For good or ill He has chosen us to reveal Christ in this town and dale. We are His Holy and beloved…so, so beloved by God in a way that we struggle to comprehend. And when we put on Christ there is a beauty here in your lives before me that is miraculous and deeply humbling. Praise God.