Colossians 3: 12-21 (links validated 12/10/24a)

Abraham Verghese’s remarkable book The Covenant of Water includes a lovely tidbit about Big Mol’s gratitude. It speaks to the kind of gratitude to which the apostles summon us in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. The physically maturing Big Mol has an intellectual disability that permanently suspends her in a child-like stage of development. She repeatedly tells her mother, “Ammachi, the sun is coming up.” Verghese points out that for 28 years of Big Mol’s life, the sun has never failed to come up. Yet every morning she’s ecstatic at its return. All of it leads Big Mol’s mother to muse, “To see the miraculous in the ordinary is a more precious gift than prophecy.”

Since I am what my family and friends sometimes call “sartorially challenged,” I periodically seek out fashion advice from sources that consider themselves expert. So I recently consulted Vogue magazine’s September 12, 2021’s “Ultimate Guide to the Fall Fashion Trends.” That advice sounds, well, interesting, but trendy. So Colossians 3’s proclaimers might stick to calling our hearers to the tried and true clothing that never goes out of style: Christ-likeness. It may not be especially trendy in a culture that increasingly seems hostile to holiness. But the Spirit gives it the kind of staying power that, by God’s amazing grace, won’t wear out before Christ comes again.

("There she sat all alone in the huge house, surrounded by the finest in furnishings. Her husband had run off with a younger woman, his “girlfriend” he called her. Just a few days ago the wife had received a notice to vacate the house. It was only in his name and he and the girlfriend wanted to live there. So the wife sat in the fading light of love and of the late afternoon, in candlelight...")

("In the British writer-physician A.J. Cronin’s autobiography, he describes being a doctor in the North of England when there was an outbreak of diphtheria. A little boy was brought in hardly able to breathe. As the Irish would say, “he had the dip,” and in those days that often meant the patient would die..." and another illustration)

There’s an odd little short story by the British writer, Max Beerbohm. It’s called “The Happy Hypocrite.” The main character is a notoriously self-centered individual, who’s got the marvelously appropriate name of Lord George Hell.Lord Hell seems, well, hellbound in his desire to live as dissolute and sinful a life as ever he can. As the story opens, he’s a wreck of a man. Anyone who looks upon his face can see the scars and furrows of years of hard living. At mid-life, he’s lost all his youthful vigor. His face is blotchy and bloated from years of overindulgence.But then, the miraculous happens. Lord Hell falls head-over-heels in love with a beautiful young woman. This is no mere physical desire on his part, but a high and holy — and very genuine — affection. There’s something about this virtuous young woman that makes him want to live a righteous life, for a change. Yet, there’s a great sadness in the nobleman’s heart, because he knows that, with his abysmal reputation, his beloved would never have him for a husband.There’s an element of magic to this story. George Hell puts on the mask of a saint, to hide his sinner’s face. It’s such a miraculous mask that, once it’s put on, no one can tell by looking at him that this is not his real face. As far as anyone knows, he is a kind and virtuous man.He courts the young woman and he marries her. They live happily together.That is, until a certain woman shows up from George’s past. For whatever reason, she’s not fooled by the mask. She knows the man underneath it (or thinks she does). One day, in the presence of George’s new wife, she confronts him and cruelly tears off his mask, expecting to reveal the bloated, pockmarked face of an old degenerate.Here’s where the magic comes in. What she reveals is something quite different. Behind the mask of a saint, there is no longer the face of a terrible sinner. George’s own face has become transformed by the power of love. He has become a true saint — and all by wearing that magical mask!...

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(Puppet Script by Louise Ferry)