Every morning we face the world with this momentous decision. “What am I going to wear today?” If you are doing something important in your job you might put on your very best, just that combination that says I am confident, but not too pushy. Something creative, but not weird. Something conventional to say I fit in with this group, but still says I’m a unique individual as well. Maybe you want to show a dash of creativity with brighter colors or blend in with everyone else by wearing something more plain. Or if it’s a day when you are really needing to relax, you might put on something comfortable, old, something that helps you feel relaxed, something that says to the people you run into, I’m off duty today, let’s be comfortable. That’s a big decision every morning.
And if you think that’s hard enough, I’m partially color blind, so I often have to get permission from my wife for the combinations I pick out.
And the clothes we put on, the identity that we choose to assume, with each wardrobe change has a very real affect on how we feel through the day. There’s the old saying that ‘clothes make the man.’ It’s a partial truth. We have some real choices in how we see ourselves, our self-image.
Most of us, when we were teenagers, went through stages. There might be a studious stage, when a particular teacher in school catches our imagination and we really throw ourselves into it. There might be a rock star stage, where all we want in life is the fame and excitement of the rock star life style. I never had dreams of being a rock star, but I remember when my records meant everything to me. There might be a rebel stage when we challenge every value of our parents. Most kids go through such things, ‘trying on’ different identities to see how they fit, experimenting with who they want to be. And wise parents give them some slack so they can learn from it all, while setting enough limits to keep them from getting themselves hurt. And it is so important for teens to have a variety of adult friends, potential role models, so that they can pick and choose traits that that they see in those adults.
From my home church I remember watching Mr. Falkner’s sense of humor because I wanted to take that skill from him. I remember watching the whole Ritzenthaler family, wanting to learn from their mix of creative fun and deep devotion to God.
Even as an adult, I’ve gotten useful material for deciding who I will be from learning about my family history. I enjoy digging out my ancestry. I grew up in the far northwest suburbs in a neighborhood with good schools and a feeling that there was unlimited opportunity ahead for us. I value that very much, but that’s not a good place to learn compassion for those who don’t have many opportunities.
Then I started asking questions about my grandparents and filling in their lives. I never knew them very well. I learned that my mother’s father grew up very poor in rural Indiana. He had bad eyesight all his life, so school was difficult. He had to drop out of school after the sixth grade in order to go and work in the fields so that his family could get by. In the first years of his marriage they had to move frequently from farm to farm as a hired hand, anywhere he could find work.
With his father-in-law’s help he was finally able to buy a small farm, 23 acres with a three-room farmhouse on it. And he was so ingenious and industrious in the way he made a life for his family there. When a house nearby was scheduled for demolition, he offered to tear it down for free so that he could keep the materials. And he saved every board and every nail and window and he added a new kitchen and a bathroom with indoor plumbing to his little house. He took off the roof and added an entire second story.
And he worked incredibly hard, growing corn and hay, milking his dairy cows every morning, very early, and then again each evening, with never a day off. They raised rabbits, chickens, hogs and geese. When he heard of road work going on in the area he would get the contract to supply gravel and he would hitch up his wagon, shovel gravel out of his creek to fill it up, and then deliver it to where the road work was going on. And then at the end of the day he would go home and drill his kids on their spelling and their math facts so that they could have opportunities that he never did.
And the family never looked like much. For years they never had proper clothes to go to church or any extra money to put in the plate. But they worked so hard. They were able to get 3 of the boys through college. My mother had one year of college and had to drop out because in those days educating the boys had to come first. And those who got the opportunity of an education just ran with it and became very productive, respectable citizens. One earned his Ph. D. in petroleum engineering.
And one day it hit me that, now in the next generation, living in a very comfortable neighborhood, lacking for nothing, I was looking down on such people as my own grandfather, and I sure didn’t want to be that kind of a person. And learning about my ancestors has helped me make important decisions about myself and who I want to be. Are poor families different from my family? No, my family was like that, too.
I learned about a Quaker ancestor of mine who lived in Wales in the late 1600’s. In those days there were a very few people who were called gentlemen or ladies, who came from certain select families. And there was a different set of laws for them. And when they came down the street, all the commoner men would be required to stop and tip their hats. And my Quaker ancestors said that isn’t right. All people are equal before God. And one of them went to jail because he refused to tip his hat to a gentleman. And when I’m debating it out in my mind whether to be stubborn in standing up for the truth, that story helps me stand firm. It tells me something about who I am that I need to hear.
We all make decisions about who we are. Our self-images, of course are molded by many people. But we have a great deal of say in who we choose to be. Am I significant? Am I basically acceptable in the world, or do I need to feel ashamed? Am I competent? Should I jump in and embrace challenges and problems with confidence, or should I just give up? If there is one thing that most determines the choices we make, especially the ones that happen spontaneously, without thinking about it, it is our self image, who we see ourselves to be.
As we continue through the season of Lent, we are looking at Ephesians 4: 18-19, God’s provision to help us break free from the things that separate us from God, the things that limit us as persons, the things that keep us from fulfilling the destiny God have us as individuals and as a congregation, here together. We are here to change. We are here to grow.
For 4 weeks we are working our way through the 4th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he urges them not to go back to the pagan ways that demeaned them, but to press on until they break into the full light of who God made them to be.
Three weeks ago we looked at his diagnosis of what the problem is. We choose to wear blinders through life, blocking out the glory of who he called us to be so that we can take cheap shortcuts of behavior that is easy and has some immediate satisfaction, but destroys us in the long run.
Two weeks ago we looked at verse 22 of Ephesians 4, an important step in becoming new persons, repentance, putting away all the old corrupt and deluded ways of thinking. Maybe its like saying one morning, “I’m not going to wear that one anymore. It’s not who I want to be.” Until we make up our minds that we are going to break out of our old ruts and change, nothing will be different. Repentance is the choice to change. Sometimes that’s all it takes to become new, just make up our minds to do it. But sometimes it takes more.
Last week we looked at another one of the key ingredients of changing. We need to give our souls a balanced diet that includes all the means of grace. Regular disciplines of prayer and worship, fellowship and Bible Study will make us new in time. These are the things that will renew us in the spirit of our minds, as described in verse 23. They help us fill in the spiritual deficiencies that leave us weak and vulnerable.
Today we come to what may be the most important factor for change, in verse 24. “Clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” What you believe about who you are is the strongest determinant of how you will act and how you will feel.
Paul dares to tell us that we can put on a new identity, a new self. As presumptuous as it may sound, we can choose to put on a self image of bearing the very likeness of God. We were created to wear the royal robes of children of God. Jesus died for our sins to keep the door of the clothes closet open for us to get them.
This morning we turn one more time to Ephesians 4: 17-24. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.
“Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. 19 They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 That is not the way you learned Christ! 21 For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. 22 You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
“Clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Who are you? In all the statements from other people that have burned into your heart, in all the tangles of your fears and hopes and indulgences, there is one statement about who you are that stands above all the others. When you were baptized, God said to you, personally, that he picks you to be his child. He sees in your veins royal blood. That’s who you are.
So you might say to yourself, ‘Who am I to claim to be God-like?’ And Jesus will answer back, “I say so. You were created to be like me. I died to remove all the obstacles to your growing to wholeness and freedom before me. I marked you when you were baptized. Please don’t settle for anything less.”
Does it mean that we pretend to be know-it-alls because God knows everything? No, when Jesus became a human being he emptied himself of God’s massive database and he was still God. The heart of God goes deeper than how much he knows.
Does it mean that we can boss people around because God is the Lord of all creation? No, when Jesus came he laid down his power and became a servant for us.
To put on the new person, for the image of God to be restored in you, is to live a life of love. That is who you are. That is where you will fulfill your destiny.
As we come to the communion table and receive Christ by faith, receive his love and his servant heart. AMEN
