A couple
of weeks ago, I read the readings. I went and sat in a quite place and asked
God to give me a message.
God spoke
to me, “Leisure suits.”
Y’all are
looking and me and saying “huh?” I
did too.
But God
spoke to me in an image I just couldn’t get out of my head, “leisure suits.”
And I said, God I don’t understand; but, I trust you. I just kept asking myself
“Why leisure suits?”
The
gospel reading is about a wedding feast of the King. The King is God, the first
people to be invited represent the people of Israel
We then
learn that one of the guests at the feast is without the right garment. The
King is offended and the guest is bound and cast out into the darkness.
For a
week and a half I’m thinking, God, am I supposed to say you can be thrown out
of the feast for wearing a leisure suit.
Then
Tuesday morning, I was laying in a bed in a hotel in Nashville Ten; listening to the rain. and God shows me his message. And surprise - it
begins with leisure suits.
How many
remember leisure suits? Polyester pants with a shirt style jacket put together
with a patterned polyester shirt. The shirt collar was wide to cover the jacket
collar and the sleeves long enough so the cuffs could be folded back up over
the cuffs of the jacket.
In 1976,
if you had a leisure suit, you
were cool. My best friends were
Ricky and Mike. We came from similar families. We weren’t rich; our fathers
worked hard and our moms took care of us. We had part-time jobs. We hunted
together, fished together, ate pizza together, and were in the same classes.
Being
football players, we had to dress up and a leisure suit was perfect. And, did I mention;
if you had a leisure suit you
were cool.
Ricky had
a green leisure suit. Mike had a royal blue leisure suit and some of the
highest platform shoes you could get. Mine was burnt orange and from the JC Penny catalog. I had a white belt and a pair of three
inch white platform shoes from Kmart.
That year,
Mike’s mother became very sick. His parents had to go to the hospital in Houston
It was a
feast that could be described like the one in Psalms “a table spread before us
in goodness and kindness.” Using Isaiah’s words it was a “feast of juicy rich
food.” It was a feast of healing for
Mike who had went so much the two previous weeks.
We had
enjoyed the spaghetti and that night, no one else at my house had spaghetti.
God had blessed us, we were friends, Mike’s mom was better, and we won the
game.
The next
morning, I heard a knock at the door. It was the lady who lived next
door. Bless her heart.
She was a
widow and the type of person who didn’t like you to walk on her grass. She
would come running screaming “get off my grass, your going to kill it.” You did
not jump the back fence to get your ball or Frisbee. You had better first knock
and get permission. We had lived next door for six years and her dog never
liked us.
This
Saturday morning, I could hear the fussing at my Dad. “How dare you let that
happen?” Thanks to your boys no one is safe any longer. It is all on account of
those boy’s. They are a
bunch of heathens.
Just the regular stuff she said
about us. Bless her heart.
But this
morning, she had something else on her mind. I remember my father asking her
what we had done. She said “he’s not white” (and “not white” was not the racial
term she used.) “How could you let one of "them" come to your house. You’re supposed to
be a Christian; you should be teaching them boys better than that.”
I still
remember my father’s answer “I
am teaching them better than that! Good
bye”
It is
something that has always stuck with me “I
am teaching them better than that?”
Soon, my
friends and I graduated high school and went our separate ways. One stayed home
and became a police officer. One joined the military and retired on the east
coast. One is now a Deacon.
Isn't God
great? When God invites us to the heavenly feast; we are not going to be judged
on our earthly clothes. We could show up dressed in a royal blue leisure suit
and matching four inch platform tennis shoes, or a uniform, or a deacon’s
robes. Our clothes can come from JC Penny, or Wal-Mart, or Abercrombie and
Fitch, or the Goodwill. Our skins can be any shade that God has blessed us
with.
None of
these earthy human identities are important.
What is important - Do we dress for the heavenly wedding
feast in the love that is Christ? Christ is all that God wants to see us
clothed in. All the ugliness of the world is left behind. This is
when we will be asked to stay.
This is
what God reminded me of in my tale of leisure suits and a spaghetti dinner.
When we
clothed ourselves in Christ, we do not see the differences the world puts on us
only the sameness that God created in us. Their loving friendship was found in a
faith in Christ given to them by their parents; not in the expectations that
the world put on them.
We thought we were cool; but really - we
were even better than that.
There were times in my life, I would have never expected to
be in these Deacon robes. Times when I
was clothed in the ugliness of this world: sin, full of my own ego, and I cared
more about my self than others. We all
have been there.
But, I remembered what my Dad said, and I asked myself “Am I
better than that?”
I think
it’s one of the most important parts of this story. I think its what God
wanted me to share.
When you
look at all the stuff you put on in this life, no matter how good or how bad
you think it is, ask yourself:
“Am I
better than that?”
Paul tells us how when he writes, “I can do all
things in him who strengthens me.”
Look at ourselves, look at the world – “Are you
better than that?”
In
Christ, you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment