Donning your Garments of Faith

Last Friday evening, while walking home from work, I passed countless guys in tuxedos and women wearing lovely dresses and jewelry, preparing for House parties. And it got me thinking about clothing. Though in the early days of human existence, clothing choices were most likely made on the basis of warmth and water-resistance to protect men and women from the natural elements, in our society, it seems that the choice of what to wear is predicated on two basis: the symbolic and the functional. Both of these are important: You don’t wear sweatpants to a job interview at Goldman, because sweatpants don’t reflect the importance of the business transactions taking place in that environment. By the same token you don’t wear a three piece suit to do habitat for humanity because it isn’t conducive to lugging wood. As we dress ourselves for our day, we try to find the right clothing to balance both the functional and symbolic situations we expect to face.

One particular item of clothing that has become so relevant to us in this regard, particularly in the last week, is our American military uniform. As patriotic citizens we can and should take pride in the uniform that our service men and women wear while performing their combat duties. That uniform, which bears our flag, is more than just a “combat garment” that enables soldiers to successfully perform their functions, it is a symbol of our country’s values for which our military fights: liberty, freedom, and justice.

That’s why, when these cloths are shown in pictures like those on the cover of today’s New York Times, depicting the torture and shaming of Iraqi prisoners, it hurts so much. The cloths worn by these soldiers, meant to symbolize American compassion, are shown being used in the service of far more heinous values: power, aggression, and control. By donning the uniform, soldiers not only take on a garment that equips them to fight, but one whose symbols can and do remind the world why we are making our presence known in Iraq. When the world sees people wearing that uniform act on values that we think are uncharacteristic of our intentions, all of us who are represented by the uniform must carefully evaluate exactly what values our symbols do represent to the world and why.

Here at church, we have garments of faith. From the priest’s collar to the acolyte’s robe to Easter Dresses and “Sunday suits,’ our church communities have specific clothing that is meant to serve symbolic purposes. At ECP we tend not to pay as much attention to the custom of “dressing up for church,” as some Episcopal congregations that I’ve been part of do. Why do we at ECP not place such emphasis on these external garments that, to others, are central elements to the expression of their faith? I think the answer is that, as a community, we have a sense that our true garments of faith cannot be bought in stores, or sewn by a loving parent. We know that our commitment to Christ is not manifest in whether we wear a cross around our necks or put a fish bumper-sticker on our car, but in the garments that we wear which are both symbolic and functional.

In tonight’s Gospel, Jesus gives us instructions for how to be symbolic with a purpose, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In this new commandment, Jesus makes clear that our very identity as Christians comes from our willingness and ability to love other people. And it isn’t just how we will know that we’re truly Christian, but how the world, both Christian and non-Christian alike, we be able to recognize us as such. It’s like our uniform: both in that it is how we can be recognized for the values we care about, and in that love enables us to go out and make positive change in the world through forgiveness and hope. As if Jesus hadn’t given us enough gifts already in his life, here, on the night before he is to be crucified, Jesus offers us this path and this path only as the doorway to discipleship.

But how do we go out and love others, whether it’s the person next to us in the pew or at the gym? Jesus’ command is to love others as he loved us, but what does that really mean? Searching for some insight into this question, I came across Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, depicting the Fall of Satan and the Fall of Humankind. We pick up in book three (of twelve). The great war for heaven is over, Satan lost and is down in Hell planning his revenge by attacking earth and turning God’s newest creation, Man, against God. God sees this happening, and, up in a heavenly Congress of sorts, bemoans the imminent fall of his creation and threatens to end his experiment before it even gets started. In a last appeal, he asks the whole company of heaven, “Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save? Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?” There is silence until Milton’s Jesus answers “Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace!”

Man shall find Grace. These words are Christ’s commitment both to God and to humanity that he will bring us the grace of salvation. To my ears, this response so perfectly encapsulates Christ’s relationship to man. It highlights the active love that Christ has for us, casting Jesus’ life not just as an example of sacrifice for us to follow, but as a life of passing redemption on to us. Jesus didn’t give UP his life as an act of self-denial, he gave AWAY his life for our salvation as an act of love for us. Through Jesus’ loving commitment to humanity, we received the grace of the resurrection hope: the hope that Yahweh’s vengeance can be conquered through Christ’s forgiveness, that physical death will be cast aside by spiritual life, that worldly sin will be cleansed away by human love. It is this hope that is the true joy of Christian discipleship, and the true gift of Grace that Jesus gave to us to give to others.

This raises a larger point about tonight’s Gospel, that is crucially important. Often, this passage is read as applying exclusively to the love that Christians are to have for other Christians. While other Gospel stories recognize the importance of loving all people, some suggest that here Christ is talking exclusively about love among believers. To be sure, Jesus certainly does emphasize the importance of love within the church here. And it is not a lesson that should fall deafly on the church’s ears in these present days of broken communion among Episcopalians over issues, not coincidentally, of who can love whom and how much and in what ways. It should not fall deafly on our ears as priests and Bishops deny communion to Christian politicians who more than ever need the spiritual food of Christ’s body to nourish them as they endeavor to wear publicly their garments of love rather than just their blue ties and oxford shirts. And it should not fall deafly on our ears as the fear of poverty and war consumes the lives of so many Anglican’s in other provinces across the world, particularly in Africa, that we rarely see covered in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal or even the Congressional Record. The message of loving those within the church should not fall deafly on our ears.

But to read this lesson of love as restricted exclusively to an insular Christian community is harmfully limiting. Christian love, agape, is for everyone. It’s Christian love because of the giver’s identity, not the receiver’s. Look at the context in which tonight’s Gospel story is situated. It’s the Last Supper. Feet have been washed, prayers said, songs sung. The disciples have just shared a meal with each other, it’s a festive time of proto-Christians hanging out with each other and with their God. But after they share the bread and wine, the mood turns more gloomy. Jesus stands up and reveals that Judas has betrayed them to the Romans. Embarrassed, ashamed, feeling alienated and alone, Judas runs out of the room. It is immediately following his departure that Jesus commands us to love one another. I think this timing is no accident. Now I can’t read Jesus’ mind, but everything I know about Jesus makes me believe that he told this story hoping that one of the eleven disciples who remained would run after Judas. And offer him love, even in the face of hardship. Despite the fact that Judas turned out to be a traitor, that he wasn’t able to make a true commitment to Christ, I believe that Jesus wanted Judas to know that he was loved. That has been Jesus’ message throughout his life through all four Gospels: to love the alienated, the poor, the sick in spirit, the isolated, the outsiders. What would a hypothetical conversation between say, Peter, and Judas out in the hallway have sounded like? I don’t know. But the simple act of Peter’s presence in Judas’s life, in the moment of his shame and attempted self-isolation, would have been an act of love. Who knows if, eventually, Peter would have gotten to forgiveness with Judas and maybe even to reconciliation…we don’t know, because he didn’t even get to love. He stayed in the room with his friends and his God, and let Judas live in his shame and self-disgust somewhere else.

How can we, in our lives, get to forgiveness and reconciliation if we don’t focus first on love? Different people express their spirituality using different names for their Gods, different sacred texts, different ways of mediation and prayer, and we all have to coexist together, hopefully in a world of peace, justice, and respect. Jesus commanded us to love others, and through our presence in their lives to give to them the hope that He gave to us. Yes, it’s hard to talk about resurrection hope to someone who doesn’t believe in the resurrection (and it’s even harder if you spend your time together trying to convince them that they’re wrong and you’re right). But it’s not hard to find common ground with most people about whether peace is preferred over war, love over hate, inspiration over fear, forgiveness over vengeance. It is the hope that we can manifest these things in our world that has the power to unite humanity. Can we make a world where peace, unity and joy reign supreme? I don’t know. But if we fail to put on our garments of love, or if we only wear them around familiar people who have the same one in their closet, we’ll never know. So as some of you take off your orange and black in a few weeks, and begin to try on some new cloths, I urge you to consider what values you stand for, and how can you demonstrate those values in your life both symbolically and practically. And I urge you to find a way to put on garments of love and treat them as such. Not only will the power of their symbolism make you recognizable as a Christian disciple, but they may actually do this world a whole lot of good.

Amen.