Wearing symbolic clothing
Jeremiah 13:1-9
The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear
it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the
LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me
thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the
Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the LORD’s command, I
went to the Parath and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, the LORD
said to me: Go now to the Parath and
fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there. Again I went to the Parath,
sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it. But it was
rotted, good for nothing! Then the message came to me from the LORD: Thus says the LORD: So also I will allow the
pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people who
refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow
strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is
good for nothing.
You can tell a lot about a person
by the clothes they wear. Now, I’m not
suggesting we should judge people by their clothes, because we all know “the
clothes do not make the man.” Designer
clothes don’t always mean a designer character.
Nevertheless, our clothes do say something about us. I’ll never forget a little advice my mother
gave me when I was first ordained. She
said, “Son, always wear your Roman collar.
It will keep you out of trouble.”
Now, what did she know about me that I didn’t?? Someone needs to keep me out of trouble! But she was right: wearing the collar makes
me think twice about where I go and what I do.
Just as importantly, it makes other people think twice when they see a
priest in a collar. I love to walk into
a room and watch all the people jump to attention and start acting
properly. That’s why Catholic school
children wear uniforms. Those plaid
jumpers are like little moral straitjackets that turn little hoodlums into
little angels. Our clothes can say a lot
about us.
In the
first reading today, Jeremiah also uses clothing to say something. Actually, God commands Jeremiah to wear a
loincloth. To picture a loincloth just
think of what Tarzan used to wear. Then,
God tells him to hide it in the cleft of a rock, where, after a long interval,
it begins to fade and fall apart. That
simple cloth was a symbol of their relationship with God: its rottenness
indicated the condition of their friendship with God. That friendship had deteriorated and
died. You see, just like those Catholic
school plaid jumpers symbolize moral uprightness (hopefully!), so Jeremiah’s
rotten loincloth became a symbol of moral failure and even the ensuing divine
judgment.
What do
your clothes say about you? Even those
of you who attend 7 a.m. Mass got up early enough to pick the clothes you would
wear to Mass. Or, at least you got up
early enough for your wife to tell you what to wear! The clothes you wear to work speak about your
professionalism. Here in Fort Smith, I
notice a lot of people walking around without a shirt on. In fact, some people aren’t dressed much
differently than Tarzan! What we wear
when we come to Mass also says something about us. I realize it’s summer time and I don’t want
to make a big deal about this. More than
anything, I’m just glad people come to Mass.
But our clothes do indicated how important we think things are. Jeremiah’s rotten loincloth meant the
people’s relationship with God was rotten.
What does what we wear to mass say about our relationship with God?
The clothes do not make the
man. But our clothes do say something
about us: our priorities, what’s worth our time, our effort, and our money. Our clothes can enhance but also endanger our
relationships with each other and with God.
You know, it’s okay to wear only a loincloth if you live in the jungle
like Tarzan. But if you live in the
concrete jungle of the modern world, you probably need a moral straitjacket to
keep you out of trouble, too.
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
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