Church on Morgan
July 12, 2015 | Luke 12:22-32
The scripture this morning comes from the Gospel of Luke chapter 12 verses 22 through 32. He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse or barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And can any of you by worrying at a single hour of your life or to your span of life, if then you are not able to do so small a thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all of his glory was not clothed like one of these, but if God so closed the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith, and do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying, for it is the nations of the world that strive after all of these things, and your father knows that you need them. Instead strive for his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Well good morning, it is good to see you guys. I have been away on two weeks of vacation, and so I am all fired up and ready and got tons of ideas in 15 minutes, but it is great to see you. So this morning, first thing I want to ask you a question, and I may turn this off Ian just to kill the possibility, there we go. I want to ask you a question, but you have to look at me when I ask it. I do not want you looking down, do not look at anybody else, you have to look at me. Here is the question I am going to ask you, and I am watching, no cheating. Do you know what you are wearing right now? If so, raise your hand, if you feel pretty confident, you can tell me every piece that you are wearing. Okay. Second question, so most of us in the room, we know what we are wearing. You did not have to look, you could tell me the shirt, the belt, the pants, the shoes, probably even more, right? Do you know why you are wearing, what you are wearing? Do you know why you are wearing what you are wearing? Why that shirt, why that shirt out of your closet, but why that shirt was it ever purchased to begin with? Why do you wear the clothes that you wear, the shoes that you wear, why do you shop at the stores that you shop at? How did you end up with this wardrobe? I read a book earlier in the summer that is beautiful. If you are looking for a great summer read, there is this book by Lauren Winter who actually teaches at Duke Divinity School just up the road a little bit. And Ian, I do not know if you are hearing that, we have got some feedback stuff when I get in here. And she just wrote a brand new book that came out a couple months ago called Wearing God, Wearing God. And one of the reasons the book is titled that is that one of the chapters in the book is about clothing. And I think it is actually the best chapter in the book and some of the things that she points out I have been thinking about a lot over the last month or so. And I want to share some of that with you this morning. So a lot of this is in debt to Lauren Winter. And maybe one day I actually hope that maybe she will come and preach here, speak here on a Sunday morning. But you know this, if you know me, this is no surprise that I'm actually I'm kind of into clothes and I always have been. Since I was a kid and this week I even started looking for some old embarrassing photos of like how out there I was, right. And I don't have it back then it wasn't all digital. I'm that old. So I don't have the full catalog. They're in a shoebox somewhere, probably at my mom's house. But I have these images in my mind. I remember sort of the spike haircut and the gold cross and the whatever. And like second and third grade, the silk shirts button all the way up. You know like just going all the way, right. I've always sort of enjoyed clothes. But I've actually realized you know over the last month or so I've for most of my life been really unreflective about it. So I just sort of followed that passion and I kind of chased that dog wherever it goes. But I've never really stopped to think about what is the meaning of clothes in my life. Why do I care so much about them? What is the meaning of clothing? And and Lauren Winter's book, she points out these three things. And I think there's probably lots of other things, you know, other things that are true about clothing. But these three really spoke to me. She said, first of all, clothes shape us. They shape us. Some literally do. Like how many of y'all are wearing Spanx right now, just kidding. Like but some clothes literally shape us, right. But here, the sort of etymological history of this is that the word fashion was a verb. If you follow this, it was a verb before it was a noun. So fashion was originally a word to fashion a loaf of bread or to fashion sort of a clay pot, right. That was the original intent of the word. That was the first usage of the word fashion was to make something to give it a shape. And it's because of that very reason that, you know, a couple hundred years ago, we began to talk about clothing as fashion because it shapes us. It gives us a form. It from way back when with corsets and the rest to just our overall identity, clothing has this shaping factor on us. And one way I just sort of know this is true is and I am, my guess is that this is the same experience for you. But if I put on a different outfit, I can literally become a different person, right. Have you ever had that experience? Like and because I was talking about clothing this morning, I shared with someone earlier, this was like the hardest Sunday morning to get dressed in my life. Because I'm like, they're going to, like, what do I wear? And I actually had a suit on first. And then I thought, no, that's, I never wear suits. I just got to play it normal. You know, this whole, but you put on a different outfit and you become a different person. Well, I put on a suit. All of a sudden, I got ideas and you need to be listening, right. I stand taller, take me seriously and yes, I'll take your money, right. That's sort of like my suit moment when I'm wearing sort of my jogger pants and my big on tuck shirt. It's, it's kind of like, hey, man, I'm so cow, like I'm way laid back in chill, which is what this whole experience has been about for the last six months, trying to become that person, right. And hoping my clothes will lead me this very high strung type A guy into being more relaxed. So they're, I put on a different outfit and I become a different person. I got a stain on my shirt, right. You ever had that moment? It's like half hour into your work day and the coffee goes down the side. The rest of the day, I just, I have no confidence and completely insecure. Like, don't talk to me. I don't want to, you know, it's like our clothes, they shape us who we are. And we, because we feel different, we act different. You know, what was, I, probably because I, I've, I've just followed this rabbit everywhere on clothing. I've got probably a much more erratic kind of fashion history than many of you have. But I was thinking about it this week. Like, I can, you know, just the very short version of this is high school. For me, it was pack sun, right. And this was the jenko days, if anybody's that old, right, where the pants were judged by the size of their opening. It was like, how good are your pants? Mine are 24 inches at the bottom open, right. And you had the big metal chain and I had a tongue ring and neon hair and it was that moment and I went all in. Then when I went to college, it was sort of the Abercrombie moment, right. And when I'm the jenko kid, I'm punk rock and like, don't look at me the wrong way or whatever, right. And when I'm in college, I'm the Abercrombie guy, right. So it's the cargo khaki pants and the like super heavyweight long sleeve shirts. And it's the, there's a huge athletic body under this you can't see, you know. And that's, that's sort of the Abercrombie days. And so it's like, I put on jock and I act like a jock and I talk like a jock and you may see me at the mall with my shirt off. Like that was sort of that moment. Then I became a youth pastor. I moved to Texas. And about the time I got there, they put an urban outfitters in, right. And so I said, you know what, athletics is dorky. Rock and roll is cool. And I'm done with Abercrombie. And now it's all about American apparel and skinny jeans and that whole deal. And I spent a lot for four years living in sort of like I'm a rock and roll star even though I don't play any music. And then I went to Duke. And about the time I went to Duke, it was time to change the wardrobe again. And so I walked into my J. Crew era where I had the perfect tweed jacket for every fall crisp day to put the Washington Post under my arm and make my way to class, you know. It's like, and my closet went J. Crew. And then I got hired at Edenton Street and I kid you not within a week. I had got my Brooks Brothers Blazer. I got a selection of bow ties and I learned what seersucker was. And it was time to, you know, act like I grew up in the south and my parents sort of owned some estate elsewhere and that whole deal, right. And this was, and I did that for the first two or three years I was here, right. And you can sort of, but what's fascinating is I was a different person in each of those times in my life. And the clothing wasn't inconsequential. What I wore determined who I was. I mean, there was this very sort of intimate connection between what I put on my body and how I felt about myself and how I acted in the world. And so Lauren Winters, she says, the first thing that clothes do for us is they shape us. They shape us. The second thing she says is we use our clothes to communicate to other people. And I kind of already hinted at this, right. But, you know, when I've got a board meeting or I've got to go ask somebody for a lot of money, a church or something like that, like I don't show up like this, right. Because I want to communicate something to somebody else. So those are the days I show up in a suit. Because I need you to know that I can be taken seriously, right. But then when I'm meeting with my friends downtown or people who have given up on church and don't go to church, the last thing I'm going to do is put on a suit, right. I'm going to show up like this to be like, look, we're not all stiff, right. Like, yeah, pastor, unbelievable. Check it out, right. I mean, and so we use our clothes to tell other people a story about ourselves. I mean, the most simple basic understanding of this would be like a funeral. Like the fact that we have this great history and heritage of people wearing black when they're in mourning to show the world I'm in mourning, which was a way of giving people a cue to say, don't come up and talk to me about the weather, right. Like, I'm going through something right now. And so our clothes, they shape us. We use them to shape others opinions of us. And the last thing is clothing creates community. It creates community. And what's interesting right now is we've got like families here in our church and they all go to different elementary schools. And you can almost, it's getting to the point where I can almost figure out what school or a couple schools your elementary child goes to based on their sneaker selection, right. So if you're at Hunter, you're rocking like Air Jordans, right. And that's sweet. And if you're at Lacey, you have got the black Nike socks with the spares or something, right. I mean, this is sort of, and the reason that this happens is because people, they want to be a part of a community. And we use our clothes to sort of tell people like who's in and who's out. This is why, by the way, schools often enforce a uniform. Because in one way, it's really helpful and beautiful when we all kind of find a community and adopt that clothing and we know we're in. But also, every time we do that, we draw a line and we put some people out, right. And so schools kind of recognize those boundary making that happens through clothing and says we're not going to deal with that and we're going to sort of enforce a uniform. And people are so sensitive to this. This will just stay in this room and on the podcast room to hear. But like, one Sunday, I was at the sanctuary service, at our traditional service. And this was when I was coming out of my Brooks Brothers phase and stepping into the new me. And I had some like dark skinny jeans on under my black robe, right. So I'm already, I'm literally wearing Reverend Ned Hill's 30 year old black robe because I can't bring myself to buy one that feels so not me to me that I'm wearing his hand me down and I'm about a foot taller. So it's like at my kneecaps. And I'm standing in traditional, giving a benediction, and you can see basically from my shins down. And I thought my denim was dark enough that nobody was going to notice. But apparently, no, everybody noticed. And that week, I got two emails. I got one email that said, I could not believe that my pastor was wearing skinny jeans. I thought that was so cool. My friends would feel so welcome here. Same day, someone else sends me an email and says, I cannot believe my pastor would wear jeans into this holy service, right. And how inappropriate that was for you to do. I mean, this is a community. And we have rules. And the way you know what the rule, how you belong, how you fit in or don't fit in is you wear the right clothes or you don't. And we draw these very clear lines. You want to go to sanctuary service, put on a blazer, right. This isn't news. We know this. And that's why people often ask me at Church on Morgan, like one of the first questions, well, what can I wear? What should I wear? I mean, this week, I got a question. Is it cool for me to wear my Birkenstocks in my shorts? I'm like, yeah, bring it. Like, wear whatever you want. But that's an important question. The reason we ask it is we want to know, will we belong? What will the lines be? How will I know if I'm a part of this community or not? And if I wear the wrong thing, man, I'm going to be, you know, it's like somebody came to Church on Morgan one week and actually went to the wrong room. And they realized very quickly they were in the wrong room and didn't belong because they had the wrong clothes on and they knew it. They're like, this can't be. There's no way this is the place I'm supposed to be, right. And so our clothes, they shape us. What we think, how we act ourselves, they communicate to those around us something and they also create community for better or worse. And so when you think about all that our clothing does, if all of that is true and more, how could we not be worried about what we wear? You know, in this passage, Jesus says, so do not worry about what you will wear. Consider the lilies. They don't worry about what they wear and they were clothed in more splendor than King Solomon in his finest days, right. This incredibly rich man who had access to all the great fashion. So don't worry about what you wear. But the truth is we as kind of a human race, we've been worrying about what we wear since the beginning of time. Basically, from the moment to Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing that they realized had happened was they were naked and they needed clothes. And from that day forward, we've been worrying about what we wear. And so they sewed some fig leaves together, right. And they just sort of began that process that we have inherited, that we all every day, we have this huge decision about what we're going to wear, what we're not going to wear. It's why I totally understand and have even flirted with the idea that a lot of people are beginning to do more and more of, which is picking one outfit and wearing it every day, right. This is sort of the Steve Jobs thing he made really popular. And it's actually fascinating to me. This idea, I just don't have like the commitment. I can't do it. I can do it for like two or three days. And those first like day two is really awkward, day three is even more awkward. It's like when people are like, I'm pretty sure he's been wearing that for a while. Like when do you get to have the conversation of like, no, this is here. Like, I just, I wear the one outfit, you know. And my sense is I would probably make it about a week and a half and then fall off. And then it would just be that week that Justin didn't change. It must have been depressed, you know, whatever. But it is. I mean, it's, how can we not worry about what we wear? And so if you've been in here with us for the past couple of weeks, as Wes said, we've been in this sermon series called Beautiful Things. And it's based on this idea that in in Psalm 19 and in Romans 1, it says from the beginning of creation, from the beginning of time, we've been able to sort of, we've had clues about what God is like just by looking at the things that God has made, right? And so every week we look at something that God has made as a way of considering a clue about who God might be. And this morning, we want to take a look for just a second at the lilies. Jesus says, consider the lilies. Take a look at the lilies and see what you might find out about who God is. So I know a lot of people, some people talk to their flowers, right? And this morning, we're going to actually try and listen to them. We're going to try and hear what the flowers may have to say to us. Because if even Solomon was not clothed as well, what does that mean for us? And Jesus goes on to say, he says, listen, if God clothes the grass, how much more will he clothe you? And what's fascinating is that in Genesis 3, as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they realized they're naked, they sow fig leaves together for themselves, God's first act towards them is making them better clothes. You know, there's this sense in which what a compassionate, gracious move. And Genesis 3 right here says in the Lord, God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and he clothed them. It would have been very easy for God to say, see, I told you, you blew it. If you hadn't eaten from that tree, you never would have known, everything would have been cool. You sinned, deal with the consequences. But instead, God says, you sinned, you feel naked, you're ashamed, you need some shape, you need some identity, you need to know if you belong. I'm going to make you close. Those fig leaves are embarrassing, right? So let me make you some legitimate clothing. And this great act of grace, God clothes the first humans, even in their sin, even in their shame. And this idea of God clothing us is powerful, that Jesus would say, God clothes the grass, but how much more will He clothe you? We've got a lot of images and metaphors that we use for God, right? God is our king, God is our shepherd, God is our father. I think the scripture is one of the ones we miss, a lot of the time, is that God might be our tailor, right? Or our designer, or our stylist. What does it mean to begin to think about God as the one that clothes us? In fact, in Galatians chapter three, Paul sort of continues this. And here he says, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There's no longer Jew or Greek, there's no longer slave or free, there's no longer male or female for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Paul makes the statement that God is still clothing people. In the same way that he compassionately clothed Adam and Eve, and that Jesus says, God will clothe you if he clothes the grass and the lilies of the field, how much more will he sort of do this good thing that provide you a shape and help you communicate to those around you and create community among you, that the God will do that. And as many of you were baptized, not only does God close us, but God is the clothes himself. This is sort of a fascinating idea that God clothes Adam and Eve, but God is also in some sense our clothing. God is our clothing that when we are baptized, we are baptized into Christ. We were given a new outfit, something new to wear. And I'm pretty sure when Paul said this, he probably wasn't thinking about some of these sorts of situations. I think Stuart's got some -- so this is a t-shirt, right? I think being clothed in Christ doesn't mean that Jesus suites Savior, King of Kings. I don't think this is what he was thinking, right? Or his way, subway kind of tees, right? But sometimes I think we fall for that. We think what it means to be clothed in Christ is that we literally have to don some like Christian apparel. This was not sort of the idea. It's much more rich and robust than that. I think what Paul is saying is that these deep questions that we all ask about, who am I and do I belong and what do other people think of me that there's no clothes in the world that will ever fully satisfy, that our bodies will ever completely feel at home in. But what we go to close for, so often this shaping of our identity, of our affections, of our feeling, of people's perception, of community. Paul says that thing, what clothes does for you? Christ has come to do for you. That Christ can give you an identity. Christ can shape you. Christ can make you feel different than you feel right now. He can give you new affections, new desires. He can, if you will allow him to be your clothes, he can change your behavior. He can change other's perceptions of you. He can change the way that people see you in the world. He can give you a community that has no boundaries. This is what God is for us. God is the great sort of clothing. He's our great stylist. When you think about that, you realize that so many of us, we're on this endless search for a wardrobe that we will feel ourselves in. The truth is you'll never find it. But God says, I'm that wardrobe. Try on a new metaphor. And he's better than denim, better than selvage denim. He's better than Ralph Lauren. He's better than Tom Ford. He's the greater designer than Versace. Jesus says, for those of you who are baptized, you've been given a new outfit. You have a new identity. You have a new way of being formed in the world. And I kind of want to say this morning that in two weeks we're actually going to celebrate a baptism here, which is super exciting. Pierce Vaughn is going to be baptized. And that, for us, for me, that is like the mountaintop. That is the coolest thing we do on a Sunday morning ever at Church on Morgan. If there's a Sunday not to miss, it will be July 26th because there's something so beautiful and profound about baptism. And I can't wait for it. But some of you in the room, maybe you've never been baptized. You've never had this moment where you were able to put on Christ and to walk in that and see what that feels like. And I just want you to know that that's an open invitation on July 26th. If you'd like to be baptized and you never have been, I would love to do that for you. So if you just follow up with me this week or the next week, we can sort of work out the details on that. And the last thing I would say as we try to figure out, okay, Justin, that's great. But how do we practically put on Christ? I still got to wear something, right? Yes, please wear something. But how do we put on Christ? Well, I would say that as sure as you get up in the morning and you put on jeans or slacks or whatever you're putting on, you're given the opportunity to also each day put on Christ. And the way that we do that, the best way I know how to invite you into that practice of being shaped by something greater than sort of your clothing that you're physically wearing is to spend some time in the scriptures and in prayer and with God. And as a church, we're actually trying to do this together. We've created this thing called the daily, which is if you can go on to our website, churchonmorgan.org or churchonmorgan.com, you can go there and under our rhythm, we're trying to develop a rhythm for our whole community. There's something called the daily. And if you just subscribe, you write your email in and you'll begin getting an email every single day that's got a morning prayer to help you sort of put on Christ's identity and a scripture passage to read. And we're actually following kind of the global sort of schedule of readings. It's called the daily office. And so we're reading the gospel lessons together every day of the week on our own, on our phone, on our iPad, at our computer desk, wherever we are. And this is one simple way that we can every day sort of put on Christ. And watch as we look back on our lives and sort of this era and say, "I was a different person than because I was wearing something else." You know, there's this really bizarre, weird thing that happens at all the kind of award shows if you ever watch. Nowhere else in life does anybody ever walk up to you and say, "Who are you wearing?" Right? It's completely crazy. But every award show, it's the only question that's asked for an hour before it begins on the red carpet. Every celebrity, "Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?" Right? And at the risk of sounding kind of coming off a little bit cheesy or cliche, I think this morning, as we consider sort of the beautiful things and what the lesson of the creation has to say to us, when God says, "Consider the lilies," and we stop and we try to listen to what the flowers might say, I think what the flowers ask us every single day is, "Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing?" And each day we get the opportunity to put on Christ. And it's my prayer that you'll do that this week. So let me pray for us and then we're going to move on in our service. God, we thank you that you didn't leave us naked and ashamed, that you don't leave us in this sort of endless search for identity grabbing, for clothing off the rack, hoping to find something that our souls would feel comfortable in, that we would finally discover that community we were made for. But instead, you say, "You give us yourself to put on. You shape us. You shape others' opinions of us as we live more and more into your likeness." And you create a community that's so much better than the communities that our clothing creates. So God, we recognize we have to put something on. But we pray we'd be just as aware, just as passionate about putting you on every day as we are about our sneakers and our loafers and our belts and our polos. We love you, God, and we want to become more like you. And by your grace, we believe that we can. It's in your name we pray. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]