MY BROTHERS IN CHRIST

                                                                 A sermon by Rev. George R. Taylor

                                                                         First Presbyterian Church

                                                                                                                                                               June 24, 2007

     Even the very least clothes conscious among us have to give extra consideration from time to time about what we are going to wear. An invitation to a formal dinner party requires different attire than an invitation to a back yard barbeque. Dress casual in some circles means a sport coat and tie, rather than blue jeans and khakis.  Clothes might not necessarily make the man and those who dress for success might not necessarily get the job, but we do know that clothes make an impression, they tell others something about us.

     Early on in my ministry I interviewed for an assistant pastor’s position  (back in 1977 the position of assistant pastor still existed).  The church was the Mountain View Presbyterian Church in Loveland, Colorado. I had just completed three years as the assistant pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Brighton, Colorado, just north of Denver, and despite my love for the congregation, a rather stressful and less than ideal working relationship with the senior pastor caused me to look elsewhere. I was one of two finalists for this position, and as it turns out, the other candidate got the job.  When I spoke with a member of the assistant pastor nominating committee afterwards, I was told several on the committee were uncomfortable with me because I was from the east. And in this case I don’t think they were thinking of me as a wieman from the east who had followed a star to Loveland. By east, they meant east coast.  The other candidate was born and raised in nearby Idaho.  I think those subconscious stereotypes about easterners and westerners were accentuated by the clothes each of us wore to our interviews.  I wore a regular dark suit, a white shirt and tie, and black wing tip shoes.  My competition wore a western cut suit, a bolo tie, and cowboy boats.  Even though I had by then lived in Colorado for over three years, my clothes seemed to communicate that I was not one of them.

     We all have watched programs on TV or observed this scene in a movie where a flustered, panicky woman comes out of her walk in closet which is stuffed to the brim with endless racks of dresses and stacks of shoes, screaming in despair, “I can’t find anything to wear!”  None of us want to get overly invested in our clothing and personal attire. We all want to look nice and dress appropriately for the occasion, to be sure. None of us, however, want to  cross over into the dark side of vanity and self-pride.

     Concerns about clothing and what we are going to wear are not new.  From the beginning of time, men and women have had to dress to stay warm, protect themselves from the elements, and exercise a modicum of modesty.    For the longest time Adam and Eve were totally unself-conscious and very relaxed about walking around in the Garden of Eden, butt naked.  At some point however, as a result of disobeying God and feeling much guilt, they became self-conscious and embarrassed about their nakedness and clothed themselves for the first time, donning the latest in fig leaf apparel.   It would not be long after that when clothing would be as much about making a fashion statement and expressing one’s high rank or status, as it was about staying warm and dry.

     Clothing has been one of the most basic and prevalent of common human experience. Which is why the Bible has so many references to clothing and uses apparel as in metaphorical ways.  The Psalmist says that the meadows will clothe themselves with flocks and deck themselves with grain. In Proverbs we read that the drunkard and glutton will come to poverty and drowsiness will clothe them with rags. Ezekiel says that God will clothe Lebanon in gloom for their unrighteousness.   And Jesus assures his anxious audience saying “If God so clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more clothe you?”  Peter writes in his epistle “all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another.” And the apostle Paul repeatedly enjoins us to clothe ourselves with righteousness and faith. “Put on a breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”

     In this morning’s lesson Paul exhorts Christians in Galatia to put on Christ, to clothe themselves in Christ. It is important to understand what led up to this admonition from Paul.  It seems the Galatians were either slow in understanding Paul’s teaching or they simply disagreed and decided to adhere to their own opinions and philosophies.  To put it mildly, Paul was angry with the Galatians, because they were distorting the very essence of the gospel. They were saying that before a person could become a Christian, they must first become a Jew.  They must first be circumcised, or they would not qualify for admission or merit being included. Despite Paul’s teaching, the Galatians still clung to the law as a means of self-justification, of proving their righteousness, and assuring their admission into the kingdom of God.  Paul conceded to them that the law was important, and not to be discarded, but only as a disciplinarian, or a guardian, until Christ came.  But now that Christ had come, a Christian was no longer subject to the law, rather, subject to Christ, for we are now all children of God through faith. It was by the grace of God that we are saved, through faith, and not the works of the law, lest we boast.

     It is in the heat of this crucial and contentious theological struggle, that Paul says, “As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  And as a result of this new attire which conveys a new identity and purpose, as a result of being clothed in Christ, you will see the world and all who dwell therein differently from those who are not clothed in Christ.  You shall now adopt God’s point of view, God’s way of seeing and thinking and judging, and you shall come to understand and believe that in Christ there is “no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of your are one in Christ.”

     Back in the first century, when someone was baptized they were taken to a river or lake.  None of this Presbyterian sprinkling, where like Brylcream, a little dab would do you. Early Christians were totally into dunking.  Baptism by immersion. Before they entered the water for the baptism they would take off all their clothes. Now, some of you might be thinking to yourselves: naked baptisms - that certainly would be one way to boost attendance!  But the idea was that in baptism a person was shedding all their old allegiances, all their old loyalties, so that they could commit themselves entirely to Christ.  So when the person was then brought up out of the water they were given a white robe to wear, like everybody else who was baptized was given to wear.  Symbolically, what was happening was that the old clothes that separated and distinguished people from one another were set aside, so that those who were baptized might not focus on the differences between them, but that they might focus on what they all held in common - faith in Jesus Christ.

     Paul even goes so far as to say that old divisions that we used to think were so important, don’t matter anymore. As he says, in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek. In other words, putting on our nationality or ethnic heritage as our sole identifying factor was a thing of the past.  In saying that there is no longer slave or free, is not Paul saying that economic and social class no longer are the determining factor about who is OK and who is not, about who is a success and who is a failure.  Like nationality, or ethnic heritage, economic and social status are a reality which must be recognized, but we must not give these distinctions the power to determine our personal value and worth to society. Paul even goes so far as to say that in Christ there is no longer male nor female.  By that he means that the stereotypes we carry with us about what men should be like and what things men should do, and what women should be like and what women should do, as Christians, these stereotypes no longer are acceptable nor should be operative in deciding a person’s role in personal relationships nor their place in society.

     Which is not to say that our nationality, our ethnic background, our economic and social circumstances, and our gender do not contribute substantially to our understanding of who we are.  Becoming an American citizen does not mean, however, that an immigrant need leave their ethnic and cultural identity behind, as if to erase the blackboard of one’s personal and cultural identity clean.   Those who are clothed in Christ come to see that our differences are such a rich source of mutual edification and education. Our unity need not find its strength in a uniformity of thought or behavior or appearance. Our unity is found in a common commitment to the peace and justice of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we walk in the loving, forgiving, and sacrificial ways of our savior.

     During my most recent illness which has plagued several in our congregation too, I watched the made for TV miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg called “Into the West” about the growth and development of the west from 1825 through 1890.  In large part this series showed how American expansion and settlement into the west cost the Native Indians their land, their culture, and for many, their very lives.   This six part series was not easy to watch, for it chronicled historic events of ruthless exploitation and broken promises which led to America’s own shameful experience of genocide and ethnic cleansing. A particularly difficult episode to watch was about well intentioned, well meaning efforts to assist the Indian. In an effort to Americanize and equip the Indians to live and do commerce in the modern world, hundreds of Indian children were forcefully taken from their families and transported back east to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where they were trained and educated at the School for Indian Children. What was so painful to watch was how these children were forbidden to be who they were and act as their parents had taught them. They were forbidden to act in anyway that faintly resembled their Indian ways and culture. It was assumed by the white teachers that being an American and being an Indian were mutually exclusive and were in no way compatible or complimentary.  So the children’s long hair was cut, their native clothes were burned, they were prohibited to speak their native tongue, and they were forbidden to practice any customs or ways from their former life.

 Friends, I do not think that this is at all what the apostle Paul had in mind when he said there were no slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female, but all are one in Christ.  Being baptized into Christ does not mean that we become blind to our respective differences which make us unique and distinct.  What it means is that we seek our unity, not in our uniformity, not in everybody looking the same and thinking the same way. We find our oneness in Christ, whose grace alone can save us and whose love alone can make us whole.

     What Paul could not countenance or abide was the self-righteous attitude which said that I know better than you, therefore I am right and you are wrong, I am the real believer and you are not.  I am on God’s side of history and you are clearly in disobedience to God’s will. This attitude not only threatened the unity of the church, but contradicted the gospel which Paul preached. The gospel according to Paul was not about the law but about God’s amazing grace - grace we cannot earn, control or monopolize.  God’s grace is free according to Paul, and God is free to be as gracious as God wants.  We cannot tell God who God can love and make welcome in God’s household. God’s grace will be what it will be and reach as far as it will reach, and that is farther than the eye can see or the mind can imagine. God’s grace will be as patient as the father in Jesus’ parable of the prodical son.  It will be as merciful to strangers as the Good Samaritan.  It will be as compassionate as Jesus was to the lepers and the prostitutes and others whom society branded as unacceptable or unworthy.  And it will be as incomprehensibly forgiving as Jesus’ last words on the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

     Last week our Building Preservation Task Force had another of their almost weekly meetings. Several of us were down in the basement under the fellowship hall lounge.  To get there you go through a secret trap door hidden in the floor. Once you get there, you feel like you are in more of a dungeon, than a basement.  A member of our committee was late in arriving and eventually discovered we were down in our version of the catacombs, evaluating the condition of the floor beams above. Upon finding us down below, this church member greeted us with warmth and affection saying “My brothers in Christ!”  Once a person is baptized into Christ and puts on Christ, and clothes himself or herself with Christ, there no longer is Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we all are one in Christ.  Yes, you are my brother in Christ. You are my sister in Christ.  Not because of who you are or what you’ve done, but rather because of who God is and what God has done for us all, adopted us by grace into one heavenly family where all are children of God and brothers and sisters of one another.

     Yes, we who have been baptized into Christ, and we now who are clothed in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit see the world and each other in a totally different light, the light of Christ, and with glad and loving hearts we greet each other “My brothers and my sisters in Christ.”