What to Wear

If Saint Paul had known about Kevlar, would his advice have been different?  And what if he met Stacy and Clinton?   Read on, especially if you don’t know who Stacy and Clinton are!

Holy Garments

Psalm 84  Ephesians 6:10-20 

Spiritual Kevlar©. That’s what St. Paul is recommending to the members of the church in Ephesis, and to the members of the church in Northfield.

Kevlar is what body armor is made of;

or more informally, “bullet-proof vests.” It is 5 times stronger than steel of the same weight, and it keeps knives, bullets, explosives, and other dangerous weapons away from the bodies of people who wear it. The people who wear it are people who frequently encounter those dangerous weapons – law enforcement officers and members of the military.

Even as he recommends Kevlar body armor, St. Paul knows that there are dangers around us that are not as simple as knives, guns, and explosives. He calls them “the wiles of the devil.” We might call them “the ways of the world.” The letter goes on to elaborate: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” [Ephesians 6:11-12]

I don’t think we can improve upon his list to name the dark dangers in our own time: rulers, authorities, powers, forces of evil. Not all rulers, I hope; and not all authorities and powers and forces; but enough of them to make protective clothing a wise investment for our souls as well as our bodies.

What I want you to notice here is that Paul does not contend that God will simply protect us from all of those dark dangers. Much as we would like to think that our Christian baptism is a spiritual vaccination against trials and tribulations, it is clear to most of us that, though, that as Jesus said, “the rain falls on the just and the unjust.” [Matthew 5:45]. Our Christian faith is not automatic protection against the evils of the world.

But our habits and practices of faith can become our spiritual Kevlar. The first one St. Paul names is the “belt of truth.” Like the prophets before him, Paul knew that the most powerful spiritual force is the truth – events and persons viewed with a discerning eye that is not distracted by outward appearances. When we are able to see the truth – about ourselves or about others – we are set free from the illusions and delusions that lead to idolatry, selfishness, and isolation.

We are, to use the Biblical word, free to be righteous. It is a shame that in modern usage, we nearly always think of this word as part of the phrase “self righteous,” which is never a compliment or a healthy spiritual habit. But in its original form, righteousness is the commitment to do what is right – in our case, what is right in the eyes of God. In the poetry of today’s passage, righteousness is a breastplate – armor over the heart, to protect it from abstraction and distraction.

And in that same poetry, shoes are what will make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. It is walking – walking with one another, walking (as the proverb says) in the shoes of each other — it is the walking of our faith more than the talking about it that readies us to share the good news. Think, if you will, about the powerful experiences our youth have each year on their mission trip. It is walking with the homeless clients at La Puente and working with the struggling families building Habitat Houses that brings their faith alive and moves them to speak so movingly and eloquently about their experiences.

That brings us to the shield of faith. A shield, of course, is what you use to deflect attacks. It does not harm anyone else; it just protects you from harm. That’s a pretty good definition of faith, I think: an inner conviction that helps you to fend off accusations, assertions, and arguments that are untrue and unkind without harming the persons who have attacked, asserted, or argued with you.

All in all, the author of this letter to the Ephesians makes a powerful case for girding ourselves with truth, righteousness, compassion, and faith as ways of protecting ourselves from the dangers around us. These holy garments are spiritual Kevlar.

But I think there is another sense in which we are called to spiritually clothe ourselves. We might think of this as “St. Paul meets Stacy and Clinton.”

Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are hosts of a program on the cable channel TLC called “What Not to Wear.” Each week they surprise a person who has been nominated by her friends and family as being dressed so poorly, unflatteringly, and inappropriately that it is holding her back in her work, her social life, and her general well-being. The person’s wardrobe is critiqued and discarded, she is given $5000 and plenty of advice for new clothes, and treated to a session with a hairdresser and a make-up expert.

What is fascinating to me (and I confess that this program is one of my secret pleasures each week) is the “spin” that Stacy and Clinton usually put on all of this: their goal is not just to make the person look attractive in some conventional way, but to make the person’s outward appearance match her internal personality and talents.

That raises this question for us: do we wear our faith in a way that makes our outward appearance – our actions and words – match our internal beliefs and convictions?

I think this is a particularly difficult question for those of us in the liberal and progressive traditions of Christianity. Many of us have been offended – or even wounded – by people who express their faith in words and actions that we find troublesome. We do not want to be seen or heard as persons who are judgmental, self-righteous, hypocritical, or just plain annoying. I, for one, am greatly distressed that those are precisely the traits that many unchurched young people have about church members.

But I hope we can resist the temptation just to skip the question altogether, because wearing our faith where it can be seen is about much more than just our comfort, attractiveness, or self-esteem. Wearing our faith where it can be seen is a spiritual discipline of its own.

Think again about St .Paul’s “belt of truth.” When we discern events or patterns in the world that are unjust, it not enough just to know that ourselves. Wearing a “belt of truth” requires that we share those truths with people around us, and work for the undoing of the injustice we have seen.

Or consider the “breastplate of righteousness.” When we make choices and decisions that are rooted in our deepest values, we are far more able to fend off criticisms and opposition than when our choices are driven by self-interest or short-term gains.

Think, too, of those shoes of compassion. When we serve those in need, and when we help to organize our community and our world to reduce the needs we see, we testify that compassion is a worth more than efficiency, progress, or fairness.

Wearing these “holy garments” is not just putting on spiritual Kevlar, a way of keeping evil away from ourselves and our loved ones. Wearing these “holy garments” is a way of bringing the best of our faith out of our hearts and into this broken and hurting world where it is so desperately needed. Wearing these “holy garments” of truth, righteousness, compassion, and faith is a powerful way of passing along the love and mercy and healing of God that we have experienced to our offspring and our neighbors and our enemies. These are the clothes that mark us as children of God and followers of Christ. These are “holy garments,” indeed.

Prayer for August 23, 2009

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of our hearts and minds, this morning we offer our prayers for those circumstances in our lives that we cannot usually bring ourselves to say aloud. Help us to name before you and one another the disappointments, shames, sorrows, and shortcomings that eat away at our faith and our wellbeing.

We pray for our relationships that are conflicted, dispirited, or unfulfilling.

We pray for ourselves and our loved ones who live with mental illness.

We pray for ourselves and our loved ones who live with chronic health conditions.

We pray for those whose access to health care is limited by finances, geography, or prejudice.

We pray for everyone who has been betrayed, cheated, or defrauded.

We pray this morning for those who live with addictions and alcoholism.

We pray for those who have lost their employment, and those who have not been able to begin their work lives because they cannot find a job.

And since our miseries are often accompanied by economic challenges, we pray for wisdom about money, time, and emotional energy.

Finally, we pray for the secrets of our hearts that we can speak only to you.

All of these things we pray in the name of the one who listens with loving attention to all of our sorrows, and who bears them with us, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …