Being clothed with Christ

Yesterday was my first Sunday at St Mary's and Christ Church: I preached the same sermon in both churches, mindful that as with installing a new piano or organ, I might need to re-voice myself  for a new setting.  Anyway, there's the grace and gift of time and attentiveness. The texts for Trinity 1 were:  Isaiah 65:1-9; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

I’m not one to dwell on the fashion pages in weekend magazines; and yet I was disappointed that the V&A’s Christian Dior exhibition sold out pretty much as soon as it opened. It traces the impact of one of the 20th century’s most influential fashion houses. Dior’s distinctive silhouettes marking him out as a designer of dreams as a well as dresses. 

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams

Clothing plays a significant part in our sense of self and our social interactions: we dress up and dress down; we dress for comfort and dress to impress. There are trends and codes; preferences and practicalities. 

Clothing can be a celebration of our personalities and diversity. It might communicate role or instil confidence. But there’s a flip side: clothing can makes us feel uncomfortable or self-conscious. We make judgements about status and well-being.

For many millions in our world, it’s the lack of clothing that becomes a marker of displacement. The vulnerability of a hospital gown; kids who dread of school non-uniform days; the needs of rough sleepers; and, in Refugee Week, the desperation and determination of fleeing with the clothes you stand up in.

We don’t have to be Dior to know that our clothing reflects our humanity: our stories, dreams and journeys. We don’t have to go to the V&A to appreciate that our clothing reflects wider cultural dynamics of longing to belong or the impact of trauma, upheaval; the clothing or state of undress resulting from political or economic forces.

In today’s Gospel we encounter a man who is the epitome of such dislocation: he’s suffering from acute mental distress; he’s homeless, naked and at risk. 

He is subject to a dark, oppressive and destructive reality. The name ‘Legion’ perhaps hints at the trauma of witnessing the casual brutality of the Roman occupying forces - whose authority serves as possession, control and exploitation.

Having calmed the storms and fears of the sea, Jesus steps out into this bleak place. The Son of the Most High God goes to the place of violence and injury. God’s love is named and made present in this place; powers of cruelty are called out, expelled. After the stampede, there is calm.

Link to image

The man is clothed; in his right mind. He sits at Jesus’ feet. He assumes the posture of a disciple; one who wishes to learn and follow. A disciple who is being clothed with the character of God’s love.

Towns people and swine herds alike begin to report what has happened, offering perhaps their own commentary not least on the economic impact of what’s happened. God’s work of calling us into new life and freedom is disruptive. And yet, as Jesus leaves that place, the man is called back to his home. His voice continues to speak of God’s at work in Jesus; of new life in him.

There is blessing in this: there is joy and comfort. 

In a little while, we will break bread together. We will will pray that in the power of the Spirit, ordinary material stuff will become the means by which Christ will draw near to us. In sharing what is broken, we will be made whole. We become what we already are, his body.

In this place, God calls out to us echoing the words of Isaiah: 'Here I am, here I am’.

In faithful love, God reaches out to us despite our tendency to follow our own devices and desires.

In faith, we reach out our hands to receive the gift of life afresh.

For, as Paul reminds the Galatians: we belong to Christ, we are baptised into Christ, we are clothed with Christ.

We are clothed with Christ.  We are one.

Looking beyond outward appearance and status; looking beyond gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation or health. 

We are clothed with the same garment; we are one.

We are heirs of the promise of life: we have equality and dignity before God.

We might not embody that perfectly here an now. Week by week we name our hurts, our failures and our burdens; week by week we lay claim to the promise of forgiveness, healing and new life.

To be clothed in Christ, is to embrace life and joy, love and hope.

To be clothed in this way doesn’t airbrush out our differences in personality or calling; but it draws those things together for a common purpose.

Our generation is not exempt from the powers which seeks to oppress or control human beings; we aren’t exempt with the struggles with imperfection, addiction and brokenness.

And yet God in Christ meets us in that place; and by the power of the Spirit clothes us in peace.

Being Clothed with Christ in the power of the Spirit

The descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and Mary at Pentecost
© Elizabeth Wang, radiantlight.org.uk

Here we are blessed; and from here we will be sent out.

Together we will listen to God and listen to the cries of our world; over time we will discover together how we are being called to respond to our community; how we might offer sanctuary to others.

We might not feel as if we have much influence within the life of our nation: but we have influence where we live. 

In the power of the Spirit, we are sent back to our homes and workplaces.  We are clothed with Christ, that we might be with others in their distress and in their dreams; in discomfort and determination. 

Being clothed with Christ, we are to reflect the love of God: in patience and joy, creativity and kindness; in generosity and hospitality. In those human-scale gestures our character reflects the love of the God who hears the cries of the world. Amen.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

Who I am?

This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral - exploring questions of identity. In reflecting on who Jesus is we are drawn into the mystery of God's redeeming love. We are more than a check-list of identity markers - finding our identity in Christ transcends that. As Paul grapples with the reality of what that means, we face the demands of being bound together. That calls us to a vision of equality - acknowledging priviledge, seeing race and changing the system. I am particularly grateful to links shared on Facebook by Ben Fulford and Steve Holmes. The texts were Isaiah 51:1-6, Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20.

Who am I?

Shakespeare is masterful in deploying deception, disguise and mistaken identities to answer the question at the heart of our human condition. 

He draws us into the anguish of tragedy as King Lear asks: “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”. 

He heightens the comedy in Twelfth Night as Viola, disguised as Cesario, declares to Olivia: “I am not what I am”.

Identity - yours and mine - is  made up of elements beyond our control and determined by choices we make. It’s deceptively simple - literally embodied: our looks and distinguishing features, reflected in mirrors, selfies or passports.

But it’s also complex. The boxes we tick on forms to monitor diversity or give customer feedback categorise our identity by age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, sexuality, disability, colour or income. 

Our CVs and Facebook profiles reflect our skills, personality, class, beliefs, interests, tastes, employment status.

Who I am?

Our identity embodies our memories and is shaped by our experiences; it’s reflected in the stories we tell and communicated in the first impression we make. Others aspects are private, hidden from public gaze:  the accents we lose; the names we change; the experiences we never share.

For each of us, our identity is also shaped by encounters with others; the degrees of association, intimacy, belonging and alienation.  But there are uncomfortable truths to the identities we claim; truths we need to consider with humility and, in Paul’s words, ‘sober judgement’ in our regard for others. 

Those truths include the snap judgements, labels and prejudices which diminish others because of 'difference';  the unconscious power, privilege and opportunity we accrue by being white or male or Oxbridge or married.

Thinking about identity matters - yours, mine, ours. It matters because of the way in which it shapes political discourse. It matters because of the fragility of our common life. We cannot remain silent in the face of Charlottesville: racial justice is part of our gospel proclamation.

As such, it demands confession of corporate sin, listening to our brothers and sisters of colour, educating ourselves and naming what an American pastor Sean Bawulski, calls ‘white supremacy’ as a ‘contemporary caste reality with a long history’.

Identity matters because, in the words of Isaiah, God’s teaching and justice will be ‘a light to the peoples’.  

It matters because we hear the question ‘who I am?’ on the lips of Jesus; and in naming him as the Messiah, the Christ, we are drawn into the merciful love of God. 

It matters because Paul calls us respond to that mercy means members one of another in Christ; therefore we pray and witness to God’s reconciling love in places of pain and anger.

Isaiah’s words of encouragement to those held captive in Babylon also offer consolation to those held captive by inequality, oppression, stereotypes and discrimination. We are to seek after righteousness in the midst of darkness - to see race and change the system. In Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race, the journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge is helping the church and others to rise to this challenge (quotations from Steve Holmes).

For Isaiah, our identity is rooted in the inheritance of faith shared with Abraham and Sarah, our ancestors. The prophet looks back to the rock from which God’s people are hewn: one person; called by name; faithful to God; a blessing to all peoples. 

Christ the True Vine, 16th century Greek Icon

Isaiah looks to the near future: expressing the hope of liberation and the restoration of the promised land. He also looks to a time when the all peoples will be drawn into this joyful kingdom; when God’s justice will bring deliverance; when a light will shine and not be overcome by darkness. 

He points to the suffering servant, the Messiah, the Christ. He speaks of the cosmic scope of salvation; of what will pass away and the renewal of all things; of new creation bursting forth.

Everything that Jesus does points to such a Kingdom as this: he uses parables of seeds and yeast to demonstrates the potential for transformation flowing from the tiniest gesture; he debates with a Syro-Phoneician woman with a shocking humour worthy of Jimmy Carr; offence reveals the truth that God’s mercy stretching across markers of ethnicity and gender.

Now we find Jesus in Caesarea Philippi: in a district which is a point of intersection between Israel and the Gentile world, he asks the most significant question of identity there is: 

Who am I? 

The responses are based on the hearsay and speculation - he’s identified as a returning prophet. He presses the point: what do you say? 

Who am I?  Peter names the reality that this is the one who brings freedom, the expected one, the very embodiment of God’s justice, the one who is the light of the world; the Messiah; the Christ; God with us. 

Like Abraham, Peter steps out in faith and is renamed: the rock on which we are built, with Christ the cornerstone. Peter’s impetuous and bold; he denied Jesus and disagreed with Paul. And he prayed, sought healing and continued to witness.  Such grace revealed in human frailty is our hope.

The Apostle Peter: Rembrandt, 1632 

We too fall short, as individuals and an institution; we make mistakes and get frustrated.  And yet the church is part of the fulfilment of God’s purposes.  Our identity, in all its diversity, is drawn into Christ. By the power of his Spirit we are called to love with mutual, indiscriminate affection. In so dong we embody the character of the new creation, begun in Jesus’  life, death and resurrection.

Who am I?  

One called by name at baptism and nourished in word and sacrament as Christ’s body. We share in practices of confession, penance and reconciliation in order that our identity can be marked by God’s healing love and peace. 

Our identity in Christ means that none of the gifts of his body, the church, is lost; no human being devalued. Paul is grappling with when he explores how we are to live in response to the mercy of God in Romans.

The appropriate human response to God has always been worship: but Paul takes the categories of Temple sacrifice and applies them to our living bodies. Bodies which are acceptable, pleasing and holy - regardless of age, gender, race, appearance or ability. And by the power of his Spirit we are transformed and renewed.

Communion Of Saints is a painting by Elise Ritter

Paula Gooder says of these two commands: ‘presenting our bodies to God involves places who we are and what we do into his care and keeping. Once we do that then it comes imperative that we do not allow our minds to be moulded by this age - the old creation that will pass away - and all its concerns’. 

Who I am? 

Our identity is found in Christ; as as his body we belong to each other, one in our differences. 

As we share in this Eucharist, we are caught up in this the new creation. Your identity is moulded by an ongoing process of inner  transformation - so that our lives might be visibly transfigured. 

Our worship doesn’t end abruptly the moment we leave the cathedral - rather we continue to offer a living sacrifice in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. May our gifts, blessed at this altar, be as light in the darkness: generous, compassionate, wise and prophetic.

Who am I?

This is the text of a short piece entitled 'Identity and Incarnation' written for magazine called Focus which is circulated within our diocese. 

Who am I? I am Julie.

We all have a name by which we are registered; some of us change it later on. That name may differ from the name by which we are known - Ju or Jules. There’s an intimacy to our name. It roots us in relationships as a friend, sibling, spouse, colleague and citizen.

Our identity is tracked in ultrasound scans and birth certificates and medical records; electoral rolls, tax returns and driving licenses; our passport, bills and membership cards verify who we are.

This paper trail and our digital footprint acts as a web of ‘identifiers’: necessary to prevent ‘identity theft’; a means of contributing to the safety of others. In death, our identity is carefully marked out, in an electronic age, in pen and ink.

Identity is more than documents and records. Our identity is also reflected in our appearance; our ethnicity, local culture, class and religion; our tastes in food, music, dress; our personality traits and our accent.  

We express our identity in a rich variety of ways; we create a first impression and (whether we know it or not) make an impact on others. Who am I? A question answered in names, relationships, appearances; the memories we treasure and the stories we tell. We know that identity - yours, mine, ours - is composed of certain biological traits; but we are more than that.

This reality was expressed with profound assurance in a statement made by Archbishop Justin when responding to very public revelations about his paternity. He said: I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes. 

Who Jesus is has an impact on our identity: on our self-understanding and on our sense of kinship; on dignity in the face of our vulnerability and hope in the face of mortality. Why? Because in him, God is with us:  with us in birth and speechless dependency; with us in grief and celebration, in feasting and sickness. 

His teaching is challenging; his actions restorative. Possessions, biology, gender and authority aren’t the ultimate markers of identity.  Samaritans, tax collectors, foreigners, children; the unwell, the ostracised, the powerful and the curious… and we ourselves are given new dignity as children of God.  Ultimately, God is with us in betrayal, agony, isolation and death.  By being with in human weakness and the depths of alienation, Jesus reveals that nothing can separate us from the love of God. 

Through the mystery of Word made flesh, we become children of God. In baptism, we participate in his death and resurrection. We are in Christ. Our self-understanding shifts as we see ourselves as God does - ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. Our sense of kinship is expanded too. No longer limited to ties of ‘our family’ we share a spiritual kinship with brothers and sisters who are not at all like us in terms of outward makers of ‘identity’.

The assurance this brings is a stability: at our most vulnerable and when we let go of life. As John Swinton writes with eloquent wisdom in his book Dementia, we are held in the memories of God. That memory is also our hope of life that really is life: full, abundant, transfigured and everlasting. 

In the power of the Spirit we are to witness to this hope that is within us: that God was in Christ reconciling us.  That means that our ‘identity’ is an ethic or pattern of life nor an exclusive tribal marker. 

Who am I? In Christ, I am Julie.

© Julie Gittoes 2016