December 30, 2018 – Luke 2:41-52
Luke 2:41-52
Clothing Ourselves with Jesus
First Sunday of Christmas – December 30, 2018
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Did everyone see the news story about the kid in Toronto this Christmas who
called 911 on his parents?
Yah: he was upset because their present for him this year was snow pants!
Well, let’s face it: if you were 7 years old you’d be upset too.
As we all know, giving clothing for Christmas is an absolute mine field.
This got me to thinking about receiving clothing for Christmas.
Socks, underwear, and all the sweaters my mom got me that I never wore.
Then I started thinking about Santa Claus – who I love – and his clothing.
We all know that Santa has a red jacket trimmed with white fur and a fetching matching hat.
But we also all know, I think, that Santa Claus was not always dressed like that.
For sure this jolly red-suited Santa was popularized by
the Coca-Cola company in the 40s and 50s.
But before that Norman Rockwell had been dressing Santa like that for decades.
And hey: Santa was even garbed in red in 1906 on the cover of the Eaton’s Christmas Catalogue.
Before that, though, Santa’s fashion sense was still evolving.
You might have seen Santa in black, or blue, or green or even yellow before that.
Go back even further to the beginning of the 1800s and Santa Claus still looks like a bishop –
still looks like Saint Nicholas, in other words.
We don’t really know what the original Saint Nicholas looked like way back in the day –
that is, in the 300s when he lived in what is now Turkey.
But the clothing that he wore is very likely quite similar to the clothing that
the writer of Colossians describes this morning, clothing that never goes out of fashion.
Beloved, he writes, clothe yourselves with compassion or loving action.
Put on the garment of kindness: persistent loving kindness for all.
Dress up in gentleness and patience, the dogged persistence of never giving up.
And above all, drape yourselves in loving action.
This is the clothing God puts under our tree at Christmas,
and we should all be grateful to put it on.
And unlike that kid in Toronto, don’t call 911 to complain about it.
Saint Nicholas didn’t complain.
Saint Nicholas didn’t call 911.
Instead, he unwrapped the beautiful gift and put it on.
We don’t know much about Saint Nicholas, but this is what we do know.
He is remembered above all for a single, loving action of compassion and kindness.
He is remembered for giving money to a poor family so that
their daughters could be respectably married.
You see, back in the day,
families had to ensure their daughters had dowries in order to be married.
Saint Nicholas’s loving action ensured that this family’s daughters would not be forced to
make a living by becoming prostitutes.
His loving action ensured that they would not be trafficked, as we would say today.
He came to clothe himself in the same clothing that Jesus wore – and he wore it well.
In the Gospel story today we get the first glimpse of Jesus beginning to clothe himself.
This is the only story we have Jesus as a child.
He is 12 years in the story – he is just about to come of age.
And he is beginning to make decisions for himself and study God’s story for himself.
He is starting to clothe himself.
When his parents are frantic about where he might be after 3 days, and
when they finally find him in the Temple learning all he can about the story of
God’s loving mission to bless heal and feed this whole world and
every person in it in the Bible,
he calmly says to them,
Where else did you think I’d be?
Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?
Or, you can just as readily translate it, Did you not know I must be about my Father’s interests?
He is trying to discover for himself what God’s interests are by reading and studying
the Bible with his teachers.
He is wanting to clothe himself in God’s character, in God’s clothing of compassion,
and kindness, and justice, and love.
And here’s the thing: he is being pro-active about it!
See, up to this point in the story, Jesus is passive.
He’s born passively as an infant.
He is taken passively to the Temple for presentation, as was the custom with the first born.
But now, now he begins acting for himself, as an active agent in God’s story.
Yes: he causes his earthly parents alarm – and this is the first indication of many that
Jesus’ relationship with his family was not always easy,
and that he did not always do what was expected of him.
But: he is beginning to clothe himself.
He is not just putting on without questioning the sweater Mary gets him for Christmas.
He is taking responsibility for his own clothing,
and for his own place in God’s story and God’s mission.
As many of you know I do have strong feelings about men clothing themselves and
not leaving it to others.
Here we have the first indication of Jesus beginning to clothe himself,
of sorting through the wardrobe of scripture.
He begins the process of discovery that will lead to his putting on the garments of
compassion for the poor, generosity to the hungry, justice for the downtrodden,
inclusion for the excluded, and love for all.
This story today prompts for us the question: what does it mean for each of us to mature in faith?
For some of us this past month it has meant stepping up our financial commitment to
the mission and ministry at 580 Victor Street.
But this morning Jesus is asking all of us:
What does it mean for us to take agency and be about God’s interests in our daily lives?
Human beings are still trafficked right here in Winnipeg, as they were 1700 years ago –
and the garment of justice is still there under tree waiting for us to unwrap it and put it on.
Human beings are still hungry as they were in Jesus’ day and the garment of compassion and
hospitality is still there for us to clothe ourselves with.
Human beings still exclude one another from their circles of acceptance just as
they have always done, but the garment of inclusive delight in one another is
just as in style now as it was way back then.
It’s still Christmas – we’re only at day 6 or whatever.
We have unwrapped together a beautiful gift of scripture this morning,
Just as Jesus began to do for himself on that day long ago in about the year 8.
Let’s keep on doing that at Sargent and Victor, and with Jesus, Saint Nicholas,
and the beautifully garbed saints of every time and place, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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