A New Path

Let us pray. God, let us hear what you want us to hear so that we might be who

you want us to be and do what you want us to do. Amen. Our reading continues from

Colossians 3 starting with verse 12. Let us listen together for God's Word to us.

Therefore as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with

compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and

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 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 hearts 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. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Joseph Richardson lived in New York City in the late 1800s and somehow he came

into ownership of a very unique piece of property. He owned a corner lot at

Lexington and 82nd Street which ordinarily would be of great value but

his lot had very peculiar dimensions. It was 35 yards long but just a few yards

wide. This very very narrow strip of land was practically impossible for him to

develop so his only hope to profit from this property was to sell it to the owner

of the adjoining lot. So eventually the owner of the adjoining lot came to him

and offered to buy his property offered him a thousand dollars this was in the

late 1800s offered him a thousand dollars for his corner lot. Well

Richardson was not willing to take so low a price for that lot so he came back

and said he would take five thousand for it. Gasp and the owner of the other lot

refused to pay that price. Richardson refused to come down and so the owner of

the other lot decided to go ahead with his plans without that little strip and

built up an apartment building there on that land right up against Richardson's

property. At this point Richardson did what any of us probably would have done.

He went ahead and built the strangest apartment building that New York City

has ever seen. This building was four stories tall, 104 feet long, and just five

feet deep and despite those very very strange dimensions he managed to squeeze

into that space eight apartments each with three bedrooms and a bathroom

probably did not meet ADA requirements and Richardson lived in one of those

eight apartments until the day he died and this apartment came to be known as

spite house. This is an extreme case of something that we all share namely being

set in our ways. We commit ourselves stubbornly to particular paths and when

things don't turn out the way that we hope the way that we plan rather than

adjust we often just settle in to bitterness and spite or maybe we're not

so much stubborn as we are just determined we have goals we have

ambitions we have dreams and we commit ourselves to our fulfillment to our

comfort to our success or maybe it's not even as intentional as all of that maybe

we are just traveling the well-worn paths that we have created over a

lifetime of habit and routine we've grown accustomed to a particular way and

it would take an act of God to dislodge us from the path that we have gotten

comfortable on. Whatever the case may be whether we have built up monuments to

our own spite or we have just settled comfortably into our own way of things

we are not likely to deviate you and I are not likely to change course because

change is hard. We've begun a new series for these weeks of Easter we're calling

it new life and we're looking at what it means to have new life in Christ what

difference does Easter make and it might seem overly simplistic to say but some

one of the things that it means to have new life is to have a new life a new way

of living a new way of going about life and this is what Paul is often talking

about and in Colossians he's not at all subtle about what that means for us he

says you have died you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in

God he says put to death whatever in you is earthly Paul's language here points

us to a difficult truth and that is there cannot be new life without death

there is no resurrection without the crucifixion if we want to live there are

things in us that first have to die and Paul is more than happy to point out

what those things are there's the usual dose of sexual sins which he includes

but there are other problems too in us things like anger and malice and

dishonesty and coarse language and wrath we might take all of these things

together and put them into the single category of the ways of the world what

Paul calls things of earth it doesn't mean that everybody then did all of

these things all of the time but what it does mean is that these are the kinds of

things in the world that are accepted these are the kinds of things that are

even expected from others these are even the kinds of things that the world

openly celebrates it's just part of how the world works it's just part of how a

person makes it in this world if you want to get by in this world this is the

road that you have to walk these are the actions that you condone these are the

tools that you use and Paul says these are the things that have to die if we

want to live whatever is earthly whatever is self indulging and self

seeking and self serving whatever is tuned to the key of this world and its

pursuits and its values now here's the heart of this challenge that Paul is

giving to the church what we've been talking about is the fact that there is

a way to walk in this world a way to live in this world that is very

specially calibrated for the world as it currently is it's the path of least

resistance in a broken and fearful world if the world is an ice skating rink it's

like having the skates and the skills to use them but new life means something

different new life means setting aside these things but not leaving the world

taking off the skates but not leaving the ice and this is a real challenge

because not only are we all of us to some degree set in our ways committed to

the path that we are on to the outcomes that we've been working toward but we are

also all reluctant regardless just to change change is hard for all of us but

it's even worse than that because embracing new life is not just about

changing it's not just about taking on something new it means setting aside

certain tools and choosing to walk the path of greatest resistance before

Easter before the cross and the resurrection one could be forgiven for

imagining that virtues like compassion and kindness and generosity and humility

and sacrifice that these are all nice things and worth a decent effort but the

world being what it is these things are ultimately dead ends the world won't ever

value these things the way we would like them to and the world certainly won't

ever reward them even the disciples right up until they hear that news on

Easter morning I wonder if this was how they saw the world believing that now

that Jesus is dead they have come up against the limits of those values they

have come up against that dead end that this is as far as compassion will get us

this is as far as humility and love and generosity will get us but what Easter

reveals is not that the world is suddenly made new it's not that the

world suddenly discovers the value of self-giving love what Easter reveals is

that there is a higher good than what passes for success in this world what

Easter reveals is that there is deeper truth than what a broken world honors

and promotes what Easter reveals is that there is greater victory than simply

coming out ahead whatever that means in this world as a kid I loved the movie

Ben Hur the Charlton Heston film it was so long that it was on two VHS tapes

and if you've seen the movie you know that at the end of the movie Ben Hur

Charlton Heston's character is looking upon the crucifixion and Jesus dies and

Jesus speaks those words father forgive them for they do not know what they are

doing and then a rain falls a storm and the camera follows the effects of this

rain as the rain spreads the water spread and things begin to happen when

that water reaches them things begin to be transformed lepers step out of their

cave and into the rain and they are healed and I think sometimes we imagine

that this is what Easter is somehow supposed to be that Easter happens and

suddenly everything is magically fixed but look at the world we know that's not

true look at our lives look at our hearts we know that's not true we know

that work isn't done we know this world isn't fixed we know that we aren't fixed

what Easter reveals to us is that even as this as the post Easter world goes

about all of its ordinary business the things that the world tells us we should

be aiming for the things that the world tells us we should be striving for are in

fact the dead ends and that these things don't even come close to life having new

life in Christ means accepting that the world does in fact work in a certain way

but choosing nonetheless to live our lives differently very early in the life

of the Christian Church before they were self-consciously a religion and calling

themselves Christians they called themselves the Way very simple name to

refer to their movement to their community and the word in Greek for way

is also the word for road or path and they called themselves this because they

understood that they were choosing to travel in a different direction they

were choosing to deviate choosing to walk a different road to live in a

different way a way that would raise eyebrows but especially a way that would

probably get them sideways with Rome with the powers that be it was the path

of greatest resistance and they saw that this is what it takes to embrace new life

in a world that has not yet been made new in 2008 the author and poet Wendell

Berry published a collection of poems called the mad farmer poems in the

author's note to this collection he writes this the joke of the mad farmer

poems is that in a society gone insane a man exuberantly sane will appear to

be mad so he has this collection of poems one of these poems actually

contains the phrase which I think Barry coins the phrase practice resurrection

which is the subtitle of our sermon series but another of these poems is

called the mad farmer flying the flag of rough branch and you should know rough

branch is just a tiny Kentucky holler the mad farmer flying the flag of rough

branch secedes from the union and the poem begins this way from the union of

power and money from the union of power and secrecy from the Union of Government

and Science from the Union of Government and Art from the Union of Science and

Money from the Union of Ambition and ignorance from the Union of Genius and

war from the union of outer space and inner vacuity the mad farmer walks

quietly away. Now for Barry this is not just a walking away from something but

it is also a walking toward something else it's a change it's a new path the

poem closes with these words from the union of self gratification and self

annihilation secede into care for one another and for the good gifts of heaven

and earth. The new life that is ours in Christ is a call to walk a new path it's

an invitation to walk away from the things in us that need to die so that

we can walk toward the things that will make us come truly alive and this is not

an easy thing to do. Change is hard we are stubborn spiteful creatures and this

is not an easy road to walk so we need to walk it with good company and we

need to be properly prepared we need to be properly clothed so as God's chosen

ones holy and beloved clothe yourselves with compassion kindness humility

meekness and patience forgiving one another as the Lord has forgiven you

and clothe all these things with love which binds everything together in

harmony now this is not what we need to make it in this world but it is what we

need to live let us pray

God we are walking the road of discipleship and we do not walk it

perfectly very often we do not even walk it well so we pray that you continue to

guide and strengthen us along this journey help us to take the path of

greatest resistance the path that sets aside the things of this world and turns

toward you toward life in Jesus name amen