12-30-12 - What are you wearing?

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear 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. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let 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. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Merry Christmas!  That’s right, its still Christmas until Jan. 6^th, so let the Christmas Carols ring loud and may we not find ourselves lacking in the Christmas Spirit.  And doesn’t our 2^nd reading today pretty much lay out what all of our cheesy movies tell us about Christmas Spirit?  “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, you also must forgive.” 

Clothing plays a large part of our lives.  It displays our loyalties, whether it be to a sports team or a brand.  It can define our social status, whether we are in ripped up jeans and an old t-shirt or in a tailored suit.  We are so often told to dress to impress and that our clothing and how we do our hair will make our true first impression, before we even open our mouths.  This is something that has never really changed, all the way back to Joseph and his coat of many colors.  And not only all of that is true, but also that the clothing we wear prepares us for what we are going to do with our day.  It would not work to wear a sweater to go swimming or a swimsuit to go ice fishing, but instead we are to wear that which best suits our purpose.

So when we are told in Colossians to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” all of these attributes of clothing come into play.  For our first impressions as Christians, before people even meet us, are colored by what we are clothed in.  For instance, I was visiting  Jewish friend yesterday and I brought up how Crown Theatre Productions here in town is converting into doing only Christian theatre, no more secular shows.  And his reaction was “When I think about theatre, I think about open-mindedness, of fun, and exploring life, searching for answers.  When I think of Christian Theatre, I think of the opposite, of close-mindedness, where you are told exactly what is right and what is wrong and you are beaten with it, with no room to find answers for yourself.”  And that is the outfit that we too often finding ourselves wearing, one of intolerance and judgment. 

And whenever we buy into that image, the worse our outfit gets to the rest of the world.  Whenever we cry out for a place of privilege that our religious rights are being persecuted whenever there are events held on Sundays, forgetting that our Saturdays are always filled as well without any worry about our Jewish brothers and sisters, that self-important image grows.  Whenever we hold a grudge against one another and spread rumors, we put on our heads a hat of judgment, which looks like a dunce hat.  Whenever we walk past the poor and oppressed with barely a thought or we cry out for vengeance, we wrap the coat of hate around us, and it is a bright coat that holds people’s attentions far more than any of our words will ever be able to.  And these clothes do nothing for us besides blind people from the love of God, including ourselves.  For whenever we act out of bitterness or pettiness, we only poison ourselves. 

But when we act out of love, when we clothe ourselves in love and compassion and humility, instead of judgment and self-importance and self-righteousness, we clothe ourselves in the will of God and we clothe ourselves in garments that bring light to the world, instead of darkness.  When we clothe ourselves in forgiveness and understanding, then we can begin to bring healing into this world and we can begin to heal ourselves.    

And that is what we are called to be as a church, a people and a place of healing, place that is open and welcoming to all people, no matter what we may wear.  For each of us is imperfect, each of us carrying our own sins and our own mistakes.  That is why we so often begin our worship services with confession and forgiveness, and why we pass the peace right afterwards.  We don’t pass the peace as a way to catch up with one another, but as way to share the love and the grace that God has already given us with one another.  It is a time to look that person in the eye who we might think has given us the greatest harm and to say “Peace be with you, I forgive you,” and to be given that peace and forgiveness right back. 

When we forgive, we are fully clothing ourselves in God’s righteousness, for we are showing love to our neighbor, showing compassion and kindness and patience.  In two days we begin a near year in the secular calendar, 2013.  May one of our resolutions be to not only forgive, but also to seek forgiveness.  May we set aside the burdens that we carry on our backs, the resentment of those who have left our community of faith over the years, the unthoughtful words that have caused us undue stress and driven wedges in our community and all of our lives, the perceived slights that have wounded us, and all the rest of those pains and hurts that have been inflicted upon us, let us let them go and be reunited with our brothers and sisters in Love, which binds us all together.  And may we open ourselves up to each other and to apologize and seek forgiveness for our words that we have spoken, for the slights and passive aggressive things that we have done, and for the actions that have caused any divides among us, showing humility and accepting that we are not always right, but instead are always in need of forgiveness ourselves.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said that “without forgiveness, there’s no future.”  And that is most certainly true.  If we cannot forgive one another and show compassion and kindness, then we can never do true ministry, the will of God, for we will be stuck and held done by the sins of others and our own sins as well, and we will be showing off clothing colored with judgment and hate and jealousy, nothing different from the rest of this broken world.  But if we are able to forgive, if we can choose love over hate and healing over pain, then our clothes shall shine brightly and call to each person to come home to God, to feel His healing presence in this world, and to experience the goodness and hope and peace that He brings.