Dressing the Part
While I was in seminary, I got my first real church job. I was a small part of the ministry of a very big church in Dallas. That particular position also functioned as a learning position, and I spent an hour or two each week in a class session with a very experienced pastor learning some practical lessons about working in The United Methodist Church. I can recall one of those lessons revolving around a conversation about what a pastor is expected to wear. When he was coming up, my teacher explained, it was expected that pastors wear suits at all times. Today, of course, things are a little different as styles have changed. Jeans are allowed, and I only wear ties on special occasions. Although, I’ll admit I’m pretty close to considering a clergy collar…
The way we dress often has an impact on how we are perceived by others and, thus, on how they receive us. While this shouldn’t be true, because we should accept and be accepted as we are, the reality of our world is that this is true. To put it differently, we might say that our clothing matters. The authors of our scriptures knew this to be true, and told stories that used this reality to communicate important theological ideas to us. One of these stories is the Parable of the Wedding Feast in our gospels. In it, Jesus tells a parable about a king who holds a wedding feast for his son. He invites all the regulars (his courtiers, city officials, important merchants, etc.), but they ignore his invitation. He asks again and they outright reject him. So, he turns and fills the feast with random people off the street.
In Luke’s version of this parable, it ends here, and the message is clear that the Kingdom of God (here compared to a wedding feast) is open to all. However, Matthew 22 continues the parable with an offputting addendum. Here it is:
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
The king, who has pulled people into the feast off the street, throws out one of those people for being dressed in the wrong clothes. This seems like a wild overreaction, doesn’t it? This man off the street wouldn’t have had the opportunity to put on a wedding robe! In the context of the parable, however, I think this addendum is offering us an important theological point. That point is: we are called to come to the Table, to the Kingdom of God, dressed in the correct spiritual clothes. In other words, we have to spiritually dress the part.
We’ll talk about this more on Sunday, but to give you a hint – I think spiritually dressing the part looks a lot like letting go of our preconceived notions of who God is and allowing ourselves to experience the Divine with openness and a willingness to be changed. I think we are called to strip ourselves of the spiritual clothing this world has taught us to wear, which restricts us and holds us back, and put on the yoke of Christ which sets us free to be our full, flourishing selves.
See you Sunday, friends!
In grace,
Rev. Tim
