This is something that we have to consciously choose to do. Getting dressed is not usually something we do without thinking about it. We take time when shopping to find clothes which we think suit us and generally we do just put on the first thing that comes to hand with whatever the next item is. Instead we match items until we are satisfied that we will look as we wish.
The new clothes that we are to put on as Christians are compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. That implies that the old clothes we take off would be their opposites; hatred, unkindness, pride, roughness, and impatience. Also implied is the idea that compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience do not come naturally to us, so we have to make a conscious change. Bishop Tom Wright has said that “the point about “vice”, the opposite of “virtue”, is that, whereas virtue requires moral effort, all that has to happen for vice to take hold is for people to coast along in neutral: moral laziness leads directly to moral deformation (hence the insidious power of TV which constantly encourages effortless going-with-the-flow). The thing about virtue is that it requires Thought and Effort . . .”
So change begins with a conscious decision, not a magical or instant makeover.
We can use a different illustration to see how this works in practice. Tom Wright says, “The illustration I sometimes use is that when you learn to drive a car, the idea is that you will quickly come to do most of the things “automatically”, changing gear, using the brakes, etc., and that you will develop the “virtues” of a good driver, looking out for other road users, not allowing yourself to be distracted, etc.; but that the highways agencies construct crash barriers and so on so that even if you don’t drive appropriately damage is limited; and also those “rumble strips”, as we call them in the UK, which make a loud noise on the tire if you even drift to the edge of the roadway.
“Rules” and “the Moral Law” are like those crash barriers and rumble strips. Ideally you won’t need them because you will have learned the character-strengths and will drive down the moral highway appropriately. But the rules are there so that when you start to drift, you are at once alerted and can take appropriate action – particularly figuring out what strengths need more work to stop it happening again.”
So, to sum up, Christian virtue comes “as the fruit of the thought-out, Spirit-led, moral effort of putting to death one kind of behaviour and painstakingly learning a different one.” When the Spirit is at work in us in this way, “we become more human, not less – which means we have to think more, not less, and have to make more moral effort, not less.”
What habits do you need to break and what habits do you need to build as a result of what we have thought about today? “So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience … and to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.”
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Hurtsmile - Jesus Would You Meet Me.
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