Inside and Out

​This sermon was originally preached in December 2018. 

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Psalm 148
 
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
    and you waters above the skies.
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever--
    he issued a decree that will never pass away.
 7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
    stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
    small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
    you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
    old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,
    the praise of all his faithful servants,
    of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.

Colossians 3:12-17
 
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.


What a great time to consider again what’s most meaningful to us, to consider in what ways we want to be well, and where are the best sources for goodness. Perhaps, not entirely unlike our Colossian siblings in our passage this morning. The passage comes from a letter to one of the earliest churches in Colossae, a community about 100 miles from Ephesus, along the Mediterranean. Paul is writing to a church with whom he has a relationship and also has been hearing concerns about how they have been influenced by common practices of their day. They had come to incorporate rituals in their worship services and in their teachings that focused also on other types of gods than only on the Living God.

Paul is reminding them of what is true and good, and advising them on what practices will help them keep focused on their individual and community health and well-being. And these words continue to be helpful for us today, especially as we too can find ourselves distracted by many influences around us. Moreover, the passage that immediately follows the one for us this morning can sometimes cause people concern today, particularly when Paul says for wives to submit to their husbands. This one phrase too often has been taken out of context, used as a weapon to shame wives or husbands, or used as evidence of how unrealistic and harmful the Bible can be. I encourage you, especially after this morning, to consider the passage that follows about Christian households to be read within the context it was written. It not only was written to a church filled with people struggling to find order and goodness in their lives, but also within a chapter focused on cultivating Love within and all around us.

So, now, let us turn to our Word for us today. And, if you were looking for motivation to get New Years’ started off on the right foot, I’m not sure you could find a better encouragement than this one. I’m tempted to simply repeat it and end with an “Amen.” So tempted, that I think in fact, this nudging I feel to repeat these words a few times would be good for all us.

There is a beautiful form of Scriptural meditation, which some of you may be familiar with, called Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is a Latin phrase which means Divine Reading. The Order of the Carmelites, a Christian brother and sisterhood founded many centuries ago in the ancient community of Carmel and still very active today, describes Lectio Divina as “a way of reading the Scriptures [in stages] whereby we gradually let go of our own agenda and open ourselves to what God wants to say to us.” It’s an intentional process of letting our internal stirrings, and the wide range of distractions all around us, fall away, so we can focus as best we can on God’s Word alone.  
 
The first stage is Reading, which we have done already. If you were to conduct this practice on your own, you might consider reading a small passage aloud once to yourself.  The second stage is Reflection. In this stage, we read or listen to the passage again, and this time “we think about the text we have chosen and ruminate upon it so that we take from it what God wants to give us.” In essence, you wait to see if a word, phrase, or sentence in particular stand out to you for any reason. Then, the third stage is Response, where we read or listen to the passage a third time and this time commit to leaving our thinking aside. We focus in this stage on letting our hearts, more than our minds, speak to God. What do we feel or sense from our Reflection? What is we want to share with God in Response to our Reflection?
 
The final stage of Lectio Divina is Rest. In this stage, we read or listen to the passage one last time and commit to let go not only of our own ideas, plans and meditations but also of what we think we should be thinking or saying from our religious teachings, upbringings, or assumptions. We allow the Word of God to wash over us and rest there. From the deepest level of our being, we listen to God-with-us, Emmanuel, who speaks within us in a still, small voice. Those who practice Lectio Divina regularly say that as we listen, we gradually become transformed from within and we then are encouraged to take what we read in the Word of God into our daily lives.

Those in the Order of the Carmelites remind us how these “stages of Lectio Divina are not fixed rules of procedure but simply guidelines” as to how this prayerful form of reading Scripture tends to develop. “Its natural movement is towards greater simplicity, with less and less talking and more listening.”
I wonder if, especially as we approach this New Year, or even as we consider the journey of the heart and soul the Wise Men took to enable them then to physically travel across many lands in search of what the Star might reveal, if we might conduct a version of Lectio Divina here this morning together. As we consider the New Year, the Wise Men’s journey, might we consider our passage today in a way that allows us to listen carefully to the Word of God together?
 
As we have already read the passage once, let us now reflect. I will read the passage once more, and as I do listen for what God draws your attention toward – perhaps a particular word, a phrase, or a sentence. Consider jotting it down or just letting it linger in your heart.
 
Hear the Word of God for you this morning:
Colossians 3:12-17
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 
What has God brought to your attention this morning? Sit with it for a bit. Wonder about it. Does it seem fitting? Is it strange? Is it comforting? Or a challenge? How does it make you think of yourself, your relationship with God, or your relationship with others? In what way is the still, small voice of God speak tenderly to your soul this morning?
 
Now, even as you may still be reflecting on our passage today, and the word, phrase, or sentence that God has brought to your attention, hear this passage again. And this time, in a time of silence following this third reading, take time to prayerfully respond to God. You can do so quietly in your heart or by writing your response down. You are invited in this time of silence to allow your heart to speak to God based on your reflection. What did you feel or sense? Share that with God following this next reading. Hear now the word of God for you this morning from the Letter to the Colossians:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 
[Silence]
 
Hmmm . . . you feel your heart continuing to want to converse with God, I encourage you to continue the conversation throughout today and into this week. And I hope, whether you are familiar with Lectio Divina or this is a new practice for you, that you are reminded this morning of how we Christians believe that the Bible is not only the Inspired Word of God, not only a sacred text passed down through the faithful across the ages, but also is what we call the Living Word – in other words, God speaks to each of us, directly, through the Bible, and we are invited to listen, reflect, respond, and rest in God’s word for us now, today. We recognize, along with our forefathers and foremothers, how we do not need to simply accept the Word given, but that we, too, are invited to engage with God through this Word.
 
So, let us now come to the end of this practice this morning. Let us now allow distractions to fall away, put aside the pressures we feel or put on ourselves, and relieve ourselves of whatever expectations or assumption we may make for what it means to be Christian, and let us focus just on God’s Word of us this morning. Let us rest in this Word. Hear the Word of God for you:
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all 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.]
Mmm, yes, thanks be to God. The God who loves you, as a dear child, the God who loves you and your household, the God who loves your church community.  With gratitude, consider what changes you experienced in attending to God’s Word this morning: what you thought about, how your spirit moved, what you felt, what was evoked in you, and the ways you sensed being called to respond and to rest. May you be blessed as you continue to encounter the Living God through God’s Word. Amen. 

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