Put On Christ

Philemon 1-21   Luke 14:25-33

Several years ago, there was a TV show called “What Not to Wear” aimed mostly at female viewers.  The premise was that some individuals have no idea how to dress, and thus go about looking dumpy and unattractive – but this situation can be remedied.  Each week, such an individual, nominated by concerned friends and family, would be offered by the hosts of the show a gift card worth $5K, a trip to NYC, and a complete makeover by style experts. Sounds wonderful – but there was a catch.

On accepting the invitation, the person in question had to agree to bring with them their entire current wardrobe, knowing that at the beginning of the show it would be displayed on racks, each piece individually critiqued, usually not favourably, by the hosts, and then dumped unceremoniously into a garbage can. ouch It wasn’t that the clothing was beautiful - it was the attachment, the familiarity, the memories that each piece embodied that made it so difficult and sometimes even painful for the individual to hear it criticized and then tossed away.

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker . . .  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a marvelous thing to, thousands of years after it was written, have this short letter from St. Paul to Philemon, who scholars believe was a well-to-do slave holder.  He had come under Paul’s tutelage and through Paul had been converted to Christianity, with the result that they had become like family to each other, brothers in Christ. 

Onesimus (oh–nes’-amus), a slave who belongs to Philemon, has run away and has ended up in prison with Paul, where he has made himself useful to the Apostle, quite possibly waiting on him and caring for him.  For his part, Paul has shared the Gospel with Onesimus, and like his master before him, the slave has been converted to Christianity. 

Now, Paul prepares to send Onesimus back to Philemon, but circumstances have changed since the slave ran away. What we are most likely to hear when this lesson is read is Paul’s encouragement of Philemon to accept Onesimus as a brother in Christ.  But there is something else here.

 I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me …

Paul is an old man, he is a prisoner because of his faith, and Onesimus is both a help and a comfort to him, but, unlike Paul, it seems he is not a prisoner. How hard it must have been for Paul to send back to Philemon this now friend and brother, to whom Paul had become deeply attached, but who Paul wished to now have a place as an equal in the Christian community.

Jesus said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

In the Jewish community of Jesus’ day, as it is in today’s traditional modern Jewish community, after faith, nothing was (or is) more important than family. Jesus’ words startle and shock us today, but in His time, they served a purpose that was evident to His listeners in a way that it is not to us.  His listeners then, heard something we can easily miss today, because the word translated as “hate” almost certainly reflects an idiom that comes from the Hebrew. 

In Genesis we learn that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah and that Leah was "hated" by Jacob. This kind of “hate” refers to a choice of first allegiance, which Jesus’ listeners in His day would have understood.  The one to whom the individual gives heart and soul is loved, while the second choice is “hated”.  There can and may be other loves, but none is greater than the first choice. Jesus does not ask, He demands that He be our first choice.

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Whatever hardships we must face, Jesus tells us we must bear them.  At first, that may sound like only difficulties and struggles within the Church or those related to our religion, but there is more to it than that. Jesus expects us to also shoulder the everyday troubles, illness, sorrow, financial worries, family feuds, troubles at work, anything that weighs us down, and despite the suffering they may cause, to bare them bravely in the best possible humour. But the good news is, all things can be suffered, all things can be borne, with Jesus.

And we think – uh huh!  Exactly what does that mean? How do we do that?  Why is there never any explicit instruction manual?  The simple answer to how we do that is, we put on Christ - slowly, with dedication, and it takes a lifetime.

But, once again, we are left with questions.  We have heard that expression all our lives, but what does it mean to “put on Christ”? Is it like putting on an overcoat, something that hides our sins and lets us hopefully live up to the coat’s presentation of ourselves?  The answer to that is, No!

Putting on Christ is the work we are called to do all our lives as we strive to become holy people. Standing in our way is the fact we are human, and we have what we call human nature. We can think, breathe, eat, see, imagine, love, etc, all according to our natural powers, and though we cannot fly, run at high speeds, or see in the dark, we are accustomed to and rely on the natural abilities we do have.

But there is something else, not part of our human nature, but available to us - the gift of grace. By virtue of our baptism, we all carry within us what the Church calls “sanctifying grace” – this grace enables us to live with God and act by His love. After we are baptized, this grace is always present in us, in our souls.

Then there is a second type of grace, a gift that comes to us though we have done nothing to earn or deserve it.  Jesus obtained grace for us, and because of His sacrifice we have graces that are daily gifts from God, and which will act on our souls if we let them.

Graces are not to be confused with blessings. Blessings are rewards from God, which sometimes do not come in the form we wanted or expected, but are always something that will teach us and enrich our lives. An example of an at first unwanted blessing might be losing a contest. You feel very sorry for yourself, but gradually realize God is teaching you to be more humble.  That is the hidden blessing. An example of a wanted blessing, of course, would have been winning the contest.

An example of a gift of grace would be that moment of weakness when you are being tempted to – feel hopeless, or to lose your temper, be rude, gossip, so many sinful things that we might face, and suddenly you have that flash of understanding or compassion and you find the inner light and strength to not sin, but to be beacons of Christ’s love. This kind of grace comes when we need it, but it is up to us to allow it to take hold, to enliven the grace that already dwells within our souls. When we accept such grace, we put on Christ.

There is always a struggle between our human nature and God’s grace.  We are by our human nature very attached to the comfortable and the familiar, and we prize those things with which we identify, which we consider extensions of our personalities, of ourselves. Family is part of that – part of our identity, of who we are, and in best case scenario, part of the joy and warmth of our daily lives. We are also attached to our self-image and our pride, and we are loathe to divest ourselves of any of them.

Getting back to the individual on the TV show, the person who had to suffer the humiliation of hearing their wardrobe critiqued unfavourably, and then had to watch treasured pieces and bits tossed into an actual trash can. In this person’s situation they are being asked to discard old attachments in order to make new and better ones. They must shoulder the pain of setting aside their personal choices, that with which they so strongly identify, in order to accept something new and better.

Jesus does not ask us to discard our love for family and friends, but He does want us to set our love for them beneath our love and devotion to Him. Our love for Him must come before and above all other loves.

Jesus tells us we must sometimes, like Paul, make a choice between, say, the opinion or wishes of a beloved friend or family member, and Jesus’ will and plan. We do not discard the love we feel, we do not discard the friend or loved one - we simply put Jesus first, as Paul did, by sending Onesimus back to the Church. And sometimes this may cause us pain, or create a real struggle in our lives, but we will always, always receive the grace to deal with it.

At the end of each episode of What Not to Wear, the individual who has been the subject of the makeover, often says that they have found a new inner self-image, a new liking and appreciation of themselves. Changing their clothes has renewed them. 

Jesus asks us to shed our primary attachments to all that is of this world, accept the graces He sends, and in so doing deepen our bond with Him. Then we will find we have become new people in Him, and will draw ever closer to being the holy people we have been called to be.

 Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, let Your grace go before us and accompany us. Grant that we may ever be open to the endless graces you bestow, free gifts to us Your unworthy children. May we be given to good works, humble hearts, gentle thoughts, and deeds of kindness, always showing forth Your love and Your will in this world. All this we ask for Your tender mercy’s sake.  Amen.