Wearing God

Wearing God

Galatians 3:26-29

April 26, 2020 • Mount Pleasant UMC

(Casual Shirt + Dress Pants) “Clothes make the man,” Mark Twain once said. He went on to observe: “Naked people have little or no influence on society.” I’m not exactly sure that’s what the proverb originally meant, but as with most things, Mark Twain had his own slant on things. The proverb, as best as we can tell, actually originated in the Middle Ages; one of the earliest places it’s found is in the writings of a Catholic priest, theologian and social critic named Erasmus. Around the year 1500, he observed what we all know to be true: you can tell a lot about a person by what they wear, and we do tend to judge people on some level by their attire. Most of you are probably used to seeing me in clothes like this; this is what we call today “dress casual,” and it’s what I typically wear when I’m out pastoring, whether working in the office, visiting in the hospital (remember when we could do that?) or preaching a sermon. When I wear a shirt with this logo, it tells people that I have some connection to Mount Pleasant. So this is what I typically wear “professionally.” Then there’s what I prefer to wear…

(Sweats + T-Shirt) During this time of social isolation, if you were to stop by the house (carefully staying 6 feet away, of course) or run into me in the drive-through at Starbucks, most days you would find me in sweat pants and a t-shirt…usually a Star Wars shirt. I may have one or two…or a few more…of these. This is what I’m most comfortable wearing during this time of year when I’m not ‘working.” And then there is another Dennis identity that you don’t see very often…

(Suit & Tie) When you see me in this sort of outfit, I’m most likely doing one of two things that preachers do: marrying or burying. I remember several years ago one time when I was at Starbucks and I had on a suit. The staff, who had just started to get to know me and didn’t yet know what I did for a living, was giving me a hard time about being dressed up. “What are you doing? Going to a funeral?” one said. When I said, “Yes, I’m actually doing a funeral, I’m a pastor,” there was an awkward silence that followed before someone mumbled, “Sorry.” I think I got my drink for free that day. So, yes, you can tell a lot about a person by what they wear. Clothes make the man…and the woman.

(Back to normal) Now, that’s a trick I couldn’t pull off in a regular church gathering, or if I tried, I’d need to be Superman and have a phone booth on the stage. Kids, ask your mom and dad what a phone booth is. Speaking of which, how does Superman change today? Oh, but I digress…though even with Superman, you could tell whether he was Clark Kent or Superman by what he was wearing, right? It was all in the glasses. Now, where was I going with that? Oh, right. Clothes. Last week, we began this new series exploring some forgotten or ignored images of God in the Scriptures. The Bible overflows with images—metaphors—which are trying to help us understand a God who is indescribable. No one image can fully explain God to us, and I often say that just about the time we think we have God figured out, he shows us some new dimension of himself. We tend to find a favorite image of God, hopefully one from a passage or two in the Bible, and we get stuck on that, but there are all these other images that show us other facets of God. Pastor Rick last week compared God to a diamond that looks different as you shine different light on it. He reminded us that one of those facets is a friend; God is our friend. That’s something important to grab onto during this time of isolation; I hope you’ve found God to be especially close during this time, a friend who is closer than anyone else. But today I want to walks us through another image, one that also reminds us of how close God is to us: God as clothing. We’re called, the Bible says, to wear God.

In the beginning, we were created…naked. It’s right there in the Bible, at the end of chapter 2 of Genesis: “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (2:25). That didn’t last long. When you turn to Genesis 3, you find Eve and Adam disobeying the one command God gave them, and that mistake cost them their innocence. The first result of the first sin was shame. The first thing they do, even before they run and hide from God, is to sew fig leaves together and make clothing for themselves. Have you ever wondered why? There wasn’t anything they hadn’t already seen, but there was something in that sin in the Garden that broke the relationship, not only between them and God but between the man and the woman, and so they used clothing—hand-sewn fig leaves, talk about a fashion statement!—to hide from each other. And after a game of hide-and-seek, followed by a long conversation, God provides them better clothes. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). What kind of “skin” do you think God clothed them with? Bear skin? Rabbit skin? Something soft and warm? Cow hide? Do you think the first clothes were made from leather? I honestly don’t know, but I do know this: the first thing God did for the new humans after their sin was to clothe them, to take care of them, to provide for them even though they had thumbed their noses at him. God still loves them; he takes care of them and clothes them. But, if it was indeed animal skin that God clothed them with, that means something had to die so the man and the woman could be cared for. It’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? Something died so that Adam and Eve could live.

Ever since that moment at the beginning of time, “clothes have not only protected us from the elements and kept us warm; they have also profoundly shaped our identity and our sense of self.” So says Dr. Lauren Winner of Duke University (Wearing God, pg. 36). She goes on to point out that clothing as an image runs all through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In that last book of the Bible, there is the strange image of the worshippers of God clothed in robes made white after being washed by the blood of the Lamb. Made white by the blood? And at the center of these many and varied clothing images is the one we read this morning from Paul’s letter to the believers in Galatia: “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (3:27). This is where it gets interesting, because in Paul’s thinking, God doesn’t just give us clothing. God becomes our clothing. Nowhere else in ancient literature or ancient religion does anyone suggest one person should be clothed with another person. This is absolutely unique, and it's not just talking about a person anyway (Winner 27). In Paul’s thinking, we are clothed with God’s own self. We wear God.

Some context here might be helpful: Paul is writing to help people understand what it means when they come into the Christian faith. These were all first-generation Christians. They didn’t have the history and the tradition (or the baggage that comes with all that) to rely on in order to understand this faith. So in this section of Galatians, Paul is contrasting what it means to live by the law and what it means to live by faith in Christ. We still struggle with that, as Pastor Rick talked about a few weeks ago. We go back and forth, a lot of times, between living by the law (legalism) and living in grace (Christ). I was on a Zoom call (and that’s language we’ve all learned recently) with our pastor’s prayer group a little while ago, and one of our colleagues (I won’t say whom) was telling a story about a time in his life when he was more theologically rigid, and we heard his wife in the background say, “You were a legalist!” We struggle with that; I struggle with that. But Paul basically calls the law a “babysitter.” It was never meant to be forever; we try to make it permanent, but it was always temporary. “The law,” Paul says, “was put in charge of us until Christ came that we might be justified by faith” (3:24). God used the law to teach his people how to live in a right way, but he never intended the law to be forever.

Instead, as believers in Jesus, we’re supposed to clothe ourselves with Christ. That’s a weird image. We don’t usually talk about being clothed with other people. I don’t think I’ve ever said, “I am going to be clothed with Cathy.” Now, there was a tradition in the early church of changing clothes when you were baptized, and not just because you got wet. In the early church, you would make a public profession of faith, renouncing the devil and the works of evil and as you did that, you would turn toward the east. That’s the place where the light came from, where the sun rises—so all of that was symbolic of turning toward Christ. Then, according to the baptismal documents that have survived, the candidate would take off his or her clothes—some scholars think that means just your outer garments and some think it meant all of your clothes, but we don’t really know. The instruction manual that survives says a person would be baptized naked, then after the baptism, he or she would receive a white robe to put on, and this is where the language of “putting on Christ” comes from. You would put on the white robe to declare that you had taken on the life of Christ, you had “put on” Christ (cf. McKnight, NIV Application Commentary: Galatians, pg. 198; https://bit.ly/2K5YAS5).

There’s also language in this passage about belonging to Christ; to “put on” Christ includes becoming part of a new community, a new family (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, pg. 41). Now, some of us may think a new family is a really good idea after all these weeks of quarantine! Maybe we’d like to have a new family—at least a different one we could try out for a while! For Paul, becoming a believer in Jesus does not do away with your earthly family, but it puts you into a much larger community, a bigger world. You are now part of the Messiah’s family. You’re an heir (3:29), and you’re part of a family where “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). That does not mean those distinctions no longer exist, or no longer matter. It’s just that they do not define us any longer. “Neither Jew nor Greek” is a cultural divide; both were proud of their cultural heritage, but Paul says those things are not the most important part of who you are as a human being. In an era when there are so many divisions and so many cultural prefixes to who we are, when we spend a lot of energy to “reclaim our culture,” it’s an important thing to remember that in the church, there is only Christ. Jew or Greek or Hoosier or Hautian or any other cultural label you might want to claim are not our priority (cf. McKnight 200). There is no Jew nor Greek.

Neither is there “slave nor free.” We skip right past this because, well, we think we don’t have to worry about slavery any longer. We’re all free. But this refers to any social divisions, any times we think we are better than that other person. We’re better educated or have “higher” social standing or more money than that other person—Paul says in the church, we’re all part of Christ and none of that ultimately matters. In fact, Jesus had put it clearly: that if we have whatever is considered “more” in our culture, we have more expectation upon us. Jesus said it this way: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (cf. Luke 12:48). The New Testament witness is clear: slave, free, high, low, wealthy, poor, all are one in Christ, all are welcome in the family. I get angry when I read stories about people being told they don’t belong in such-and-such a church. There is no one who doesn’t belong; there is no one who shouldn’t be welcome. In the early church, slaves gathered with Roman soldiers. It ought to be the case in today’s church that white gathers with black, Democrats gather with Republicans, liberals sit by conservatives. There is no longer slave or free (cf. McKnight 200-201).

And there is neither “male nor female.” Paul here focuses on the ages-old battle of the sexes. This does not mean that the differences between men and women don’t matter. God has made each of us unique and each of us have gifts and abilities that the other doesn’t. It’s not that those differences don’t matter nor does it mean that we shouldn’t capitalize on the strengths men and women each bring to the church. Of course, in Paul’s day, women were considered inferior in every way. Women were not to be taught the law, they were considered to be unreliable witnesses in legal matters, and in some synagogues, they had to sit in a different location from the men. In the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus’ hometown, there is evidence that the women had to sit upstairs in a balcony; we can talk more about that when you go with me to the Holy Land next January. Hey, I hadn’t put in a shameless plug for a few weeks! Paul says that both men and women have gifts and abilities and strengths to offer the body of Christ. Author Scot McKnight puts it this way: “For those who are in Christ, antagonisms, criticisms, snide remarks, subtle insinuations, and overt prejudices must end, for in him male and female are one” (202).

So if all of these differences aren’t what’s most important, what is? Paul says, “Christ is over all.” But how do we get past seeing the differences? Years ago, a new pastor was appointed to my home church and he was the first pastor they had ever had who wore a pulpit robe. After a time, someone asked him why he wore that when none of their previous pastors had done so. He said he did it because he didn’t want to be judged by his clothing. He wanted people to hear the Gospel, not to be focused on him, so he wore a robe to cover up his own identity to help others focus on Christ. Paul says, “Clothe yourself with Christ.” I don’t think he was talking about a pulpit robe, though that pastor had the right idea. What I think Paul is getting at by that image is that we ought to, every day, become more like Christ, more like Jesus in the things we say, the things we do, the way we live. The word Paul uses actually originally came from the theater; it had to do with becoming another character (cf. Boice, “Galatians,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, pg. 468). It might be similar to what we call “method acting” today, where a performer so embodies the character they are portraying that they don’t break character even between takes, or even when they go home. Now, we’re not pretending, not portraying a character. When we “put on Christ,” we’re actually called to allow ourselves to be transformed, to be changed, to really become more like Christ every day, every moment. It’s not about acting like Christ; it’s about actually becoming like him. Here’s the question, then, for us: when others look at you, do they see Jesus? When others think about you, do they think about Jesus?

When I am asked to do a funeral for a person I don’t know, someone who’s not connected with the church or even just someone I haven’t gotten to know very well, I will usually sit down with some of the family members and ask them to tell me about their loved one. What were they like? What did they enjoy doing? Did they have any hobbies? What trips or experiences do you remember the most? And Cathy will tell you, so many times I have come home from those meetings frustrated. Now, I know it’s a time of grief and that it’s hard to think, but I tell Cathy that I hope at the end of my life, when some pastor somewhere asks what was Dennis like, I hope that my family can say more than, “He was a nice person.” There are so many times when that’s all they have to say. “He was a nice person. She was a good person.” But then there are other times when I sit down with a family and we have such a good time as I hear about how the person loved others, how they reached out in concern and service to everyone they came in contact with, how they served in the church and in the community, and how they loved to worship and read the Scriptures. In other words—I hear about the ways that person was clothed with Christ. I will tell you, and I know Pastor Rick agrees with me, those times are joyful even in the midst of sorrow. There is something wonderful about celebrating a life well lived and a life clothed with Christ. I want to be like that; I want people to see Jesus in me. When all is said and done, I want to be clothed with Christ. I want to wear God.

When I think of people in my life who were “clothed with Christ,” there are so many that come to mind. I think of my parents, and of the many pastors I’ve had through the years. I remember so many people early in my life at the Rossville Church who allowed me to serve in so many different ways. As I shared with the Bible Explorers group last Sunday, those things really are a big part of how I ended up here; in many ways, I’m pastoring a church today because I got to serve back then. Pastor Amos was a lot braver than I am when he trusted this teenager to lead worship and direct a children’s choir! (Maybe he just couldn’t get anyone else!) But the person who always comes to mind when I think of someone who was definitely clothed with Christ, who embodied the character of Jesus more than anyone else, I think of Esther Beard, who was my high school Sunday school teacher. Esther had a profound impact on my life and on the life of many other teenagers who came through her class; many of them today are serving Jesus in a lot of different ways. Esther was there every Sunday, come rain or shine. I don’t know if you ever had the old Cokesbury Sunday school attendance pins here at Mount Pleasant, but if Esther had put her perfect attendance pins together she probably would have tripped over them. But it wasn’t just a Sunday faith for Esther; she loved Jesus every moment of every day with every fiber of her being. And her heart couldn’t stand the thought that someone might not love Jesus, so she told everyone she could about how much Jesus loved them. She never pointed a finger or condemned anyone; she just wanted everyone to be loved as much as she knew she was. Every Sunday when we got to class, Esther had her southern gospel 8-track tapes playing, and then we would get to the lesson. Except we rarely got to the lesson. She would start talking about Jesus and she couldn’t stop. And every one of we teenagers showed up every week, not because the lessons were so impactful but because her life was. We knew she loved us and we knew Jesus loved us because that was her message over and over. I remember one Christmas in particular, Christmas Day, and we got a call at home. It was Esther, and she just wanted to remind us that Jesus loved us. That Christmas, she called every family that had someone in her class. She took time out of her own personal family celebrations to love on us. And that’s just the way she was; she oozed Jesus. Esther was, without question, clothed with Christ. When I grow up, I want to be like her.

If we are clothed with Christ, if we have “put on Christ,” it should change the way we interact with everyone. It should change the way we interact with the world. We want to say what Jesus would say—and that’s not always an easy word. Sometimes being clothed with Christ means we have to speak out against what is wrong. Jesus pointed out hypocrisy and sin; we looked at his tearing up the Temple during Holy Week which was, at least in part, about the way Gentiles were being excluded from worship. Jesus also called out hypocritical religious folks by calling them a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 12:34; 23:33)—that’s not part of “winning friends and influencing people.” Jesus doesn’t always speak the comforting word, and as we put on Christ, we might be called by his spirit to speak a discomforting word. When we are clothed with Christ, we will do what Jesus do—we will complete his mission, which isn’t just about teaching Bible studies and singing worship songs. Those things are important, but Jesus said his main mission was to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom to the prisoners, proclaim recovery of sight to the blind, set the oppressed free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (cf. Luke 4:18-19). That’s a big undertaking! I don’t know entirely what it looks like, but I suspect it looks, at least in part, like the generous souls who have been taking lunches to special needs folks during this time of quarantine, to people who can’t get out and may be running short on funds. I suspect it looks like the teams of folks we have who are doing ministry in the local jail as well as the federal prison, and though that ministry has been suspended during this time of the coronavirus, the seeds they have planted on Monday evenings continue to grow. They go there to show that those folks are not forgotten, that Jesus still knows them and still loves them. I have a feeling in these days it looks like teachers in our congregation who I know are going “above and beyond” to reach out to and to care for their students. It looks like our preschool teachers who, even though the year is not ending like they thought it would, continue to help their students become prepared for kindergarten, even from afar. It has to do with checking on elderly neighbors who have no one else. Last week, I received an email from a missionary friend of mine in the UK who is doing just that. Even though she’s where she is to reach out to college students, she’s gone beyond her “usual” ministry to call and talk to some of the elderly ladies who live alone, just so they can hear a voice other than their own. In all these ways and so many more, people are putting on Christ and continuing his mission—even under quarantine.

And it’s all done in love; that’s what it means to be clothed in Christ. To say what he would say, to do what he would do, to exhibit more and more of his character into a world that desperately needs it. It’s not just about personal attributes; it’s about people seeing Jesus in you, through your life, yes, but also (and maybe more importantly) through your actions and through your words. Like I said, that’s what I want to be like when I grow up. “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (3:27). I want to wear God. Let’s pray.