May 24, 2011

In Style


I ponder the styles today, especially the frayed jeans with rips and holes. Although it might well match their style, I can’t help but believe that these young people wouldn’t be caught dead driving around in my husband’s old dilapidated 1981 Ford trash truck. The body is rusted through, the sun visors hang at an angle and the door handles are loose. We can indulge personal choices to a degree, but there comes a time when, according to Jesus we are expected to put on the wedding clothes. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matt 22:11-14 NIV)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----Some things in life break down regardless of any effort to hold them together. It’s the old nailing-Jell-O-to-the-tree sort of thing. They are as casual as frayed jeans with rips and holes, as dismaying as reverence lost from the worship service, as disastrous as an economy sunk into depression, and as deadly as the shower rooms of Auschwitz or America’s abortion mills. They all start as innocently and widely received as the Arab Spring, yet they are as unquenchable as the prairie fire.
-----Certain people turn a fox loose with its tail ablaze, and the resulting inferno is a twist of God’s gifts. The image of God starts in the freedom and creativity of individuality. But its expression yearns for mutuality. So culture gets tarnished by individuals and individuals get yanked around by culture. Jeans would not be manufactured with rips and fade if no fad developed to feed their owner’s ego. Even though the individual wears them to buck a neatness standard, it conceives a mutual standard of bucking. Bucking the reverence of worship became a standard, bucking the free-market of economics is now standardizing central-control, and bucking the Holy Word is once again standardizing anti-Semitism. Mutuality without God always swallows individuals just for their nutritional value.
-----Individuality and mutuality are merely parts of the image of God. It’s no surprise that by themselves they twist into various infernos. What fulfills the image is the mortar between them expressed at Romans 12:9&10, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” The guest honors the wedding with wedding attire, having paid his street clothes for the affectionate love in its culture. His individual creativity thrives there, serving genuine expression to what does genuine good. That is the love of God.
-----While evil yet eats souls, mutuality in this world is not the wedding party. As dismaying as culture can be to those who love godliness, we must remember it rises from individuals yearning for mutual acceptance of their own clothes. And while we dropped our drawers to put on wedding garments, we don’t have all our own stitching completely straight either. Brotherly affection can only arise from showing honor regardless of seams, and our love can be no more genuine than our ability to distinguish good from evil.

Love you all,
Steve Corey