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What Are You Wearing?
Colossians 3: 12-17
Have we looked around at the variety of clothing that we are wearing this morning? Some of us are in suits and ties, wearing our “Sunday best.” Others of us are in casual clothes as if ready for the golf course or the shopping mall. Some of us are “dressed to kill” whereas others are dressed for comfort. Why do we wear what we do? Why does one person wear a particular color or style of clothing and another something entirely different? I am usually pretty good about picking clothes that match, but occasionally, as I leave the house, Debby will say to me, “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Are you really going to wear those together?” To which I want to say, “No...I just put them on to get a reaction out of you!

Why do we wear clothes? Most of us would say that we wear clothes in order to conceal parts of our body which we do not wish others to see. That’s not all bad – I am not in favor of universal nudity for anyone over three years of age. Clothes may conceal what we want to conceal, but they also reveal far more about us that we have ever dreamed. God may have made clothes for Adam and Eve to cover their sin, but we have taken clothing to such a state that it states to all who we are and how we see ourselves. A woman who wears tight fitting clothes is often saying, “Look at me – I need your affirmation of my self-worth which comes through my body.” A young man with bulging biceps and washboard abs wears a muscle shirt to show off the fruits of his labors and in so doing is saying, “Look at me – this is who I am!” Whether we are farmers in overalls or executives in three-piece Gucci suits our clothes say as much about us as any statement we wish to make. 

As human beings we divide ourselves into tribes or groups. Part of belonging to a tribe is wearing the uniform or symbols of the tribe. Go to an athletic contest at a college or university and see the supporters of each team dressed in the appropriate colors or wearing clothing emblazened with the logo of their team. We criticize gangs for wearing their colors, but in reality they are doing what humans have done for centuries: using clothing to express our identity. Clothing reveals our tribe, the societal group in which we feel the most comfortable. An offshoot of this is our concern with the logo or brand of clothing which we wear. If a shirt does not have a horse or a crocodile or some other “status symbol” then many will not wear it. Why do we believe a Polo shirt is worth more than a K-Mart special? Price alone does not establish value, but it does establish a “status symbol.” 

Clothing can also reveal our age and/or our generation. I have discussions with my sons about the generational differences in casual dress. My generation prefers boat shoes with no socks whereas theirs prefer tennis shoes or sandals. (The older generation prefers Hushpuppies but that’s another subject.) I once had a pair of bell-bottom, lime green, polyester, Sansabelt golf slacks. They disappeared from my closet several years ago and no one will own up to the crime. The only explanation I ever get is that they were “out-dated” and made me look older than I am.

Clothes not only express who we are but also psychologically mold us into who we wish to become. Gail Ramshaw put it this way:
“In Washington, D.C., are two clothing displays you ought not miss. One is in the American history wing of the Smithsonian, where you can lace yourself up into a nineteenth-century corset. You immediately understand why all those heroines spent all those novels fainting right and left. In a whalebone corset, you cannot bend at the waist; you must perch at the edge of your chair; and, most to the point, you cannot take a deep breath...
“Not far away is the Holocaust Museum where, if you are brave enough, you can see the piles of shoes that the S.S. guards stripped off the Jewish prisoners before, totally naked, all their human protections torn off, they were showered to death. Perhaps the bare feet helped the guards to justify the murders, as if their prisoners, only unclothed skin and bones, were no longer human beings...
“We have shoes on our feet and bows around our neck, and we like our clothes. In this culture, as in most, clothes protect us - give us sexual privacy, indicate our socioeconomic status, bond us with others who dress similarly - reflect our personality - However, though we choose not to admit it, even our jeans are something like corsets; for while announcing me, my clothing to some degree contains me, shapes me, forms me - I have been molded into something that people would rather see than me.”i 

The Bible is not silent about clothes. Adam and Eve began “naked and not ashamed...” but soon were wearing clothes of fig leaves and later from skins provided by God to cover what had become shame to them. The Old Testament scholar, Gerhard von Rad, says of this passage: “God himself had the shame of men covered, he had through this covering of them a new possibility given and thereby established a basic element of human culture. ii George Herbert said it this way: “Nothing wears clothes but man; nothing doth need but he to wear them.”iii 

All this Bible talk about clothes raises the question of what clothing means for us and for God.

• ♦  Psalm 104:1-2 says that God is clothed in light. In Exodus 28:2ff. Aaron, the first of priests, is said to be dressed in “sacred vestments” to give him honor and holiness. It does appear that, at least in this text, “clothes make the man.”
  
• ♦  Psalm 132 talks about the clothing of priests. God’s priests are said to be “clothed with righteousness” (v. 9).
  
• ♦  In Isaiah 61:10 the prophet talks about God clothing him with “a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland.” Clothing is again here, as it was earlier in Genesis, an expression of grace. The clothing makes something out of me that I would not be without the special clothes. I put on this robe and I am a priest. Put on another robe, and I’m a judge.
  

To give someone clothing is to give something of yourself.
♦ So Jonathan and David exchanged clothes, and “the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David” (1 Sam 18:1).

• ♦  Elijah gave his mantel to Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21). It was his way of him giving his whole authority by giving him his clothes (2 Kings 2:12-14). With the clothes comes the power.
  
• ♦  The biblical writers speak of the clothing of Jesus as having power. If the woman merely touched the hem of his garment (Lk 8:42-48, Mk 5:25-34, Mt 9:19-22), she would be healed. Later, in the book of Acts, if the sick touch the apostles’ garments they are healed (Acts 19:12).
  
• ♦  When the prodigal son returns home he is given the best clothing as a sign of his sonship (Lk 15:21). A robe, a ring, shoes show forth to all that the son has all that the father has. Our clothes show forth our identity, our deepest personality, our commitments our tribe. iv
  
  
  What does all this have to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ? In our text from Colossians Paul uses clothes as an image of the virtues which we are to have and to display in Christ Jesus. Because we belong to Christ we are different — from the inside out. Just as the clothes one wore in Paul’s day revealed the status and social group to which one belonged, so the virtues one displayed in one’s life revealed the inner person. 
  
  
  Did we hear the first part of the twelfth verse? “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved...” These attributes which we are to wear come as a result of what God has done in our lives. They/we are God’s chosen ones, i.e., those whom God has elected to be God’s people. We wear the clothes of the kingdom by God’s choosing, not ours. The result of God’s election, God’s choosing of us, is that we are deemed “holy and beloved.” Just pause with me a moment and think through the ramifications of this statement. These qualities are not something we have done — they are what God has said about us in Jesus Christ. In Christ we are holy and in Christ we are loved. 
  
  As a result of this new status we are to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” These attributes, these clothes which we are to now put on, come to us as a result of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. We do not earn nor deserve them — they come as a gift, a gift of grace.
  Have you ever had an old sweater or shirt with which you just could not part? (I tend to agree with Henry David Thoreau, in Walden, who said: “...beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”) I know I have — and Debby will say to me, “That sweater/shirt is too old and looks drab. Wear one of your nicer ones.”
  “But I don’t wish to wear a nicer one...I want to wear this one.”
  

Why? Because it fits me in all the right places. So it is with these virtues of Christ. We are called upon to so live out these virtues that eventually they will fit us like a suit of old clothes. We wear them because we could think of wearing nothing else.
In the movie The Lion King the spirit of the dead king says to his son: “You have become less than you are.” One commentator noted that this is a parable about Christian salvation.
To be saved by Christ does not mean that we are radically changed into something we are not. Rather, it means that we become as we are, that we are clothed in new garments that reveal our true nature. Therefore in baptism in the church of the first centuries, the newly baptized was given a new white robe showing forth to all the new status of the baptized - we had returned to our true nature as children made in the image of God. We had become as God intended us to be.v

For Paul the relationship we have with Christ is one of total union. Elsewhere Paul will speak of “dying to self and rising to new life in Christ.” The idea is both simple and profound: as believers in Christ we are one with Christ – our identity is no longer that of ourselves, but of Christ. As we wear clothes to reveal who we are, so we are to put on Christ to reveal who and whose we are. In putting on Christ we gain a new identity but also new relationships. When we put on Christ we put off all other status symbols which are but reflections of our broken world. Our logo is now Christ and we all stand on equal footing before Almighty God. As much as clothes were and are used to separate us into class and economic strata, so how much greater does Christ break down, eradicate, and supercede those worldly distinctions. When we put on Christ we put on the one who unites us wholly with others.

Consider this perspective on our being clothed with Christ:
Special clothing signifies a change, a change from the way we act at work, to the way we act at a party. We are naked, frail creatures, says Genesis. We are not so much physically naked as spiritually naked. We are called upon to fill roles that are too big for us. We must act, decide, function in ways that frighten.
A doctor once confessed to me that one reason why he wore the white uniform, and the mask, and the rubber gloves, was not only for hygiene, but also for encouragement. “If you are going into surgery to cut on another human being’s body, you need to be a doctor, even when you don’t feel like it. When I put on all this stuff, I’m a doctor, no matter how I feel about it.”

What about us? Are there some days when we do not feel like a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ? On those days can we remember the clothes of our soul that we put on at baptism, even Jesus the Christ? Can we remember that through Christ we have a new identity, a new status – Christian? Can we recall that through Christ we have a new tribe – the Body of Christ, the church? Can we recognize our new standing before God: forgiven? What are you wearing this morning, anyway?

i Gail Ramshaw, "Rechely Clad," Weavings, January/February 1996, pp. 30-31
iiGerhard von Rad, The Theology of the Old Testament I, 1957, p. 163
iii George Herbert, The Temple, The Church, Providence, stanza 28. ivFrom Will Willimon, “Who are These Robed in White.”
vAllyne Smith Jr., "Image and Likeness," Weavings, January/February 1996, pp. 26-27