Putting on Christ, like a garment

Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Lapworth at 11am Eucharist
Sunday 20th June 2010 – Trinity III, proper 7

Readings: Gal 3: 23-29 Luke 826-39


Recently my daughter Caroline was in a dance show, so I went along to watch her dance. The show was based on a book called “Peter Pan in Scarlet” which has been written in 2006 as an official sequel to the story of Peter Pan, the little boy who has adventures in Neverland, and who never grows up.
Now the story of Peter Pan ends when Peter Pan’s arch enemy, the evil pirate Captain Hook is defeated by Peter and falls into the jaws of a crocodile. Peter Pan in Scarlet is all about Peter Pan, who carries on living in Neverland, wearing the scarlet robe that was formerly worn by Captain Hook. And as the story develops Peter Pan slowly takes on more and more of Captain Hook’s personality. He becomes angry and selfish and difficult. His gang of friends, “The Lost Boys” find him harder and harder to live with. Peter begins to dream the dreams of Captain Hook and to take on his desires, and all this because he is wearing Captain Hooks cloak. Peter Pan’s situation gets worse and worse until he realises the problems the cloak is causing him. He casts off the cloak, and from that point, although Peter has become very ill, everything starts to get better. The premise is that somehow, by wearing someone’s clothes you slowly become that person.
So in what way is that true? Last night we had a very enjoyable curry night to raise money for the charity “Warwick in India”. I wore the Indian clothes that I bought eight years ago in New Delhi. Did wearing Indian clothes make me more Indian? Well I don’t know? I certainly felt more Indian. And certainly, if I was more Indian, I would wear Indian Clothes more.
Well this all seems like the realms of fairytales. But in our epistle reading today Paul said, “As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ”. And Paul is forever using this idea of putting on things which are good, like we might put on clothing, in order to make ourselves good. When we get up on a morning we have to choose the clothes to put on. In the same way we can start each day by choosing our attitudes and behaviours for the day. In different parts of the New testament Paul tells us to put on the armour of light (Rom 13: 12), the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 13: 14), the imperishable, immortal body (1 Cor 15: 53), the whole armour of God (Eph 6:11, see also 1 Thes 5: 7) and the new self, the new man ( Eph 4: 24 Col 3: 10). It seems that Paul is always urging us to put on good things, holy things, good behaviours as we would put on clothes. These things might be external to us, they might come from God rather than from our own nature, but they have a positive effect on us, slowly changing us into something better. And Paul often talks about Christians as being changed and transformed. He says that we are transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor 3: 18). Eventually, wearing these good things like clothes, they make us Christ like. Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2: 20).
Equally Paul is always telling us to put aside bad things; to lay aside the works of darkness (Rom 13: 12). This is important because the opposite can also happen. If, when we get up in the morning, we choose to put on evil things and bad behaviours then evil grows within us. In our gospel reading we heard of a man processed by many demons. He was in a most terrible state, completely under the control of his demons, but Jesus still managed to heal him.
In the church we are all Saints and we are all Sinners. We all have Christ within us, especially since our baptism, but we also all have a tendency to sin, to rebel against God. Paul is urging us always to cloth ourselves in the Saint. Always live by the Saint, adopt the attitudes of the saint, the behaviours of the Saint, to think of the good of others, like the Saint. And this is important, because the Saint who grows within us has a future that is eternal and blessed. It can only get better. When we choose to live in the Sinner then we are building for ourselves a future that is in opposition to God. This might seem easy in the short term, but in the end it can only perish and decay and die.
And of course it is not just in the morning that we have to choose to live by the Saint. We have to do it in each present moment of our lives. It is the behaviours and attitudes that we are choosing right now in the present moment that have an effect; not our good aspirations for tomorrow. When I was training for Advanced Driving Test I often found that I had my hands in the wrong position on the steering wheel. As soon as I noticed, I would put my hands back in the right position and carry on. And sometimes this was really hard, I just felt that I could not be bothered. But the more I did it, the more natural it became to me and now I find it easy, instinctive even. Well in the same way I try to train myself always to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to live each moment in the Saint. And over time that too becomes for natural and instinctive.
But what about the times when we just can’t do it? What about the times when, like the demoniac we are dominated by unruly forces within us and we can only choose behaviours which are bad and destructive. Or perhaps the problem is with the people around us, or the society we live in, and we find ourselves constrained towards violence and injustice. Well, in my opinion, this happens all the time and the key thing is to continue to live in the Saint, even when the Sinner is in control. Jesus, in his passion and death, seemed to be overpowered by the forces of evil. It seemed that they had overcome him completely and killed him. But Jesus’ cry went up to heaven. God revealed the Resurrection; new life for Jesus and defeat for evil. So, where the Sinner is in control in our lives, living in the Saint means sharing with Jesus in the experience of passion and death. It is painful and humbling, but where our cry rises to heaven united with the cry of Jesus, there God breaks the power of evil and gives new life.
So let’s be clothed in Christ. Let’s choose always the attitudes and behaviours of the Saint. And let’s practice this in each present moment of our lives, because practice makes perfect!