Our Sunday Message

Dress Code: Ephesians 6:10-20
Rev. Dr. Carol McCall Richardson
August 27, 2006
Twelfth Sunday of Kingdomtide

  With these words, Paul begins his final exhortation to the church in Ephesus and thus, to us, as he challenges us all to persevere, “stand firm in the Lord” by adopting a new dress code.
  You may have noticed that I am in different dress from the other ministers. Ray Hatton and Richard Wright wear the green stole, indicating that we are in Ordinary time, according to the Christian calendar. I, however, was feeling a little uppity this morning, so I put on, dressed up in a clergy stole of many colors. It is a stole that is very special to me because it was given to me by two female Methodist clergy friends at the time of my ordination to the gospel ministry here at this church.
  I chose to wear this stole this morning for several reasons.
First, to celebrate and stand in solidarity with my female Methodist clergy friends, who this year celebrate fifty years of full clergy rights for women in the United Methodist Church. Last week I was invited to attend their celebration in Chicago as 1,500 Methodist female clergy gathered together to recognize this grand achievement for God’s Church. It demonstrated for me in a small way that the “dividing wall”—that wall of separation—that Paul speaks of in the second chapter of this letter to the Ephesians has, at least for Methodist males and females, been broken down and the two have been reconciled through Christ into one body, the Church. Surely this is as it should be as God’s Kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven—a society of equals
   free of domination,
   free of hierarchy,
   free of class distinctions,
   cultural divides,
   and free of economic disparity—a true church-in-the round.
  Second, I wear this because in some mysterious way, wearing it has a subtle transforming, humbling effect on me as I think of the women and men who have gone before me to help open the door to God’s call on my life. As I think also of the young women, like Sarah Jobe, who continue calling me, a woman, into a bold future, reminding me of my responsibilities to a needy world as a member of Christ’s Church. I know that this is just a simple piece of cloth, yet it does have powerful transforming effect on me, reminding me of my call as a Christ-follower, a proclaimer of the gospel. So what do you think about that?
  Can one’s dress really effect inner transformation?
  I asked this question this week to Lora Jobe, Sarah’s mother, who, as chair of the Memphis City School Board several years ago, led the way for a uniform dress code for our public schools. In answering the question, she told me this story.
  Lora had long been disturbed by the inequality and poor performance in some of our public schools. She had heard of the concept of a uniform dress code that seemed to be having a positive impact on behavior such as higher academic scores, better behavior in the class room, and less competition among peers. But it was not until her heart was greatly moved with compassion for a little child in one of the school classrooms that she began to think of its implication.
  She had gone to the classroom at the request of one of our fine young public school teachers, Christy Huff, to help tutor the class for the TCAPs, the standardized test that assesses a student’s performance. While Lora was there, she noticed a child with straggly, dirty hair, cut short like a boy’s and dressed in boy’s baggy clothes. Not certain of the gender of the child, she asked Christy if the child were a boy or a girl. The teacher told her that the child was a little girl, a little girl with an impossible home life—unwanted by her mother, who had verbally told her often enough that she didn’t want her and didn’t have time for her. In order for the mother to make more time for herself, she had cut her child’s hair so short that she wouldn’t have to spend time braiding it and dressed the child in her older brothers’ hand-me-downs so she wouldn’t have to shop for her.
As a result, this child had become an excluded child, a low-performing child.
  As Lora left the class room that day, she had to ask herself, ‘Would a uniform dress code make a difference in this child’s life and do I have the courage to propose such a radical idea to our school board? She realized that she did have the power to give voice to the powerless and so she, at least, had to try. God was with her that night the proposal was made and a uniform dress code was adopted for all twelve grades in the school system.
  Lora then confessed that she didn’t know if the dress code improved the school situation for that little girl because the teacher was soon transferred to another school, but she said, ‘I can say that a uniform dress code seems to be making a transformative difference in schools that enforce the code—increasing academic scores, lessening the competition of dress between peers and promoting better behavior.
  What about it? Can one’s dress really effect some kind of inner transformation? A uniform dress code in the schools holds out the possibility for it. Wearing this clergy stole seems to be for me a powerful reminder of right behavior and a call to practice it and here in this letter to the Ephesians Paul, too, seems to suggest that what we choose to put on and faithfully wear can bring about some kind of change in behavior. And so Paul challenges these early believers and now you and me, the Church, to a whole new dress code. “Put on the whole armor of God” he tells us.
  Now before some of you take offense at this metaphor of combat, note that most of the clothing is for protection and defense. This image of armor is so fresh on Paul’s mind because he himself is a prisoner in a dark, dank Roman prison cell and he is probably chained to a Roman soldier from which this image has sprung. It is out of this experience that Paul writes to the churches in Asia Minor, exhorting them to persevere, to stand firm in the face of all kinds of evil and difficulty by dressing for spiritual combat.
  If we examine each piece of armor closely—the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes, the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, we discover that these are God-qualities. But look again more closely. These are not just God-qualities, the armor is God. For the Scripture tells us that God is truth; God is perfect righteousness and God is our salvation through Jesus Christ.
  And so, Paul tells these early Christians to put on God, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14).
  But will our good intentions do it? If we make an intentional effort to put on, dress up in, clothe ourselves in these God-qualities of truthfulness, righteousness, faith, put on shoes that speed us on to share God’s good news of peace, will we be transformed in our behavior? Is faith something that we must act like we have in order to have it? Or as John Wesley, the great revivalist preacher, once said to his preachers, “Preach faith until you have it.” In other words are we to practice truth-telling until it becomes a habit or practice right thinking and right behavior until it becomes habitual? Are we to begin treating others compassionately, giving voice to the voiceless, practicing justice in the work place and in the community until it becomes second nature?
  William Willimon, the Methodist Bishop of Alabama, suggests so. He says, “Maybe we Christians make a mistake in thinking that the Christian faith has got to get deep within you, got to become something that you really feel or deeply understand, deep within. Maybe faith is also something without…maybe it is external: a set of practices, a way of life.”1
  Willimon may be on to something. After all, don’t people who are not Christians often judge us who are by our outward behavior? Wasn’t it Gandhi, the great non-violent peacemaker of India, who said, “I would be a Christian, if it were not for the behavior of Christians?”
  Jesus did not tell us to close our eyes and think deeply about him until we come to that self-awareness where we believe in him. Jesus simply said, “Follow me.” Put one foot in front of the other and stumble after me, imitate me, try to walk and live as I walked and lived. Act like you are a disciple. Pretend that those who walk beside you are really your brothers and sisters and in the process, you just might be changed, transformed.
  I know a group of young Christians who have the audacity to do just that. They are outwardly practicing the Christ-life, believing that in the practice they will be transformed and perhaps become transformers who will make a small difference for good in the neighborhood where they live. They are living in group houses of hospitality, sharing their resources and their space with those who have been beaten up by life. They are living simply so that others might simply live. They are practicing the disciplines of their faith and in the process have touched my own life deeply, causing me to re-evaluate my own “dress code”.
  I know a man who in his early years was a person full of rage and acted out his anger, leaving others deeply wounded by his wrath, though he professed to be a Christ-follower. Over the years, others began to notice a change and some of his friends asked him one day what happened to cause such a transformation. He said, “One day I decided my anger was not only killing the spirit of others but it was going to kill me and so I decided to change with God’s help.” He “put on the full armor” of gentleness, kindness, goodness and peace. “The process was not easy,” he said. “It has taken years of practice. But one day I realized that I must be changing when I heard someone call me a ‘gentle man.’”
  The writer to the Ephesians tells the Christians of that day, Don’t go out there poorly dressed. If you are going to play the game, dress for the sport—get the right equipment. If you are going to do distance biking, get a helmet. If you are going to be any good at sprinting, get the right shoes. If you are going to be a disciple,
   “put on faith,
   dress up in love,
   clothe yourselves with good intentions and wrap the promises of God around you.”2 Reflect on Scripture, even though at times you do not understand it. Pray, even when you don’t feel like it. Share your faith even though you might be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. Then having dressed well for the challenge, go out and live it!
  Put on the whole armor of God and you will become that which you profess. You will become that which you desire. Amen.

1 William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. No. 3, Year B, July, August, September, 2006, p. 40
2 Willimon, p. 41.