“Clothed in the Proper Attire”

Scripture – Colossians 3:12-17

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Gregory Knox Jones

Sunday, February 2, 2025

A colleague tells the story about a student at Princeton University named Kyle who had regular meetings with the school’s chaplain. In one of their conversations, they talked about how an institution like Princeton – which values excellence, performance, efficiency, and academic competition is not a place that naturally exudes compassion and kindness. Thus, it is no surprise that many of the students take medicine for anxiety or depression.

In one of their conversations, the chaplain told Kyle that he had noticed the woman who swiped the students’ meal cards was always smiling and chatting with students when they bought their lunch. The chaplain said, “She’s doing my job.”

The student knew exactly who he was talking about and said, “That’s Catalina! She’s a hidden chaplain.” And then he named a few others who deserve the title. These were not professors or administrators, but rather the ordinary staff, who in their daily encounters with students, try to brighten their day. Their actions “combined elements of angelic supervision, parental nurturing, and quietly glorious acts of caring.”

The chaplain and student hatched an idea. They printed up postcards and distributed them around campus. The postcard asked: Who is your hidden chaplain? Nominations poured in and a new tradition was born to recognize those dining room workers and custodians, office personnel and members of the maintenance crew who take an interest in the students. These employees recognize the pressure cooker the kids endure and do what they can to turn down the heat and lift their spirits.

One of the honored hidden chaplains put it this way: “You don’t know how their day has been, you don’t know how they are feeling, but I look people in the eyes and talk to them. It’s a way of honoring them, hoping to coax out a little smile. It’s what I do every day, I honor people.”¹

That’s one way of being in our world today – a hidden chaplain. Here’s another way. A friend told me about her 12-year-old daughter’s volleyball team winning a tournament. As you would imagine, as the final point was scored, the winning team began high-fiving and hugging each other. But as the winners broke into celebration, the parents of the runner-up team rushed the court and began berating the officials. Then, the belligerent parents turned their wrath on the young girls who won, pelting them with ugly names. They singled out the sole African-American girl for especially vile words.

We hear about children being bullied at school. Some youngsters are pushed around, others punched. Some kids let their mean streaks run wild on social media relishing in ripping apart classmates. Some are called “short” and some are called “stupid.” Others are called names I cannot speak from the pulpit.

And, of course, political leaders gain notoriety and whip up support by being combative and vengeful. They score points by placing blame on others and tearing things down. In their minds, getting even and belittling others is for winners. Kindness and compassion is for losers. Acting outrageous garners recognition. Being humble invites ridicule. Rudeness and vulgarity exhibit real muscle. Civility and respect are for weaklings. Revenge is justified, forgiveness unknown.

More than ever during my lifetime, following the way of Jesus seems countercultural. To be in sync with Christian principles is to be out of sync with the prevailing ethos. A large swath of our culture believes the new virtue is to disdain traditional morality. Fear, frustration, and self-entitlement fuels a good deal of the rancor. Unpredictable times make people testy, and their frustration boils over into animosity.

Contentious times provoke some to forget the intrinsic links we have to one another. Do many even care about the common good? Many have developed amnesia and forgotten what any Girl Scout or Boy Scout can tell you: For people to get along with one another and for a society to thrive, it is essential for people to be honest and fair, considerate and caring, respectful and kind.

In today’s passage, the Apostle Paul describes the change that takes place in us when we commit to following the way of Jesus. A few verses prior to our reading, Paul introduces a clothing metaphor to describe the transformation. He says that we must “strip off the old self” which is characterized by “anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, and lying” so that we can “clothe ourselves with a new self.” Paul urges us to strip off foul-smelling clothes of revenge and replace them with the attractive attire of mercy.

The verses Meredith read describe the new garments we are to slip on. Paul writes, “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…Above all, clothe yourselves with love.”

Paul describes the attitudes and actions that characterize a true Christian – not a white Christian nationalist. These values and behaviors cement our most intimate bonds with spouse, partner, child, or parent. They infuse grace and goodwill into our ties with our friends, colleagues, and neighbors. They are expected to be at the core of our relationships with strangers, complainers, and adversaries.

However, let’s not misunderstand kindness. Kindness is not being soft on wrongdoing. It is not letting people off the hook of responsibility. It is not giving in to someone simply because they plead with you.

What does the Executive Presbyter do when one of the ministers in the presbytery, who is also a good friend, is discovered to be embezzling funds from the church or having an affair with a parishioner? What does kindness require in that type of situation? Hearing him out? Yes. Getting him help? Certainly. But that is not all. There must also be justice. When kindness to the perpetrator ignores justice to the victim, it is not kindness according to the Spirit of Christ. It may be some shallow form of kindness, but it is not in harmony with the way of Jesus. Kindness can never serve as a substitute for justice. The two must be bound together.

Further, sometimes kindness can have a bite to it. For instance, when a friend tells you something about yourself you do not want to hear, but you know is for your own good, it stings. Or when a partner points out you are being dishonest or helps you understand that you need to look beyond yourself. Ouch!

Brad says that he “was about halfway through his internship as a seminarian and was having a difficult time with his supervising pastor. He went to lunch with a friend and the friend listened to him grumble about his situation and pontificate on how nothing good was going to come out of his internship. After listening to his carping for several minutes, she said, ‘You know, Brad, sometimes you can be pretty cynical.’”

Her comment burned, but her words kept working on him. After a while her meaning sank in. “It’s not about your supervisor. It’s about you.”

A couple of years later when he was in his first year as a pastor of a church, he realized that his supervisor had taught him a good deal more than he realized. He learned to appreciate the straight talk that was uncomfortable, but for his own good. He wrote his former supervisor a letter and told him so.² Kindness does not mean that you always give the other person what they want. Rather, it is giving them what they need. Parents know that kindness can come in the form of tough love. Sometimes that is what is required to nudge them into adulthood. We need wisdom to strike the proper balance between compassion and challenge.

Paul counsels us to strip off the old self and to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. And, above all, to clothe ourselves with love. To do so today, often means bucking the tide that threatens to sweep our country into the sewer. But I fear that many will say, “What’s the use?” and surrender to the mean-spiritedness that is on the rise. It is vital that we not give in to feelings of helplessness. We must do what we can, where we are, to the best of our ability.

Brian Doyle, editor of a university publication writes, “You cannot order or command everything. You cannot fix and repair everything…All you can do is face the world with grace, and hope you make a sliver of difference…You must trust that you, being a very good you, matters. That trying to be an honest and tender parent will echo for centuries through your tribe. That doing your chosen work with creativity and diligence will shiver people far beyond your ken. That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will somehow matter in the social fabric and save a thread or two from unraveling. And you must do all of this with the sure and certain knowledge that you will never get proper credit for it, one bit, and in fact the vast majority of the things you do right will go utterly unremarked; except, perhaps, in ways we will never know or understand.”³

Margaret drives to the local nursing home every Thursday afternoon. She arrives a few minutes before two o’clock and heads to the recreation room where the old, slightly out of tune, upright piano sits. Two dozen residents are there awaiting her arrival, and when Margaret enters the room, their eyes immediately begin to sparkle. Some of them have hobbled down to the room on their walkers and they are exhausted from the journey. Some have slowly and painstakingly wheeled themselves down the corridors. Others, too weak to propel themselves, relied on the staff to push them to the gathering place. For many of them, this is one of the high points of the week.

Margaret sits down on the piano bench and her hands immediately crash down on the ivories. She plays a peppy piece from the Big Band era, and the residents are delighted. During the hour she plays Sousa marches, church hymns, African American spirituals, even slips in a couple of songs by the Beatles. The residents clap and laugh and for sixty minutes their spirits soar and their aches and pains vanish.

Margaret knows that the residents love their Thursday afternoons together and she’s happy to play for them. What she doesn’t know is that she’s a messenger of God, a hidden chaplain. Some say she just comes in every week and plays the piano for an hour. I say she becomes a conduit of God’s healing love, filling the residents with hope and joy. Margaret was my mother, and oh how I wish I would have told her that she was one of God’s hidden chaplains.

A well-known journalist recently wrote, “I suspect that over the next couple of years we will see a values struggle over what sort of person we should admire, and what values should govern our society. The battle is on for the hearts and souls of the coming generations.”⁴

Will you be swept away by the wave of rancor that is so prevalent in our country today, or might someone identify you as a hidden chaplain?

NOTES

1. Agnes Norfleet, “Advent’s Action Plan 3: Let it Be,” December 17, 2023, relating a story by Nick Paumgarten, entitled “Department of Kindness: In Plain Sight,” The New Yorker, May 29, 2023.
2. Brad Binau, “In Praise of Shame,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 2025.
3. Brian Doyle, “The Final Frontier,” Sojourners, January 2016.
4. David Brooks, “The Moral Challenge of Trumpism,” The New York Times, November 28, 2024

Great Prayer of Thanksgiving

Randall T. Clayton

Eternal God, kind and compassionate, always welcoming, always loving: we give you thanks that you created a world and called it good, that long ago you sent prophets to show us the way, that you rescued us from bondage and still rescue us from the bondage of sin, that you have given us guidelines for a life that will reflect your goodness and grace in the world around us. We give you thanks that you came to earth in Jesus, and that he experienced the same struggles we experience, the same joys we know too. We give you thanks that he was raised from the dead, giving us victory over even the grave itself.

Next to your compassion and kindness, so much seems “off” in our world. So many places and people know staggering pain and loss. We remember especially this day those who still struggle in fire ravaged California, and the people of Gaza returning home to nothing. We pray earnestly this day for the people of Goma in the aftermath of the rebel takeover of that city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We pray for the wounded, for those sick and dying in overcrowded hospitals, for the people in that region desperately seeking food and water, for churches throughout that nation desperately struggling to be safety nets in a place with none. Bring peace, O God. Bring healing to a hurting nation and to a hurting world.

We ask for your healing and hope-giving presence to be felt wherever there is pain and loss. So many around us grieve – the death of children, and grandchildren, of parents and friends. Heal broken hearts. We pray this day for those who mourn the loss of friends, family members and loved ones in aviation disasters this week. Provide comfort. And so many are afraid – afraid they may lose homes and businesses, afraid they may lose jobs and freedom, afraid they may be forced to leave or unable to fulfill their dreams for themselves and their families. Show us how we can be messengers of your hope wherever there is fear of what may happen today or tomorrow. In times that feel unsettled at best, we ask that you continue to ground us in your love. Show us how to be signs of your mercy in our land. Help us to remember that your welcome mat is always out for everyone and not just for us or for those just like us.

Seeing bread and cup on the Table this day, we remember your love. Pour out your spirit on the gifts of bread and cup this day. Through this sacrament, strengthen our faith and our fellowship. Though bread and cup and table-memory, nourish us so that we might become the people you desire us to become.

We ask this remembering the family prayer which Jesus taught…Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.