Today’s author is Prince of Peace’s Intentional Interim, Pr. Steve Sylvester.
“Clothe yourselves with love…” Colossians 3:14a
Writers and thinkers from the Romantic era in general, and Swiss-born philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in particular, wrote much about the concept of the “noble savage.” It was their posit that prior to being corrupted by civilization, people are innately good. Even apart from the implicit and insulting claim that indigenous and native communities are UNcivilized, I would argue that this way of looking at human nature is simplistic and wrong.
Woody Allen perhaps said it best when he shrugged off his affair with (and later his marriage to) the much younger daughter of the woman he had lived with for years: “The heart wants what it wants.” And why should we not have what our heart wants? This is who we are. Is there goodness in us? Certainly. Does that goodness just naturally flow from us? No.
In writing to the Christians in Colossae, the author reminds them that seeking good for the neighbor is not something we naturally or unfailingly do. Indeed, in the several verses preceding the exhortation, followers of Jesus are encouraged to put to death sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, idolatry, anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language. Instead, they are told to “clothe [themselves] with love.” This is similar to the letter to the Ephesians in which the writer encourages the believers in Ephesus “put on the armor or God.” In other words, loving the neighbor and being a follower of Jesus is a daily decision requiring real intentionality.
I was intrigued by what Paul Sponheim wrote in last Wednesday’s devotional, that we are not to be “conformed with the world” but rather we are to “rise up to claim the infinite.” Concerning the brief snippet above from Colossians 3, love, somewhat foreign to us and properly more godly than human, is not beyond us. It truly can be who we are. It can be what we do in our ongoing interaction with God’s children and God’s good creation. But we must make a conscious decision to clothe ourselves with the love of God in Christ that is always coming to us and seeking to live through us.
Martin Luther once observed that the old man in him was such a strong swimmer that he had to be daily drowned in the waters of baptism. In the same way, our self that wants what it wants must be clothed each day with love, because love will not simply spring forth of its own accord. And love is possible when we allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts.