Ever since the airlines have been charging for checking bags, people have been carrying on more bags. We measure the bags to make sure that we have the largest bag that still meets the carry-on requirements. But one of the things about carrying on your luggage is that you have to keep up with it throughout your travels. When you go through the security checkpoint you have to heave it on to the conveyer belt to go through the x-ray machine. You have to know to take out any liquids and place them in a separate container as well.

When you walk to your gate you have to drag it on its rollers or heft it onto your shoulders. As the speakers throughout the airport remind us, "Please do not leave your baggage unattended." So wherever you go in the airport, your bag goes with you. If you go into a shop to pick up a magazine or a bite to eat, your bag goes with you. If you decide to stretch your legs while waiting for your flight, your bag goes with you.

When you get onto the plane you have to lug your bag down the aisle and hope to find room in an overhead compartment somewhat close to your seat. Then when the plane lands, you have to pick up your baggage again and lug it to whatever location is next.

I don’t know about you but after I’ve been lugging around a bag and finally get to put it down and walk away, it’s a freeing experience. When I finally get to the hotel and can leave my luggage there I notice that for just a while after giving up carrying around that luggage, I miss it. I have that moment of panic when I reach around for that piece of luggage I’ve been lugging around only to find it’s not there. It’s a mixture of relief, because I don’t have to carry it around any more, and panic, because it’s not in my possession any more. I’ve gotten so used to it that it had almost become an extension of me. But I’m always glad to be able to put it down and walk away.

The writer of Colossians talks about putting down some of the luggage they have been lugging around. All of those things they did before following Christ, are to be put off like a piece of luggage. The author gives a few examples: greed, anger, abusive language, lying. These are just a sampling of the things we are to put off when we put on Christ.

When we give up something, many times we get a combination of feelings: relief and regret, freedom and longing. The Colossian Christians have been working to follow Christ and in order to do that they have to give up some things. Giving up old, entrenched habits is hard, to put it mildly. Like with the luggage we leave behind, we keep looking back with panic when it’s not there.

But yet it isn’t enough to simply give up on these old habits. The writer says, "seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator." We have cast off the old self and put on the new self. But this is more than simply exchanging one piece of luggage for another.

This new self is being continually "renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator." I was reading an article in a recent Presbyterians Today, which featured different Presbyterians saying why they chose to follow Christ through the Presbyterian Church. In this article, Will McGarvey, a pastor in Pittsburg, California said, "I really [feel] it is a living faith and a reasoned faith. You don’t have to check your brain at the door when you go to church. That’s one of the reasons why I’m Presbyterian."

"You don’t have to check your brain at the door." I have shared with some of you how I got kicked out of Sunday School one Sunday when I was in middle school. The reason I got kicked out was that I asked too many questions. Now I will admit that some of the questions were probably just asked to get a rise out of the teachers but most of the questions were because I really wanted to understand what the Bible was telling me.

Pretty soon after that Sunday I was asked to leave class, things changed and I was able to go back to class with a different teacher. I can remember my youth director helping us deal with the questions we were asking. He wouldn’t give us simple answers or really any answers at all. He would simply walk with us as we explored what God was saying to us. Many times the only answer that could be given was "I don’t know."

In many ways hearing that answer from a leader in my church was freeing. All of a sudden I could put down that luggage that said there had to be an answer to everything and if I was a good Christian I would know all the right answers and all the right things to do. After all if he didn’t know the answer after all his study, then it was okay if I didn’t know the answers.

I worked in a drug store during the summers I was in college. I was a cashier, stocker, and customer care associate. This pretty much meant that if there was something that needed to be done in the store, I could be called on to do it. One of the first and most important aspects of our training was how to work with customers. Part of this meant knowing the store from top to bottom. This way if someone came up to us and asked where the Band-aids were, we could tell them not only were they in aisle 12 but they were on the left hand side halfway down the aisle.

One of the key phrases we were never to say was, "I don’t know." If we didn’t know the answer to what the customer was looking for we weren’t to say, "I don’t know." Instead we were to say, "I don’t know, but I will find out." It was also acceptable to say, "I’m not sure but I’ll find someone who can help you with that."

My youth director didn’t end conversations with "I don’t know." If there was something we were struggling with in regards to understanding a part of the Bible or the reasoning behind some event, the conversation didn’t end with "I don’t know." If there was something to be discovered or some way to dig deeper, we looked together to try to find clues. If there was no study that would help answer the question, we prayed about it.

No matter what the context, this life in Christ is being renewed in knowledge. As Presbyterians we embrace knowledge, learning, and rationality as ways to develop our life in Christ. We don’t ask people to check their brains at the door because we worship the God who gave us brains and the ability to think. We worship the God who calls us to put on a new self that is being renewed in knowledge.

Over the past month and until all the presbyteries have voted, there will continue to be much discussion about the General Assembly. There are overtures and study papers, minority and majority reports that have all been referred to the presbyteries for study, prayer, discussion, and voting. How it will all turn out, I don’t know. I don’t know but I’m willing to study, discuss, and pray. I’m willing to have God work so that my mind will be renewed in knowledge according to the image of the Creator. I hope others will join in that process.

We have put up these walls that divide us. Call them what you will – label them what you choose but they are barriers. Conservative and liberal, open and affirming, evangelical and Bible-based. When we draw battle lines, "I don’t know" is seen as an answer of weakness; a break in the walls to infiltrate.

However, when we break down those barriers and cast off that luggage of the old self that leads to anger, greed, lying, and abusive language, we realize that Christ was not in the barriers. Christ was not in each brick that we laid in our dividing walls. Christ instead is all and in all. Christ is not on the fence, walking the line and trying not to topple into one camp or another. Christ is in both camps tearing at the bricks and stones we use to build up our walls and hurl at one another.

When we can cast off our old self – the one concerned with getting its own way – and put on the new self – that self that is being renewed in knowledge – maybe we will hear our own version of "there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free."

Perhaps "I don’t know" can be an avenue of exploring together and not a weakness in the barrier. The things that divide us – those barriers made by human hands to divide because of gender, nationality, skin color, even theology – crumble when compared with what unites us. The Creator who continues to renew us is stronger than any division we can create. The Christ who is all and in all is stronger than all the stones we throw at each other.

Toss off that old luggage. Toss off that way of living as though you hold all the answers or at least have to pretend that you do. Toss off that way of living that cares only for yourself and those like you.

Instead put on the new self. That self that is being renewed in knowledge by God. Take up that new self that tears down walls. Take up that new self where "I don’t know" is not a weakness but an opportunity to grow together. And may God continue to renew your whole being in knowledge according to the image of our Creator. Amen.