Village Shepherd

In "The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, Dorian Gray is a handsome young man whose portrait is painted. It's a wonderful portrait, showing Dorian Gray in all the beauty of his youth. But Dorian becomes a very dissolute young man, into all sorts of seedy and dishonest and disreputable pursuits. As he grows older, and all his depraved and immoral friends begin to show the signs of their debauchery in their faces, Dorian Gray remains as young and fresh and beautiful as ever. But his portrait ages, and begins to show just what sort of a person he is. Eventually, at the end of the book, the portrait is restored to its former glory and Dorian Gray himself is seen for who and what he really is.

There's no getting away from it, we all age and signs of our ageing are seen in our faces. Even the film star I saw on television the other night who'd had so many face lifts and was so slender that from a distance she could be taken for 30, close-up looked to nearer to 70 and really rather sad.

It's also true that as we age, our characters can be seen much more clearly in our faces. People who have been miserable all their lives, look habitually miserable. And people who are always fall of fun and laughter, look as though they're really good company. I never want to smooth away the laughter lines around my eyes, for elderly people whose faces show the signs of laughter are so very attractive. I might, on the other hand, be very tempted to try to hide the frown lines, for elderly people whose faces are a mass of frown lines are best given a wide berth.

But there's absolutely nothing we can do to really change the way we look. There all sorts of fancy skin creams on the market, but none of them contain the elixir of eternal youth. We're stuck with our faces like it or not, and our faces show pretty clearly the sort of lives we've led and the sort of people we've become.

Perhaps it's too strong to say there's absolutely nothing we can do to change the way we look, because there is one thing. Christianity grows good people, people in whom the fruits of the spirit develop. And the fruits of the spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - show clearly in the face.

It sounds like it might take a lot of hard work and a really boring, goody-goody life to develop those characteristics. So is it worth it? And if it is, as Christians, how do we do that?

Amazingly, life lived with Christ is far from boring and never goody-goody. St. Paul frequently found himself on the wrong side of the authorities, and on several occasions ended up in prison. On one of those occasions, he wrote this letter to the Colossians, from his prison cell.

Perhaps in the past, particularly in the time of our Victorian ancestors, the Church with all its emphasis on "thou shalt not" has made life with Christ sound like a burdensome duty. But it only becomes a burdensome duty if we start from the wrong end.

Happily, to develop the fruits of the Spirit we don't have to do anything. As Saint Paul tells us in today's passage from the letter to the Colossians, all we have to do is to allow Christ to richly dwell within us. That will clothe us with love, and the peace of Christ will rule in our hearts.

There's a lot about clothing in today's reading. But I'm not sure any of the clothes Saint Paul mentions can be put on from the outside. "As God's chosen ones," he says, "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."

It's a lovely picture of the well-dressed Christian, especially as the words were written from the most degrading and evil of circumstances. Prison cells are never pleasant, but in the first century they were horrendous. On the other hand, prison gives you a long time to think and pray and meditate, so perhaps that's how St. Paul was able to put together such gentle and encouraging words. He waited upon the God within him, then wrote what God told him to write.

Of corse, the clothes he was talking about of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience are clothes which can't be bought, which only gradually become apparent as we grow older, and which come not from outside the body but from the inside.

Anyone who tries to be compassionate or kind or meek or patient or loving just because they think that's the way they ought to be, is sadly doomed to failure. You can wear a mask for a time, you can even wear a mask for years and years, but eventually your true self will be seen for what it is. In old age, when the inhibitions have died away, people are often seen as the characters they have really been, deep down inside, all their lives.

And perhaps that was one of the problems in Victorian religion. People were expected to follow a lot of rules and regulations, and as long as they did that, were reckoned to be OK with God. But that was the sort of behaviour Jesus denounced. He called people who dressed up in their Sunday-best morals but who didn't know the God within themselves, hypocrites and "whitewashed tombs" - clean on the outside but full of death within.

There's only one way to develop a beautiful face in old age, and that's to allow the word of Christ to dwell in you richly, and to let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Then you will, probably to your surprise, find you're clothed with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

What better way to start the New Year than to meet with the Christ dwelling within you and to allow him to order and determine your life? That way you will become a beautiful person on the inside and on the outside, for you will have discovered within yourself the elixir of eternal life.