Colossians 3:1-11 Commentary

Two of our grandchildren transferred to a different school at the beginning of this past academic year. While their adjustment was, by God’s grace, quite smooth, it was also quite large. Among other things, our grandchildren had to put on different clothing. They had to swap the uniforms of their previous school for their new one.

However, our grandchildren’s transfer entailed a clothing swap for my wife and me as well. After all, we once gladly wore clothing emblazoned with their former school’s name and mascot. However, we now gladly wear clothing with our grandchildren’s new school’s name and mascot.

At the beginning of his letter to the church in Colossae the apostle makes radical claims that set the tone for and structure of the rest of the letter. Jesus of Nazareth is, he insists, “the image of the invisible God” (1:15).  “By him,” what’s more, according to 1:16, “all things were created.” Christ is, on top of that not only “the head of the body, the church” (1:18), but also the one “through whom” God “reconciled” to himself “all things” (1:20).

In Colossians 3 Paul insists such a radical claim calls for a radical obedience in response to God’s amazing grace. A cosmic Savior deserves a cosmic response. The Sovereign Christ doesn’t just summon his friends to an orthodox faith in him. He also invites us to a lifestyle that properly reflects his followers’ deep gratitude to God for his rescue of us. The crucified, risen and ascended Christ compares that lifestyle to a whole new wardrobe.

That swap, however, obviously, requires stripping off or, in Pauline language, “putting to death [nekrosate*]” the “clothing” that is our “earthly nature” [ta mele ta epi tes ges].” It’s on that “disrobing” that this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson focuses. According to verse 5, “articles” of that inappropriate clothing include “sexual immorality [porneian], impurity [akatharsian], lust [pathos], evil desires [epithymian kaken] and greed [pleonexian], which is idolatry [eidolatria].”

Yet that’s not all the inappropriate “clothing” that Paul begs God’s adopted children to “strip off.” In verse 8-9a he also summons us to “rid” ourselves [apothesthe] “of all such things as these: anger [orgen], rage [thymon], malice [kakian], slander [blasphemian] and filthy language [aischrologian] from your lips. [And] do not lie [pseudesthe] to each other.”

As always preachers want to let the Spirit guide us as we weigh how much of our message to allot to each of those individual articles of “clothing.” We might, however, prayerfully choose to spend more of our time noting a couple of things about the whole list.

That filthy clothing may be part of the “earthly things [ta epi tes ges]” on which Paul calls us not to focus (2). While we sometimes think of those earthly things as money, clothing and material possessions, Paul’s choice of the word ges (“earth”) may suggest not so much material things as a “realm” or “kingdom.” The things of the earth may be related to the “earthly nature” that’s our natural state of loyalty to Satan’s rule and rebellion against God and God’s rule.

What’s more, clothing that is inappropriate for Christians is already “dead.” Jesus’ friends can “put to death” sexual immorality, evil desires, anger and malice because the Spirit has broken their control over us. We might even stretch the clothing analogy by noting those inappropriate actions are hopelessly out of style for us.

So we might, to use formerly popular slang, refer to Colossians 3’s inappropriate clothing that is disobedience as “so yesterday.” Paul basically says as much when in verse 7 he writes, “You used to walk [periepatesete pote] in these ways, in the life you once lived [ezete].” At one time we didn’t know any better than to lust, be greedy and lie to each other. But now the Spirit hasn’t just shown us the better way. The Spirit also equips God’s adopted children for faithful living.

On top of that, preachers might note that inappropriate “clothing” infuriates God. When we were growing up some of us clashed with our parents or other authorities about what constituted “proper attire.” Paul suggests that the natural disagreement between God and God’s image-bearers over what constitutes appropriate clothing is even stronger. “Because [di’] of these [articles of clothing],” he writes in verse 6, “the wrath [orge] of God is coming [erchetai].”

Quite simply, the “clothing” that is sexual immorality and inappropriate speech enrages God. Not just because it’s not that behavior for which God created us. But also because lust and greed also harm not just the person who is lustful or greedy, but also those who are the targets of such inappropriateness. Inappropriate clothing, in other words, deeply harms not just Jesus’ individual friends, but also the communities into which God has placed us.

So what sorts of clothing is appropriate for Jesus’ followers? What does Jesus’ friends new “wardrobe” look like? As we try to answer those questions, it is in some ways regrettable that the RCL ends this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson with Colossians 3:11 without ever “getting around to” verses 12-17. Especially since it next Sunday sends us vaulting over the rest of Colossians to the book of Hebrews.

One might argue that leap almost gives readers the impression the RCL is more interested in the gospel’s bad news than its great news. That means that proclaimers of the gospel will have to let the Spirit help us pay extra attention to the bit of good news that verses 1-11 present.

It begins with Paul’s assertion in verse 10 that we “have put on [endysamenoi] the new self.” The Spirit has empowered Jesus’ friends to take off the “old” and inappropriate clothing that is things like sexual immorality and improper speech. Now, Paul implies, the Spirit has also equipped us to put on the clothing that is appropriate behavior.

Our “self,” he goes on to write, “is being renewed [anakainoumenon] in knowledge [epignosin] in the image [eikona] of its Creator [tou ktisantos].” Here we sense the new clothing Paul summons us to put on may begin with a renewal of our knowledge of God and God’s purposes. We might even say God renovates God’s image bearers’ knowledge so that we come to increasingly recognize what kinds of clothing that is our actions and attitudes are appropriate for God’s adopted children.

In verse 11 Paul goes on to assert the Spirit equips all of Jesus’ friends, regardless of human identity, to put on the new wardrobe that is the “new self.” In this particular matter, he insists, “there is no Gentile [Hellen] or Jew [Ioudaios], or circumcised [peritome] or uncircumcised [akrobystia], barbarian [barbaros], Scythian [Skythes], slave [doulos] or free [eleutheros].”

In other words, absolutely no one is either exempt from this dress code nor left “undressed” by the Spirit. Like the grace of God, no follower of Jesus is left untouched by the Master Tailor. No matter how Christians dress as we go about our daily lives, the Spirit has clothed all of us in things like kindness and compassion.

After all, in that and so much more, “Christ is all [ta panta], and is in all [en pasin]” (11b). Christ is everything to those who receive God’s grace with our faith. What’s more, he is, by his Spirit, in each and every one of his friends, regardless of all the other things that so often divide Christians from each other. As The Message so eloquently paraphrases this profession, “Everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.”

Paul doesn’t, however within this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s pericope explicitly describe what that means for our “clothing” that is Christians’ behaviors and attitudes. So preachers want to listen for the Spirit’s direction into one of several different approaches. We might offer negations of the inappropriate clothing Paul lists in verses 5-9a. For example, we might invite our hearers to eschew sexual immorality for persistent faithfulness in all our relationships. Preachers might, what’s more, summon our hearers to join us in trading in things like greed for generosity, anger for forgiveness and slander for encouragement.

Preachers might also choose to expand this week’s Epistolary Lesson to include verses 12-18. Short of that we might at least list those verses’ items in the “line of clothing” that’s in style for God’s dearly beloved. We might summon our hearers to join us in cultivating Christ-like virtues such as compassion, kindness and humility.

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson Paul reminds Jesus’ followers that we don’t find our identity in what we wear or refuse to wear, how we talk or look, and from where we come. Our identity is in Jesus Christ alone. For Paul and the rest of Jesus’ followers, however, it remains to be seen how much we’ll cooperate in letting Christ’s Spirit “dress” us in ways that reflect that identity by lovingly honoring God and blessing our neighbors.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets and italicized the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

Are things like evil desires, slander and filthy language so hard to strip off in part because we find them more exciting than things like gentleness, patience and forgiveness?

The main character in Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is Liz Tierney. Its narrator says she “had nothing against the salvation of all men. She was as grateful for the fact of heaven as she was sure of her path toward it. She counted the Blessed Mother as one of her confidants.

“She loved the order and certainty the Church gave her life, arranging the seasons for her, the weeks and the days, guiding her philosophies and her sorrows. She loved the hymns. She loved the prayers. She loved the way the Church — the priests and the Brothers and the nuns, as well as the handy threat of eternal damnation  — ordered her disorderly children. But holiness bored her” (italics added).