1st Lesson Exodus 12:1-14
2nd Lesson Matthew 18:15-20
Sermon Lesson Romans 13:8-14
I brought a bag of Clemson-related clothing to the children's time... Clemson t-shirts, a Clemson sweatshirt, even orange pants and socks. We talked about how we often dress for sports events to help people know which is our favorite team. Then I talked about how Paul calls us to "put on Jesus" so that others will know how we're supposed to live our lives.
Sermon Title "Dressed for Success"
They say that clothes make the man - or woman. I have a pastor friend who went to visit a couple who were having a baby. The mother-to-be had been admitted to the hospital in the middle of the night in labor, and was progressing nicely, but still able to have visitors. Steve was going to a meeting where he wanted to make a good impression, so he wore his clerical collar, a sport coat, dress slacks and shiny black loafers. The only problem was that his usual visitation outfit consisted of blue jeans, T-shirt and Levi jeans jacket, so when he walked into the room, the new mom got this pained look on her face and asked her husband, “Is something wrong with the baby? I must not be doing well if Steve came to see me all dressed up.”
I’m not really a fashion bug – I've spent enough time watching the TV show “What Not to Wear” to realize that I need to clothe the body I have, not the one I want. But I have also spent a lot time the last week unpacking my HHG goods and asking myself, “Why do I have so many clothes?”
Fashion trends come and go. In our closets or storage, you might find favorite t-shirts or sweaters or jeans from days gone by. Maybe they have been deemed too worn to wear in public, or maybe the day has not come when we will fit back in them, but we still hold on to them because they seem to represent a little piece of who we think we are.
Walking around the campus at Patch or Pazner or Kelley Barracks
, you can know a lot about the people who live in this military community. BDU’s, DCU’s, ACU’s, ABU’s, flight suits… the uniforms designate service, rank, jobs and even countries where people have served. Civilians wearing ties and professional clothing distinguish themselves from those of us wearing jeans and yoga pants. Even I wear this robe and stole to declare something about myself – it helps define my role in the community as a pastor in the church. Yes, you can tell a lot about our community from the way we dress.
Last clothing analogy: Ten years ago, my husband and I were blessed to come to Stuttgart for the first time, staying two wonderful years. I remember an instruction to be sure that we dressed inconspicuously when we went out into the economy – no blue jeans – no tennis shoes – no flip flops. The funny thing was that the first time we went downtown, it seemed that everyone around us was wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes or flip flops. The assumptions were all wrong. It’s not blue jeans and t-shirts that define us as Americans any more than dirndls and lederhosen define who Germans are. The citizenship of the world and of the Kingdom are much more complicated than that.
This is not a sermon about successful fashion trends. In fact, in today’s epistle lesson, Paul is telling us that God doesn’t care about our wardrobes, but instead looks to see how our hearts and our lives are clothed. We may say that we are “Christian”, but do our words and how we behave match? Can people see Christ in our lives, or are they too cluttered with extraneous accessories to let Christ’s light shine through?
Most of little girls I know love to play dress-up, and most grandmas will make available to them the latest in dress-up fashion. From feather boas to high-heeled shoes, I have seen kids pile on so many articles of clothing and jewelry they could hardly shuffle around the room. That’s how many of our lives are – cluttered with the trappings of how we want people to see us. Being clothed with Christ not only gives us the opportunity to free ourselves from the hold that our possessions have over us, but also allows people to see who God has created us to be.
The commandments are not a list of does and don’ts … they are examples of how people who love live their lives. As “people of the Book,” biblical teachings can only truly inform and shape us if we are guided by love. When we think of religion and faith as the dimensions of our lives which tell us what NOT to do, then we have missed the boat.
In many ways, we are like rebellious teenagers - “my dad won’t let me do that thing I want to do because he doesn’t want me to have any fun.” But what would happen if we thought about our faith lives another way? From the beginning of creation, God created the world to be good, to be whole, to be lived in the image of God. As we grow in faith and practice living that faith day by day, hour by hour, we claim the promises God made with the proclamation, “It is good.” Love is the guiding force in God’s creation of us and the world around us. Love is our response as we seek to fulfill and perfect the lives that God created for us.
Love is peculiar. We think of it as an emotion, but looking through God’s eyes, it has to be so much more. God showed us that love is a state of mind. Love is action. It is a way of life. It is the foundation on which all of our hopes and dreams are built, and the parachute which catches us when we get caught jumping off the cliff in Christ’s name. It is the standard by which our lives are measured… as the American folk hymn says, “they will know that we are Christians by our love.”
Love is complicated - and confusing - and often contradictory with what others think our lives should be about. And we all know it is very difficult to maintain a Christian lifestyle and witness in the modern, consumer-driven world of today. Hard because we are always tempted to measure ourselves up to someone else’s standards. Hard because we want to be like other people… to stand out only when WE choose.
I am reminded of a story told by author Dan Taylor. In a letter to his son Matthew, he told a story about being in the 6th grade. Now from all accounts, Dan Taylor was considered by everyone to be really cool. And it would have been a perfect year for him if it had not been for Miss Owens, one of his teachers. Apparently, she knew that he still had a few lessons to both learn and teach. Anyway, each week, the class got a lesson in square dancing. Dan described the weekly ritual in this way:
Every time we went to work on our square dancing, we did this terrible thing. The boys would all line up at the door of our classroom. Then, one at a time, each boy would pick a girl to be his partner. The girls all sat at their desks. As they were chose, they left their desks and joined the snot-nosed kids who had honored them with their favor… The boys didn't like it… but think about being one of those girls… waiting to get picked… who would it be… would I be last.
Think if you were Mary, a nice girl, but not very witty or pretty or smart. She’d had polio when she was younger, affecting an arm and a leg… and she was fat… Here’s were Miss Owens comes in. “Dan, next time we have square dancing, I want you to choose Mary.” She may as well have told me to fly to Mars. I couldn’t even conceive of what they would do to my life when she did a really rotten thing. She told me that it was what a Christian would do. I knew immediately that I was doomed… because I knew that she was right.
I agonized. Choosing Mary would go against all the coolness that I had accumulated. The day came when we were to square dance again. All I could hope was that I would get to choose last. But instead I was first. “OK Dan, choose your partner.” I remember feeling very far away. I heard my voice say, “I choose Mary.” Never has reluctant virtue been so rewarded. I still see her face undimmed in my memory. She lifted her head, and on her face was the most genuine look of delight and pride that I have ever seen. It was perhaps that best day of my life, not because I had done anything so great, but because this simple gift was exactly what Jesus would have done. (Taken from Letters to My Children by Daniel Taylor, InterVarsity Press, 1989.)It is very easy to let ourselves be turned away from the light of Christ to the darkness that surrounds us, to say “no” when “yes” is the difficult, but right thing to do. The life of faith is hard work. And to keep ourselves on track, we only have one thing to do for the rest of our lives… practice. We have to practice loving people who are hard to love, so that after a few years or decades, we can do it without thinking.
There are glimmers of hope in all of our lives and in the life of this congregation. Living in an international community offers special challenges and opportunities to practice love in unusual ways. As military faith communities, we take up offerings to support local and international missions which bring Christ into the lives of many who are in need. But every encounter we have with a person with a different accent or experience or faith journey gives us an opportunity to put on the face of Christ and love, because we can and because it’s what we were created for.
And if we allow it, strangers will become friends. And that is exactly what life in Christ is all about… just practicing our faith, one day at a time. And hopefully with enough practice we will realize that clothing ourselves, our lives, in Christ is really to only way to dress for success-- Jesus’ kind of success, that is. Peace, Deb
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