"Let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Romans 13:13-14)
There came a point a few years ago when my sore feet at the end of the day finally forced me to admit it: I had reached the age where in-soles in my shoes might help me get through the day better.
It was hard, I will confess, to face the facts that this body of mine was showing more wear and tear than I realized, and that my preferred shoes (Chuck Taylor high-tops, coordinated with the color of the season of the church year) do not offer nearly so much support as they offer color. It was an unpleasant realization that on my own, my footfalls were wearing me out, and that unaided, even the way I walked, stood, and stepped was going to end up causing pain.
So I got some insertable in-soles designed for "work," and immediately I noticed two things: one, for starters, my feet weren't aching nearly as much at the end of the day. And number two, the relief and the redirection brought by the in-soles literally changed the way I walked. The thin soles of the stylish but unsupportive old sneakers were leaving me flat-footed, and I was rolling my steps in a weird way... but I had grown so accustomed to it over time that I didn't even notice that I was walking funny. And that meant, further, that the more I walked improperly, the more I wore down the shoes in the wrong spots, which exaggerated my problem and made it even worse. Slowly but surely I had made this problem invisible to myself over the course of an ordinary day, but painfully obvious by the end of it. And the change to my shoes' in-soles changed all of that, because it literally changed the way I walk.
In this passage from Romans which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, the apostle Paul talks in curiously similar terms about the change that happens in our lives because of the presence of Christ in our lives. Jesus isn't just a fashion accessory or a brand logo we flaunt in order to look religious; his presence changes the way we walk through the world. Instead of being bent inward on our selves--seeing other people as objects to be used or seeking our own gratification for "Me and My Group First"--Jesus turns our orientation outward in love that seeks the good of the other. Jesus, maybe not so unlike a set of good in-soles, brings a change in our walk--and for the better.
I'm not sure I realized until recently how big a deal this would have been to the first century listeners in Rome, who were used to seeing countless shrines, temples, and devotees of countless gods and goddesses, but who never would have expected that worshiping their gods was supposed to make a difference in the way they lived their lives. So much of the religion of the Roman Empire, including the gods and goddesses of the peoples and nations it had swallowed up, was reducible down to giving the appropriate offering or sacrifice to the deity of the moment in exchange, presumably, for the favor or blessing of that deity, but with no practical impact on what you did with the rest of your day, your family, your work, or your life. You didn't find people saying, "You are a worshipper of Zeus--therefore you should be a devoted spouse and parent!" because in all the myths Zeus, the "king" of the Greek gods, was a terrible parent and a perpetually cheating husband! You never heard people say, "I used to steal and cheat my neighbors, until I started worshipping Poseidon the sea god!" There was almost no connection at all between the gods you worshipped and the virtues you practiced, much in the same way nobody in our culture connects your character with your favorite fast food restaurant or flavor of soft drink. Those things just don't relate in our eyes, and in the culture of the 1st century Roman Empire, there was virtually no connection between your acts of ritual worship to the gods and goddesses and the kind of person you strove to be. Your devotion to your gods made no difference, practically, in your walk.
But Jesus was different, as Paul told it, because following him wasn't merely a matter of muttering a few words to a statue and moving on with your day unchanged. To follow Jesus is to be shaped by Jesus, all the way down to our actions, words, and choices. Jesus will affect the way you walk, in other words. The instruction for Paul's readers to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," like an article of clothing, or a pair of good walking shoes--or maybe like extra-supportive work in-soles for your Chuck Taylor high-tops--is a way of saying, "The presence of Jesus will change us; he will affect the way we live, speak, act, and love." And of course, he's right. Following Jesus will change our footsteps. Jesus' presence in our lives will turn our hearts outward rather than only selfishly inward. His abiding Spirit will give us courage rather than fear, and compassion rather than apathy. His living voice will direct us to see other people as neighbors to be loved rather than enemies to be conquered, objects to be used, or competition to be defeated.
We may not realize how much our daily walk in life has been slowly getting worse--the same way I didn't realize how much a worn-down pair of shoes was contributing to pain at the end of my work day and crooked steps in the meantime. When we keep Jesus at a distance or treat him as just a bit of outward decoration, we don't let him shape our steps or re-form our daily walk. But when, as Paul says, we "put on the Lord Jesus Christ," something begins to change in us. We may sometimes slide back into our old, crooked patterns or slouch back into the malformed footfalls that we were used to, but Jesus keeps working on us, both to relieve the places we have been hurting, and to point us in his direction.
Maybe that's really what it is to be the church: we are the people who are collectively learning to let Jesus change the way we walk and to reshape our footfalls. We don't always get it right. We sometimes clumsily step all over each other. And sometimes we still get worn down in all the wrong places. But he is persistent, this Jesus of ours. And he keeps training our steps to walk rightly--to walk in ways that look like love, and to leave behind us tracks that invite others into the goodness of God.
How might Jesus shape our steps... today?
Lord Jesus, clothes us in yourself and dress us in your goodness, from head to toe.
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