It’s reported that Albert Einstein once said, “The problem with the speed of light is that it comes too early in the morning.” Think about that. You know, we’re in a season of darkness. As a matter of fact, we’ve just actually shifted. December 21 is actually one of my favorite days of the year because after that, it starts to get lighter. You know, we’ve reached the darkest point, and then it starts to get lighter.

Isn’t it interesting that we celebrate Christmas in the season of darkness, in the season when it’s hard to see. But again, God’s light pierces the darkness and brings hope and salvation. Sometimes the problem is that hope and salvation come too early in the morning, just like the speed of light, and we don’t always catch it, even though it’s right there.

Today I want to talk with you about “putting on love” that we heard in this passage from Colossians— about putting on love, putting on compassion. But I especially want to talk with you today about putting on God’s love and living out that love in the world.

Well, it takes patience. Anybody who is a parent, anybody who’s a supervisor, anybody who drives on the road these days, if you’re going to love other people, you’ve got to have patience. You’ve got to be ready to wait. So let’s begin to unpack this passage that we heard this morning and begin to think about what is God really trying to say to us.

You know, this particular verse that you heard, or the translation that you heard today, begins with the word “As”—“As this happens.” You know, other translations say “Because” or “Therefore.”  “Because,” “Therefore,” “As”—they’re all clauses that say… “This is about the reason why this happens. This is about our “Why.”  Have you ever thought about what is your Why? Why do you exist? Why do you get up in the morning? Why do you do what you do? Why are you here today? Have you’ve ever thought about your Why.

I was watching this program once and this comedian. He’s working (i.e., talking to) the audience. And he asks somebody in the audience to sing the hymn “Amazing Grace.”  A gentleman stood up who had a deep baritone voice, and he began to sing “Amazing Grace.”  And he sang it very well. And then the comedian stopped him and said, “Now listen, that was that was great. But now, I want you to sing it as though your daddy died and you lost your job. And you’re going through a really hard time. Now I want you to sing “Amazing Grace.”

Oh, man! Did “Amazing Grace” come alive! It was deep. It was so full. It was powerful. He had his Why. He had his Why. You know if I sang “Amazing Grace” right now it would have sounded like that first version. But gosh, you know, when Aretha Franklin sings “Amazing Grace,” you know she’s got a Why for singing “Amazing Grace.” You know, it just comes from her inner core and everything that she’s experienced and everything that she’s gone through.

You know, her father was a was a pastor, and he had always wanted her to sing in the church. And so she was brought up through that. And the soulful sounds and the challenges that she went through in her life gave her a reason, not just to sing, but reason to sing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. (I) was blind, but now I see.” Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come. It’s Grace that’s brought me safe thus far, and it’s grace that will lead me home.”

Do you have a Why? Do you have a Why about why you do things the way you do? Do you ever wonder about why you get up in the morning, even if it’s after the speed of light? Do you have a Why about where you work? Where you go to school? The people you connect with? The service that you do? What’s your Why?

This passage from Colossians begins with our Why and what the writer of the question says is our Why. “Because,” this verse starts, “Because (or) Therefore, God first loved us.” God chose us. Wow! Do we need any more Why than that? We are loved in spite of ourselves; that God first loved us. We didn’t have to do anything. God loves us just as we are. God loves us in spite of ourselves sometimes. God loves us, and God chooses us. God wants you. God wants you to be a part of God’s movement wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing.

That’s why God loved us before we even knew what love meant, or even how to love. God has chosen us every time, when nobody else would choose us, when nobody else would look to us. God said, “You are mine. I want you.”

Boy! The writer of Colossians really gets it straight. You know, this is the place where we start. We start with our Why. God loves us, and God chooses us. And then the writer says, “Now put on the clothing of… You know, get dressed up in these things.

I remember when I was a kid, I had Sunday clothing, you know, and it hung in the closet all week long. You didn’t wear it any other day. It kind of looked like this: a white shirt, a suit, nice shiny shoes, hair combed. I’ve worked on my hair quite a bit today. Hair combed, all ready to go to church—go to Sunday school, and then worship. And we had on our “Sunday best,” we would call it. Our “Sunday best.” We got all dressed up.

You know, one of the problems I see, one of the challenges I see, is this “getting dressed up for church” as a metaphor. It’s almost like we have a Sunday life or a weekend life when we worship, and then there’s the rest of the week. There’s the rest of the week that we do things.

I was once working with a lawyer about some important things in the community. And as we’re working on these things, we had to go to these sessions and be engaged with other people, and we had to advocate for certain rights and certain important pieces. And I was trying to bring my Sunday best. I was trying to bring God along with me into these conversations. I was trying to bring the sense that God loves you. And because God loves you, I love you.

And the lawyer pulled me aside and said, “Look, preacher, there’s the churchy-world. And then there’s the lawyer-world. And we are in the lawyer-world right now. And we have to address things in a certain way.”

You know, he was sometimes harsh; he even used words that don’t really represent the church. You see, sometimes you can win and lose your very soul. Sometimes you can do all the things that make you victorious but lose your very self. It happens when we try to bifurcate our lives. God here; the rest of my life here. We try to separate these two pieces. They’re not separate. They’re all one. God doesn’t say, “I’m going to love John on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but not on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.”  No, God loves me every day, every hour, every minute. God doesn’t bifurcate. God doesn’t love me when I’m doing good and doing things well and right. And then when I’m not, stop loving me. God loves me and chooses me.

And so when we put on this clothing, as the writer of Colossians says, it’s not like we put it on one day or for one activity or for one purpose and take it off the rest of the week. This is the clothing we wear all the time. Whether in court or out of court, whether in our job or out of our job, when in intense environment, or when everything’s calm and peaceful, when somebody’s singing “Amazing Grace,” or when somebody is cursing up a storm. This is clothing that we’re called to wear.

So what is this clothing that we’re called to wear? I love this: first and foremost, we’re called to wear the clothing of Compassion. We’re called to wear the clothing of Love, compassionate love, caring about others, that outward movement of God’s spirit in and through us. We are called to Kindness. What good is our love If it’s not motivated out of kindness? Have you ever seen love motivated by duty?  “Oh, this is what I’m supposed to do. This is when I’m supposed to do it.”  And have you ever seen love motivated kindness? There’s just a sense of “This person really cares. They’re a kind person.”

Second, or thirdly, you put on the clothing of Meekness. That’s what the passage says. I like the word Gentleness. Gentle. You know, some of the best people I’ve ever met in my life are gentle. I often find they’re the “salt of the earth.” They’re not trying to impose themselves on you. They’re just receiving you just as you are. They’re welcoming you just as you are. They have a groundedness to them. They’re gentle with you. Their words are not harsh. It doesn’t mean that they don’t get angry sometimes. It doesn’t mean that they don’t get frustrated sometimes. It just means that they have this spiritual grounding that runs down through their legs and through their feet and into very creation, rooted with the Creator. Gentleness. Gentleness.

And then you put on the clothing of Humility. You know, humility essentially says, “You matter.” Just like I matter. That’s humility. That I’m not better than you, and you’re not better than me. That we are all children of God. God is in each and every one of us. God cares deeply about each and every one of us. And because God is in us, I can recognize the God that is in you.

In yoga, they begin by saying “Namasta.” And it means “the divine in me recognizes the divine in you.”  You know, that’s what Jesus was all about. And Jesus said the Divine is in each one of us. Remember the passage in Matthew 25. When Jesus says, “When I was in prison, you came and visited me. When I was sick you came and nursed me. When I was hungry you fed me. When I was naked you clothed me.” And they said, “Jesus, when do we ever see you like that? We’ve never seen you in prison. We’ve never seen you naked. We’ve never seen you hungry.”  And Jesus said, “When you’ve done it to the least of mine, you’ve done it to me.”

You see, in other words, when you see me, Jesus in others, that’s when you really see “Namasta.” The divine in me sees the divine in you. Humility, I humble myself, because you are as worthy as I am. Your thoughts, your objectives, your hopes, your desires, are as important as my hopes, my objectives, my desires. That’s what humility is all about.

And then, the writer says, Put on the clothing of Patience. You know, in the Bible, it’s not unusual for the emphasis, or the word that’s trying to be emphasized here, or what the writer really wants you to see, is the word that comes to the end. Now listen. Those are some very powerful words—the words that come before love, compassion, gentleness, kindness, humility: they are all powerful words. They are all words that we should emulate. Those are words we should put on every day.

But why does the writer put patience at the end?  Well, all of those other articles of clothing come through patience. We really can’t love unless we’re patient. To be patient with each other we just take time to settle and listen and listen deeply. And we take time just to be gentle with one another. We take time just to humble ourselves. That’s what patience is.

Now listen, don’t misunderstand me. There are times to be impatient. I’m not saying you should always be patient every day of your life. There are times that we should be impatient. We should be impatient with evil. We should be impatient when people do racist things. We should be impatient when people try to destroy creation or abuse it. We should be impatient when people take advantage of the poor. We should be impatient when there are people who are hungry. We should be impatient when there are people who don’t have electricity or heating. There are times to be impatient. But that kind of impatience has already put on all of that other clothing, so that our impatience doesn’t get in the way of the real objective of helping things to move forward. Our impatience is not about us or not about our demands; but it’s what God wants to do in and through us.

You know, just when we thought God was losing patience with the world—the world had turned upside down. Challenging things, bad things, horrible, abusive things were happening. People were being enslaved. People were being taken advantage of. People were being persecuted for their beliefs. Just when we thought God has lost patience with the world, God sent Jesus. Born in a humble manger with gentle people and gentle animals, all gathered together so that God’s compassion could go out into the world.

You see, God is patient with us. God loves us first. God cares about us first. God wants to choose us first every time. In my in my life that takes a lot of patience. Because I don’t always get it right. I want to get my agenda through. I want to get what I think is important in front of other people. But God keeps being patient with me and loving me, just as I am.

You know in the Olney section of Philadelphia, I went to the St. James United Methodist Church. I grew up there went to the schools in Olney. I went to Olney High School in Philadelphia. And one of the persons that had such a great impression on my life was Dottie Warrington. Dottie Warrington was maybe five feet tal,l if that. She had this positive energy bursting with hope and joy. And she was just filled with compassion. She was gentle with us in the fifth and sixth grade of Sunday school. And most of all, she had the patience of a saint. teaching fifth and sixth graders can be a challenge. A lot of energy there, and particularly around the Bible and Sunday school and learning about all those things.

But her love just exuded out of her because she would patiently listen to each one of our questions. Listen to each one of our stories. Take time to just come next to us and sit with us and be with us. Be gentle with us. I have a stronger faith today because of Dottie Warrington. She helped me to learn about my Why and why I exist. My Why is God first loved me. Every day—my Why is—every day I get up God chooses me. God keeps trying to help me dress into the clothing that will help me and help the world with full compassion, gentleness, kindness, humility and patience.

In this Christmas season, as we celebrate the birth of Christ, I invite you to put on this clothing so that you might be in the world, that others might see the birth of Christ through you. Amen.