Sunday, September 10, 2017 - 9 AM

Best Dressed – Romans 13:8-14 Bascomb UMC / September 10, 2017 / 9 AM Focus: The humble act of God’s putting on flesh in Jesus. Function: If Jesus took on flesh for us, we should “put on Christ” - adopt the ways of Jesus. 5 Purpose Outcomes of the Church: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Service Romans 13:8-14 (The Message) Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love. But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! Last week we focused on shoes, remember? We took off our shoes because we were standing on Holy Ground. Then people complained, so we put them back on! This week, Paul says to “dress yourself with Christ.” Clothes do make the man or the woman, right? I appreciate the fashion-conscious people around us. I admire people who wear clothes well, I’m just not one of them. When my wife doesn’t dress me, she says I do good to “blend” because I have very little sense of style. I once tried to get a new suit special made from a nice (expensive) piece of cloth by seeking out a good tailor. The first tailor I visited measured me said there was not enough cloth to make a suit. I knew I had put on a few pounds since I bought the cloth, but come on! The next tailor measured me and the cloth and declared: there was enough cloth to make a three-piece suit. “Not according to the tailor over there,” I said. “We must each work out of our circumstances,” the tailor said. “Do you want the suit?” “Yes, sir!” I placed the order and left. I returned a week later to collect my suit and I noticed that the tailor's son was wearing a pair of pants made out of my cloth! “Hey,” I asked, “How come you can make a three-piece suit for me and pants for your son when the other tailor told me he couldn’t even make a suit?” “Simple,” said the tailor. “That tailor has two sons.” Most men don’t care all that much about clothes, do they? I found a graphic of a man and a woman who were both going to the Gap to get pants. Look! The male took 6 minutes and spent $33. Am I being unfair? Yes, of course – until we look at church fashion. We had a big debate one year in Confirmation class about dressing up for church. Today we have casual services, formal services, camp meeting services, revival services. There’s high church and low church, so what do I wear? Old school society had rules for church dress; I endured many of them. But, in today’s culture, those rules are meant to be broken! The dress code is all over the place! I guess the only dress code left is getting new clothes for Easter – anybody still do that? We decided that the attitude mattered the most. We had many homeless and working poor attend the contemporary service in Griffin and we wore casual dress. Even so, some of our poorest members believed they should wear that one suit or jacket in church - they should wear a dress in church because when they came to worship, it was a way of showing honor to God. But then the church experienced the hat wars: ladies would compete over their hats! Francis lived in the village of Assisi where his father was a cloth merchant. Fashion was very important in his line of work. But when Francis went off to war, was imprisoned, and got deathly ill, he returned a changed man. He had concern for the poor and the peasants who worked at his dad’s factory dying cloth and he became a devout Christian. He fought with his father over the money Francis would spend on the poor and rebuilding a little Chapel outside the city. They ended up in court and Francis made the dramatic gesture of removing his clothes and giving them to his father. “Here, you can everything you have given me.” But everybody told Francis that it was gross to walk around without clothes, so he began to wear a simple brown robe – an Alb. But even the clergy can’t keep it simple. Some of the most ornate robes are found today in the Russian Orthodox Church. Talk about high fashion! That’s what we do. We need a roof over our head and, instead, we build McMansions to impress people we don’t even like. We can use a vehicle to get us from point A to Point B but we add luxury features that make cars the price of a modest house! We started simple – naked in paradise and denied 1 thing – the next thing you know we’re wearing fig leaves and hiding from God! Fig Leaf fashion – how do you reckon that worked in November. So God clothes us with animal skins before we leave God’s presence. And what do we do? We invent pockets, and then we invent stuff to put in our pockets, and then we spend that stuff to buy fancier pockets and the fashion industry is born! Would we be better off naked? ……Oh yeah, that’s gross! What do clothes really do for us? Fashion can be defined as “to mold or shape.” We fashion dough into the shape of a loaf, we fashion clay into a bowl or a cup. Clothing as fashion was meant to shape US! Changing our clothes means changing our looks. Work clothes, evening clothes, sports outfits, dance costumes – clothes that make me look professional, modern, chic, or clothes that make me look dangerous, childish, or ridiculous. Clothes fashion our person AND clothes communicate to others! Who knows that better than Nuns? They say “I am simple, a woman of poverty, a woman married to Christ.” If changing clothes can change one’s self, what does it mean to put on Christ? Here’s one idea: For his first singing engagement in a Memphis church, Johnny Cash wanted to look smart, so he wore black, simply because he knew where to buy cheap black shirts and black became his signature. He wore it next at the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville when everyone else was wearing rhinestones. "I wanted them to focus on my music, not my clothes," he said. They told Johnny Cash he always looked like he was going to a funeral, so he wrote this song: Well, you wonder why I always dress in black, Why you never see bright colors on my back, And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone. Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on. I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear the black for those who never read, Or listened to the words that Jesus said, About the road to happiness through love and charity, Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me. Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes, But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black. But one has already born of sorrows and our griefs. One has already paid the price! “Our body became your Garment; Your spirit became our robe” Ephrem of Syria. So we should put on Christ – and be the “Best Dressed” – not for ourselves, but so that others see Jesus – God’s love in our flesh! Paul said: You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26-28 (CEB) Christ put on humanity to save us and now we must put on Christ for the sake of the rest of humanity. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14 (NIV) Where do you keep your clothes? At home! Where do you keep ALL your STUFF? At home! So welcome home! Christ has set the table and Christ IS the table…………… Page 6 of 6