Rev. Nick Cheek
Galatians 3:26-29 and Colossians 3:5-17
Every Sunday, I wear this. It’s called a Geneva gown. This black robe was once commonly worn in public by those with academic credentials. In the Reformed tradition, it came to symbolize the importance of scholarly training and learned preaching, the belief that those who stand in the pulpit ought to have done their homework. To add to the repertoire, there’s this. It’s called a stole. Its history reaches back to garments worn in the church during the Middle Ages, and over time it came to represent the yoke of Christ carried in ordained ministry. A yoke, of course, is something placed over animals to guide them—to turn them this way or that. When I put this on, it reminds me that I am do focus on the business of faith… covering my thoughts, actions, hopes in the ministry of Jesus. This stole also represents a burden… something I carry. It tells me that there is a weight to this calling: to preach the gospel in season and out of season… when it is easy… when it is challenging… and when it’s darn near impossible.
At times, we all wear certain clothing or outfits that mean something… that connect us to a certain group… an idea… a belief. Put on a Carolina Panthers jersey and, whether you intended to or not, you have made a public statement. Now, put on a Duke sweatshirt in Chapel Hill, and you have made a considerably more risky public statement. [short pause] Police officers, nurses, firefighters, doctors, scouts, service women and men… all wear clothes that communicate a cause… and purpose. This clothing, it identifies us with something greater than ourselves…
In our passages today, we hear about another garment we are all to wear… as people of God. Paul says, “We are clothed with Christ.” This phrase… is specifically tied to our baptism. Baptism is the sign and seal of God’s covenant grace, which joins us to Jesus Christ and incorporates us into the community of faith. Baptism is an act of God’s grace…. Claiming us as…part of the team… before we can even articulate what that means. And this particular clothing… precedes everything else. Before we have even had time to establish our identity for ourselves, God declares… You are mine… You are clothed in Christ… Paul uses this language elsewhere when he says that in Christ we are a “new creation” the old has passed away and the new has come. In other words, we don’t have to keep wearing the same old clothes. Sin, anger, pride, shame, resentment…these things don’t have to define us anymore. Christ gives us something new to put on: freedom and joy, forgiveness and grace, faith and hope and love. But… if you’re human. Which we all are. We have a difficult time shedding the old clothes. Over time… we have grown accustomed to them… perhaps we have even gotten comfortable wearing them. Sometimes we are more comfortable with shame than we are with freedom simply because shame is what we know. Sometimes, we hold onto that old, tattered T-shirt we have been wearing for years, the one that tells us we aren’t good enough, aren’t really forgiven, aren’t worthy of love, that we aren’t wonderfully created by a loving God. And… we may have even worn it so long that eventually we stop recognizing it as something we are wearing and begin believing it is simply who we are.
These old clothes we keep putting on… they represent something. They are identities the world has placed upon us. Long before we learned to understand ourselves through the grace of God, other people were already giving us names: A jacket that says disappointment on the front. A coat somebody placed around our shoulders that says you’ll never change. A polo shirt with “failure” across the back. We also carry anger that no longer serves a purpose…. We carry wounds somebody else gave us and mistakes we cannot seem to forgive ourselves for making. I don’t know why we wear these clothes… they are so heavy…. They weigh us down… they speak untruths… They are no good for us… Yet some mornings we still wake up, put them on again, and forget who we are and whose we are.
Martin Luther… in one of his writings, speaks to this idea of shedding these tattered clothes. He says that by nature we are “clad in the garb of Adam,” wearing the old self, and that “the garment of Adam must come off like soiled clothes.” But Luther also knows that this is not as simple as deciding one morning to change what we are wearing. We cannot simply will ourselves out of shame, sin, regret, or everything else that has become wrapped around our identity.
The gospel, Luther says, is that God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: God clothes us with the righteousness of Christ. And “with this change of garments comes with us a new birth, a new life stirs within us.” …. Because God has already wrapped us in love… we are finally free to let the old clothes go.
Did you hear that, Trinity? Did you hear that? We are finally free to let the old clothes go…. You can let them go. You can give them to Goodwill. Put them in a box in the attic. Better yet, throw them away. You don’t need them anymore. You do not have to keep reaching into the closet every morning for an identity that Christ has already declared no longer has the final word. Because God has already given you something else to wear. You have been redeamed, claimed and clothed in God’s love and God’s grace. That’s good news… And that… good news… isn’t only for us.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Guatemala. It’s a beautiful place with wonderful people. Indigenous Guatemalans have different types of clothing that signify which Mayan group is part of their ancestry. They are beautifully woven garments, often made by mothers for their daughters and sons. Every group has a certain pattern and color scheme that goes back generations and generations. The clothing identifies something about who they are and who they belong to. A mother can spend almost three months working on just one outfit for her child. Can you imagine? It is an act of love and devotion. The process itself has almost a sacramental meaning. As the mother weaves together the many colors, she thinks about and prays for her children. Each thread becomes another prayer of hope, another prayer for their future, their peace, and their well-being. On one of my last trips to Guatemala, I met a woman named Mariana, a mother of several children. Her oldest daughter was named Yatzil. Yatzil grew up in the home as an indigenous Mayan girl, learning the traditions and expectations passed down for generations—cooking, caring for the younger children, learning what it meant to be part of the family, the community, the tribe. Everything was wonderfully pleasant until she turned sixteen.
Yatzil met a boy at school in the city named Sebastian. He wasn’t Mayan. He was Ladino, a term generally used in Guatemala for people whose culture and ancestry are Spanish rather than Indigenous. Behind that distinction, of course, stood centuries of painful history between Indigenous Mayans and those whose heritage went back to the Spanish conquest. Yatzil and her mother began to find themselves at odds with one another. They argued about Sebastian and about the expectations everyone seemed to have for Yatzil’s future. Mariana was angry about the relationship and told Yatzil that this boy would never step foot in their home. Soon enough, Yatzil ran away. And when she left, she left her traditional Mayan clothing lying on her bed.
Mariana was devastated. Months went by, and she began to fear that she might never see her daughter again. Then one evening, thankfully, Yatzil showed up at the door. She missed her mother too much. That night they talked. They talked about their differences, about the city, about Yatzil’s hopes and dreams, about the life her mother had imagined for her and the life Yatzil was beginning to imagine for herself. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, they remembered their love for each other.
Eventually, Mariana asked Yatzil to invite Sebastian to their home. He came for dinner, and from what Mariana told me, it was awkward—to say the least. But there was another dinner. And then another. And another. Over time, Yatzil taught Sebastian about her family, their history, their Mayan traditions, and the meaning behind the clothing they wore. And slowly, Mariana began to see Sebastian differently. Not simply as the outsider who had taken her daughter away, but as someone her daughter loved, someone who was trying to understand them. Eventually, Mariana began to love and accept Sebastian as one of her own. Years went by. Sebastian and Yatzil went to graduate school in the city and eventually decided to get married. Sebastian was Catholic. Yatzil wanted to honor her Mayan traditions. So they found a priest who helped them bring those traditions together in their wedding. And would you believe it… Mariana spent the next three months weaving new traditional clothing for her daughter… and she also made another… for Sebastian.
Friends, being clothed with Christ doesn’t only change how we see ourselves. It changes how we see each other. Part of belonging to one another and part of being clothed in Christ means helping each other remove these old clothes and put the new ones on. If someone has spent a lifetime wearing shame, the church ought to help clothe them with dignity. If someone has been told they don’t belong, we ought to wrap that person in belonging and acceptance… If someone has been carrying judgment, rejection, or the wounds of what the church has done to them, then perhaps our calling is to help dress them in the very same grace, forgiveness, and love that God has given us.
Because these clothes were never ours to withhold. They are gifts of grace. And Paul says that once we have put on Christ, the old categories we use to determine who is in and who is out lose their power: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, servant or free, male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Being clothed binds us together. We belong to God, and because we belong to God, we belong to one another.
Friends, we have been clothed in the one whose life and ministry continually moved toward those whom society had forgotten to see. To wear Christ, then, is to try our best to put on the habits of Christ. It is learning to see as Christ sees, to listen as Christ listens, to forgive as Christ forgives, and to cross the boundaries that Christ crossed. And perhaps most importantly, to love before we have determined if the person in front of us deserves it.
Sometimes I forget…. church… sometimes I wake up in the morning, I get busy, and I forget to put on Christ… I forget who I’m clothed in, who I represent and who I belong to. I forget who I am and whose I am. I think we all do. But here’s the good news. Tomorrow’s a new day. When we get up tomorrow and get dressed for the day, may we also remember to clothe ourselves with the most important garment in our wardrobe?
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.