The Clothes We'll Keep--October 29, 2024

The Clothes We'll Keep--October 29, 2024

"As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, 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, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." [Colossians 3:12-14]

Here's one of my rules of thumb for kids' costume shopping at Halloween: I'm willing to spend more on a costume if you'll wear most of it later as part of your regular wardrobe.  So, the Stitch onesy that can double as pajamas in the winter?  That was a yes.  The Miles Morales Spider-Man hoodie that could actually be worn as a sweatshirt all through the school year?  That would work, too.  But the complicated inflatable costumes that are literally useless at any other time of the year beyond trick-or-treating? I am much less willing to shell out a big pile of money for that.

In other words, I'm much more interested in the clothing that becomes an essential part of our daily lives, and not just the things we wear once and get rid of.  I'm more invested in what we'll be clothed in for a long time to come.

That's why I am intrigued by the way these verses from Colossians talk about the Christian life. The writer here talks about "clothing ourselves" with a way of life, and in particular with "love, which binds everything together."  This isn't the language of a costume for pretending.  This isn't the suggestion of faking our Christ-likeness with our appearance.  And this definitely isn't about a one-time day of dress-up where we spend a lot of money on something we'll never be caught in again.  It's about what becomes an essential part of our wardrobe, so to speak--about the practices and habits that are so fully integrated into our everyday life that they become a part of us.  And for Christians, our core identity is meant to be the love of Jesus.  It's not a costume we put on for show--love is meant to be our daily dress.

And of course, the real challenge here is that these verses from Colossians don't let us leave the notion of "love" as some vague, abstract concept.  They put together a whole outfit for us:  compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience are all part of the ensemble.  They flesh out the picture of what it looks like, for all of us, to be "clothed in love" like Jesus.

That's important because we live in a time when it is very easy to hear folks claim the label "Christian" or name the name of Jesus, but then seem perfectly comfortable with being cold, cruel, arrogant, crude, and short-tempered (you know, the opposite of the list here in Colossians).  It's easy to say, "Well, sure, I believe in Jesus, but all that kindness and humility stuff just doesn't work anymore!"  And in a lot of Respectable Religious circles, it's fashionable to say that being patient, humble, or meek just makes you look "weak" or like a "loser," and therefore that Christians can't be expected to actually live this stuff.  Instead, we can just talk a good game, look pious on Sundays, and then go back to "the way the world really works" all the rest of the week.  The love of Jesus can come to be just a costume we put on, rather than our authentic attire. So much for clothes we actually keep wearing, huh?  That kind of fake discipleship is like getting the expensive outfit for Halloween that you never really wear in real life.

Over against that way of thinking, the apostle here in Colossians calls us to make small acts of love and the regular practice of gentleness and compassion to be our daily apparel. Or, more accurately, we are called to allow ourselves to be clothed with Christ--to let Jesus' kind of love seep into us and to shape us into his likeness.  But we should be clear: Jesus will transform us.  He isn't interested in just giving us a costume Christianity, but in making us into living, walking, talking reflections of his own likeness. Jesus is interested in making us into people who love authentically like him, even if the world doesn't understand or thinks we look foolish and weak.  Jesus offers himself, not to play dress-up, but to make us into new creations.

So in a world of pious pretending and posturing, today's the day to let Jesus' kind of love become like that coat you put on every day now that it's cold, or that familiar sweater you've worn over the years so it's an old friend.  In other words Jesus offers himself and his way of life as the clothes we'll keep.

Lord Jesus, dress us in your love and free us from pretending at religiosity so that we can love like you.