The Reformed Church of Locust Valley Lent IV March 10, 2002 Luke 12:32-40
“Dressed for Action”
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps it;
be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet,
so that they may open the door for him
as soon as he comes and knocks.”
- Luke 12:32-40
You’re not going to school dressed like that!
Have you ever said that to your child? Has it ever been said to you?
The idea of what is appropriate clothing changes from generation to generation.
One look at me and you know I’m out of the loop style wise. A few years back I was reading an article about Levi’s jeans in the Business section of the paper, how their sales were in a slump because kids won’t buy them. Do you know why? Because they are the kind of jeans their parents wear – in other words, young people perceive Levi’s as old peoples jeans. I’m reading this and I say to myself, “When did this happen?” I remember going to men’s store on 8th Street in Holland, Michigan to buy a new pair of Levis. They were great. Remember, you’d buy them bluer than blue and stiff as a board and then gradually after repeated washing and wearing, they’d get soft and fit just right. Hey, what do kids today know anyway?
And I remember a report on the TV a few years back about the Japanese buying our jeans. The more beat-up and worn they were; so that the ones worth the most money were those with tears and the knees worn through. If only we’d known! We’d be rich.
I look at the styles now. Bare midriffs for girls. The home boy style for boys. Is that still in?
“Be dressed for action,” says our Lord.
Actually the gospel reading this morning says two things. The first is a glorious promise: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Thanks for telling us that Jesus! We call this the gospel. The word gospel means good news. This good news is better even than a seventy-percent off sale on your favorite brand of jeans! The good news is that it is “God’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.” You couldn’t ask for anything better than the kingdom. What is God’s kingdom?
It is simple if you think about it….God’s kingdom is where God is king. Think of an earthly kingdom. A kingdom is a territory ruled by a king – a place where the king’s word is law and people live subject to the king. God’s kingdom is where God rules. In Jesus, that kingdom has touched down in our hearts and minds.
Oh, we don’t always live in it. But when we are touching God, when we are about God’s work. When we are loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, we are in the kingdom of God. In fact it is the best thing that can ever happen to you.
Jesus says God has given his kingdom to you as a gift.
There is another way of considering the kingdom of God. It is as if, in Jesus, God has given you a new set of eyes. When I was in seminary, in my early twenties, I noticed that when I drove at night, the lights started to look like stars. They would have bright rays streaming out from them. Things off in the distance began getting hazy. So finally I went to an eyeglass place for an examination. They checked me out and told me I needed corrective lenses. It is an occupational hazard. Ministers study and read a lot, so as time goes by we become nearsighted. I went back a week later pick up my glasses, and WOW! What a difference! By the way, the eyeglass place was one of these franchises in a mall and when I left the place wearing my new classes, the first thing I saw was a platform in the mall where a clothing manufacturer was putting on a fashion show of the new women’s swimwear for the coming season with live models. I was glad I had those new glasses which sharpened my vision!
Well, we all have a vision problem, called sin. We look out at the world and our vision is blurred. We see only what we want to see. But God corrects our vision, gradually enabling us to see the world as he sees it. To see the hurt and want to heal it. To see our own shortcomings and failures and making us want to be healed. To see the beauty of love to embrace it. And that is even better than swimwear models! Believe me!
Jesus says God really enjoys giving us that. Thank God.
But then comes a warning. A serious warning.
“Be dressed for action!”
Be dressed for action. What do you suppose he meant by that? Well, we dress different ways for different things.
I love opera. And at the Metropolitan Opera House, you will see men decked out in the finest tuxedoes, and women swaddling in furs and the costliest designer gowns. But you will also see a man in jeans and a sweater. Times change and fashions change.
My second church, the Reformed Church in Herkimer, was considered the swanky church there fifty years ago. The older people still remembered when George Sluyter, the grand patriarch of the church would come in and proceed down the aisle, take his family pew two thirds of the way toward the front, and flick the tails of coat as he sat down. The ushers wore white gloves. Go there today and you won’t see a single tie – not even on the minister!
Times change. I recall an argument I lost with my wife. We were visiting her family in Wilmington, NC, and were headed toward the prestigious St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in stately old downtown Wilmington. I put on a nice shirt with no tie –t he way men would have dressed for worship upstate. “You’d better put on a tie and jacket,” she said. “No way!,” says I. It was mid summer and you just bake down there. I said, “Do you really think men would wear a jacket and tie in this heat?” We got to the church, packed with a thousand worshipers, and guess what? I had a sport coat and tie and was the only man there – not wearing a dark suit! Styles change and local cultures differ. Most people here are informal – but, upstate people wear any old thing to the funeral home. Here most men still wear suits.
“Be dressed for action!” says the Lord.
What does that mean? It means be dressed to DO SOMETHING.
The old version of the Bible says, “Let your loins be girded.” In ancient times, in the East, a man wore long flowing robes. Those go tin the way of hard, hands on work. So if you wanted to change the oil in your car, two thousand years ago, say, or sharpened the lawnmower blade, you would gather the robes up under your girdle to free yourself to get the job down, and not get grease or fish slime one your robes, or have them get in the way as you sawed a plank of oak. “…let your loins be girded.” Get dressed for work!
So today, if you work on cars you might wear blue Dickies, or if you are a broker you’ll wear a dark suit, or if you are a professor it’s tweeds, or if you work in the hardware store it’s a polo shirt, or if you are a farmer it’s Carhardts, or if you’re a nurse it’s scrubs. Put them on and everyone knows where you’re going – to work.
We can add to that two uniforms which have changed in public perception. The turn-out – the gear worn by a firefighter, or the blues worn by a policeman – which in these last six months have come to a new status – that those who wear them will die protecting us.
And it occurred to me, that not long ago, Lina, you were wearing maternity clothes! You were dressed for something! Growing a new life!
See them thus arrayed and you know they’re headed to do something, to work.
Be ready for work, says Jesus.
What work? God’s work.
Now, I get in my little silver Honda and drive down Bayville Road on a Thursday night and meet with Lina and Hans to prepare them for baptism. Is that God’s work? Absolutely! It is an honor to get to do it. But God’s work isn’t confined to what the guy with the collar is doing in these hallowed halls. God’s work is to be done out there – where you are.
Holy people are to work out there. And who are the holy people? You!
Holy means different. Holy means set apart. You are the church – ecclesia – called out – used for a special purpose. God takes us transforms us, and plugs us right back into the world to be a witness to what he has done and is doing.
In the ancient church, when you were baptized. You were stripped naked, immersed in water and given a new white robe to wear. That robe was an outward symbol of what had happened inside of you – you were changed, the filthy rags you wore before – your sin, had been stripped from your body and now you wore fresh, clean, bright, white garments, radiant with the purity God put on you.
And Jesus tells us the source of these new garments. You can’t buy them. Even in New York. Jesus said to people, “Stop worrying so much about your clothes! Look at the lilies of the field. Truly I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Who dresses up the flowers? God does!
And only God can dress you! Let him change your garments!
So the first part of being dressed for action is being right with God.
Lina and Hans have brought little Hans here this morning to be baptized. This is the symbol he is right with God. Of course, this means very little to Hans this morning – young Hans that is – all he really cares about right now is a full tummy, clean diapers, and being warm and snuggly. But the rest of us! We remember in young Hans’ baptism our own, that God has laid claim to us, forgiven our sin, put to death our old nature and we are born again to righteousness – and righteousness is a right relationship to God.
So being dressed for action means being right with God.
And being dressed for action means being right in our relationships with others. Jesus cared tremendously about this.
Interestingly, we hear about Jesus’ clothes both in his first day and his last.
God sent him to us and he was wearing what? How did Mary dress him? Swaddling cloths – bands of cloth wrapped around him to keep out the chill of the night air. He was dressed for action, coming as our Savior. Then what kind of clothes did he wear? A priest’s? No. A scribe’s? No. A lawyer’s? No. A carpenter’s. And dressed like a common man he saved you.
And then in Jerusalem, in the upper room, he took off that robe. He stripped to the waist; like a slave. He girded himself with a towel. And washed their feet. “What I have done, you must also do.” “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.”
And when he had finished washing their feet, he put his robe back on, and wore it.
Till they took him, and took off his outer cloak, and beat him. Whipping him with the dreaded Roman scourge, for crimes he did not commit, just because people did not like him. Then they nailed him to a cross, and wearing nothing but his undergarment, he hung there in the fierce sun, blood streaming from his wounded hands and feet, dripping into the dust outside Jerusalem. And who had his garment? At the foot of the cross the soldiers had it, and they gambled for it. And Jesus watched all this, through eyes burning from his sweat dripping down into them, and he couldn’t wipe it away, and blinking the burning salty sweat out of his eyes he looked at them. Do you remember what he said? Did he say, “God damn them!” No, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Dressed for action – in his robe he taught and healed, and when they stole his robe and murdered him, dressed only shamefully in his underwear he forgave them. Always, Jesus for others. And he commands us – do likewise. Live for them, even when they hate you. Die for them.
We hear about Jesus’ clothes at the beginning, and at the end.
They laid him in a tomb. Three days later some women went to perform the burial ritual on his body, but when they got there, what a shock! Only the linen was there, his burial linens in which his body had been wrapped. Jesus was gone. Risen!
Yu see burial clothes were unsuitable for Jesus. He was now dressed for action – for eternity.
And your funeral clothes, my friend, and mine, God will discard them, and Dress you for action – for life – for eternity
Fred D. Mueller
