PRACTICE ONE-ANOTHERING

1.  Don’t Be In A Hurry To Choose Your Own Clothes

I am painfully embarrassed to admit to you this morning that my Mom used to pick out my clothes for me.  She would do it, of course, because she cared for me and because she didn’t want me to be too cold, or too warm.  And she didn’t want me to be exposed to the ridicule of those who might make fun of a child whose shirt didn’t match his pants, or who hadn’t washed his socks in a few weeks.   But the crux of this confession it that once upon a childhood I couldn’t have done it without the help. 

 

Eventually, however, things changed.   Eventually I went from a very needy and very spoiled Elementary School Student to a very ornery and very independent Junior High School Student, and that’s around the time that I wore the orange pants.  I wore the orange pants and the shoes with the two inch heels probably because I personally identified with the Philadelphia Flyers, whose team colors were orange and black, and the shoes probably had something to do with the height differential between me and the girl across the street.   Anyway, I became (during that year) a victim of my own choices.   And I will never forget the sadness that I experienced when I realized how it would only get worse—and how each impending choice would only intensify the feeling that I could make the wrong choice—and that my mother, for all her good intentions, couldn’t make them for me.   And, you see, it’s with this personal experience in mind and with something sociologists have called, “the tyranny of choice,” in mind that I pause over Colossians 3:12. 

2.  Getting Dressed In Christ Requires Lots of Help, But It’s God’s Choice

“As God’s own chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves…”

 

To be chosen by God, of course, is no small thing.   But what might that chosen-ness mean for all the other choices that are seemingly forced upon us, or for those choices that we must make in the heat of the moment?    For example, in the film, Dead Man Walking, Susan Sarandon plays a Roman Catholic nun who refuses to wear the traditional nun’s head covering or habit.   To the real life Sister Helen Prejean those clothes are nearly as important as the death row inmate that she meets in the Lousian State Penitentary.   Sister Helen meets Matthew Poncelet after his convcitiion for rape and murder, a verdict that he continues to deny until the final week of his life.   The victim’s family, as you might imagine, is put out by the nun’s compassion.   They would rather her show kindness to them and to listen to them as they rail against the ugly and vile man who has taken so much away from them.   But the day of the lethal injection arrives and this is what Sister Helen decides to do.  She declares to the one who everyone hates, “I can’t bear the thought that you would die without seeing one loving face.   I will be the face of Christ for you…”   And so, when the sentence is about to be carried out and nearly all the people in the room feel it’s their God-given duty to despise and to punish this reprehensible human being, there is at least one person who clothes herself with “humility, meekness and patience.”   And because Sister Helen makes that choice, the perpetrator of the crime with his final words can ask for forgiveness, and feel as if he’s been chosen too.  

 3.  One-Another Mutuality Clobbers Unilateral Acts of Kindness

Two verses in today’s passage from Colossians, chapter three, offer some profound insight into how we are to make important life-choices.   Verse 13 commands that we “Bear with one another” and verse 16 goes one step further, declaring, that we must “teach and admonish one another.”  And, what’s most intriguing about these imperative verbs is the object.   The object of bear with is not ‘me’ or ‘him’ or ‘her’ or that stranger over there, but “one another.”   The object of teach and admonish does not reinforce the hierarchical, finger-wagging relationship between the teacher and the student, or between the boss and the employee, or between the good citizen and the criminal.   The object of the sentence, and the true goal of Christian faith, is “one another.”   And, you see, the mutuality of that phrase clobbers any unilateral act of kindness that we can imagine.

 

In our last church we had a little nine year old girl, and she just happened to be mentally retarded.   We loved her dearly and more to the point, she loved us.  In fact, she loved everybody and would demonstrate that affection with lots of hugs and kisses and cudos.   Anyway, we had another college age guy who got hooked on drugs and eventually had a car accident.   He had been hospitalized and bearly survived.   But, according to the girl’s mother, something very strange happened right around the time of the accident.   The college student had been life-flighted to the hospital and miles and miles away, out of the blue, Riley is humming to herself, when suddenly she says to her mother:  

“You know, that boy…That boy… he’s gonna be alright because God’s with him…”  

 

4.   We Are Invited To Dance

You see, I don’t know whether or not we believe it’s happening, but people like us are continually invited to dance with the Triune God.   Right now, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are swinging and swaying to some mutual music, and ordinary people like you and me and Riley and Gian are welcome to cut in.   Right now, in the midst of the very life of God, there is there is a beautiful tune, and the only question is, will we submit to the one-anothering rhythm?    

“And with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do , in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:16—17).

 

I once knew a person would give and give and give.  She gave of her time.  She gave of her money.   She sent cards.   She sent flowers.   She prepared casseroles.  She vacuumed carpets.   But when she did all those things, we had the strange sense that she did it so that we would depend on her, so that we would look up to her, so that we would honor her, which we did.  And yet, here’s the thing that I noticed; whenever anyone tried to give to this individual, she couldn’t take it.   Whenever anyone tried to discern her needs, she would try to hide them.  And whenever anyone tried to have a discussion about weakness or personal loss, it always turned out that her failure was something like caring too much.

 

Now, you may be wondering today about how to allocate your time, about whether the raking of the blessed pine needles at the property constitute the gift that you’d like to offer.   And, of course, there are other ways to give.   But please consider the following.

5.  Latah Valley:   Dress Rehearsal Begins Now

Barbara Brown Taylor talks about a service that had been planned for the late evening at an Episcopalian church.   This happened to be one of the fanciest congregations in town and they actually had cameras positioned around the ornate sanctuary so that if you were in the office or in the hallway you could see what was happening.   Anyway, about six hours prior to the start of the worship service a homeless man came to the office and asked if he could spend a little time in prayer.   The administrator said yes, and the man thanked her and went into the sanctuary and laid his body on the floor directly in front of the altar, totally prostrate and with his arms out wide.   Everyone who came into the office that day could see the man in his raggedy clothes lying there.   They could see him because of the cameras.   And then, as people who would lead the worship service began to arrive, folks in the office became nervous.   They asked the pastor, they asked Barbara Brown Taylor to tell the man that a worship service would soon begin and that he had to leave.   So, reluctantly she went in.   She felt strange getting on the floor and whispering to the man, who indeed had been moving his lips and mouthing prayers for six hours.   She told him about the worship and how folks needed to practice.  They needed to get ready.   He raised head and nodded and Barbara Brown Taylor left the room.   She felt hypocritical asking him to leave, so she turned around in the hallway and went back in.   She went back to tell him to stay, but he was gone.   And already the dress rehearsal had begun.

 

Latah Valley—that same dress rehearsal begins now.