Do you remember that old joke about the parent who picks up the child from church? The parent asks what the preacher's sermon was about, and the kid says, "Sin. She's against it."Well, that's today's text. Sin. Paul is against it.

And he's got good reason to be against it. But look at this text! Paul has two lists of vices, five vices apiece. He can go into great detail about what we aren't supposed to do, but when he gets to what we should do, he gets a little vague. I suspect I've already shared with you the logic my high school friends and I developed concerning the behavior that was expected of us. We'd been given a whole list of "do nots" - no drinking, no smoking, no swearing, no dancing, no going to movies, no chewing gum. We figured the only thing left that we could do was park. Paul was at the head of a long line of religious writers, putting together lists of "do not."Sin? He's against it.

Paul doesn't start today's passage with "do nots."He begins by telling us what has already taken place. We are already new beings, by virtue of our baptisms. This is an accomplished fact - that we have a chance at new life. This newness isn't literally evident yet, since it is waiting for the kingdom of God. The end times. In the meantime, we act as if we have a new life. We do that by killing our old ways - killing our individualized, self-directed sins, killing the outward-directed sins towards others. As we "live into" who we are as new creations in Christ's perfection, we no longer see artificial distinctions and classifications of people. We can treat each other lovingly, because we know in our deepest guts and hearts that we are God's beloved. In that holy and sacred state of mind, we individuals come to see that we are all one body, united in Christ's love.

In other words, today's text is more than, "Sin: he's against it."It helps to read past today's lectionary text, to get more about positive behaviors. Listen to what Paul goes on to say in Colossians 3:

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, 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, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What Paul is saying is that the point of the Christian life is becoming (being in the process of) what we were declared to be in our baptisms. At our baptisms, we are new, but our "newness" is not a finished product. We grow into the finished product as we worship together, as we practice a unified body life together, as Christ lives in us more. What Paul is saying is that we need each other to be part of the body so that we will be ready when we are united with Christ.

What happened last week in our worship service is an example of what Paul is talking about. Last week, we baptized both Robin and Kenneth Fisher. At those baptisms, the church was acting on God's behalf, the church was saying, these two are new creations. Now, the powerful thing to me about those baptisms was that one was an infant and one was an adult believer. And both baptisms declared God's powerful work in making new creations. When we put water on her head at Robin's baptism, we were saying, "Everything is different now. God has made Robin into the perfect image of her creator."When we took promises on behalf of Kenneth and Robin, we put ourselves under obligation to them and to each other to help them become that perfect image of God. When we listened to Robin renounce evil and claim Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, we did more than initiate her into a really nice group of people. We said that we believed God would use us in her life, and her in our lives. We signed on to be changed together into people who are holy, people who live like we are beloved by God, who are compassionate and kind, full of humility and quiet strength, people of discipline and patience.

And then we baptized Kenneth. This was the ultimate statement of faith. When we put water on that child's head, we were signing and sealing promises that God made through us. As witnesses to this baptism, we said that we believe God has already decided to make a new creature in this person. Despite our knowledge that Kenneth, like all children, will sooner or later come to the years in his life when he will become rebellious and disobedient - and maybe even mouthy. The water and the promises are more than an unthinking optimism that maybe this time it won't happen, maybe this time the child will stay innocent. This is about God's promises to claim this child. God's work is always more powerful than our feeble efforts at keeping our promises to "nurture him in his faith" and maybe teaching his Sunday School class someday.

What happened last week was more powerful than even our fondest hopes. What happened last week - and what happened at our own baptisms - was more important than what humans can attempt. Because it is God who acts. It is God who makes true what Paul says, "You have been raised with Christ. You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ (who is your life) is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory."Can you beat that?

No! And that's why this sermon is about more than "Sin: she's against it."What Paul is saying in Colossians today, what we witnessed and participated in last week at the baptisms of our new brother and sister, is that the Christian life is more important than "follow Jesus and do your best."Paul is telling us that our baptisms were a life-changing entry into God's kingdom. Even if we were infants or naïve about a choice we were making, God is acting in baptism. God has decreed that our baptism changes everything. Paul's grammar - you knew I'd finally get down to grammar, didn't you? - Paul's grammar says that we have left the old ways of the world. Period. Sin, death, the example of the old Adam - it's done. We have taken up the new order - God's ways, life. And we are doing that continuously. It's the sort of thing that, even though the entry into the new way is a single, accomplished fact, the turning away from the old and embracing the new is a continuous, over and over, daily decision. We still have to keep refusing the ways of death. We still have to keep embracing God's way. Every day we have to decide that we are - still and again - God's beloved.

This sort of thing keeps on until God's kingdom is fully established. It's the old now/not yet theology. Until that time comes, the church (believe it or not! this flawed institution), the church is the signpost, the putting-into-concrete-reality, of what God intends human life-in-society to be.

The church is the distinctive thing in our culture. The church and Christians are those odd ducks who choose life over death. Christians. You know, those folks who put a little water on someone or dunk them in water, and claim that something is new and different. Those folks who eat a little half-a-mouthful of bread and sip some juice and claim that this is a "feast" and that it looks ahead to some kingdom, it looks behind to some guy dying on a cross out of "love."This nibble and sip is some act of "gratitude." Christians are those folks who claim not to cheat on their taxes, who give hard-earned money to buy food and get help for deadbeats who are out of work, who drive each other (and total strangers) to the doctor, who listen to the same story over and over from sick people, because it helps them get better. Christians are those folks who don't gesture at the driver who cuts them off in traffic, who don't tell dirty jokes, who don't pass on gossip. Christians are those folks who bring casseroles to families when people die, who are content with simple living (so that others may simply live).

Christians are those people who try to be kind and compassionate, meek and patient. Not because they think "it's better to be good because it's nicer."It is nicer to be good. But Christians do these things - kindness, compassion, patience - out of love. These are acts of humility, acts of gratitude. They are acts of thanks to God that they are made new. Friends, we get another chance! Every day God gives us a fresh chance, every day God is dying for us to ask for help in becoming more who we were created to be. This is what the Christian life is like. This is what it means to be baptized. Sure. Sin - we're all against it. But even better: we are made new so that we aren't stuck in sin. Thanks be to God!