Well, I WAS thinking about “Lord & Tailor”. I’m always overdressed, somehow obsessed with being able to afford “nice” clothes. The guys I hung with in college were fussily careful about how we dressed, and would critique each others’ apparel for appropriateness. Scriptures for this weekend have an underlying thread (!) about garments: do we hide in them? or do they identify us with our faith and integrity?
The prophet Elijah was on the lam. He had done in Jezebel’s prophets of the Baal, and was she ever mad! “Where can I hide? I’m all alone!”, said he. Where else but back to the origins, Mt. Horeb/Sinai. When he at last got there, God asked, “What are you doing HERE, don’t you have an assigned place?” (I Kings 19:9) “Let me show you something that may give you courage,” said the Lord…and so there came a windstorm; and an earthquake!; and then a mighty fire–and finally, a sound of sheer silence which overwhelmed Elijah so that he wrapped his face in his famous mantle. Clothed in God at last!
Some have said that the Third Chapter of Galatians contains “Paul in a nutshell”. He effectively wrecks wrath’s walls by declaring all are equal in Christ. I especially like verse 27: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Paul’s letters are full of references to being identified by our togs, sometimes specialized items such as the whole armor of God. In another place, we’re exhorted to shed our old rags of sinfulness to don our gay apparel. In a period in which a person would wear the same old clothes for years (that’s all they had), thoughts of a new wardrobe were pretty welcome! Ah, the first Easter parade….
Luke’s Gospel, chapter 8, tells about a guy on The Other Side of the Sea of Galilee who lived naked in the tombs because he had a legion of demons. No one could control him until Jesus removed his demons into a herd of pigs–which immediately drowned themselves in the lake, to the outrage of their Syrian owners. “Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” (v.35) From Adam ‘n’ Eve to the young man with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to the host of white-robed saints in heavenly places, it seems that clothing (or lack thereof) gives opportunity for personal conversation with One who is both Beyond yet EverNear.
In the summer of my tenth year, I was proud to burst when I was handed my Little League uniform! I wasn’t very good–but I was On the Team! In Jr. High, I got to wear a scrumptious band uniform: red, with a shiny gold braid on the coat and a big red stripe running…. When I visit the hospital I almost always wear a clerical collar: the staff and patients know why I’m there and who I represent. Despite the temperature, I prefer to robe and wear an elder’s stole, when I lead worship. Yet I’ll shuffle off this mortal coil naked as the day I was born…and not as cute.
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My thoughts upon scripture lessons for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com
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