Body language

Christian Century, Jan 16, 2002 by Stephanie Paulsell

IN BAPTISM, WE ARE NOT only bathed but also clothed. "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ," writes Paul in his Letter to the Galatians. In baptism we are clothed in our true identity as children of God, an identity deeper even than our ethnicity, our social status, our gender: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:27-29).

The trouble, in this broken and struggling world, is that the honoring or dishonoring of our bodies is usually based not on a recognition of our true identity as God's own children, but on our ethnicity, our social status, our gender. We may all be one in Christ Jesus, but the long history of damage done to Jewish bodies, enslaved bodies and female bodies simply because they were Jewish, enslaved or female (or black or homosexual or disabled or too young to protect themselves) gathers to a scream that threatens to drown out Paul's revolutionary words. The fact that a portion of that damage has been done by Christians, sometimes in the name of the one in whom they were clothed at baptism, testifies to the ways in which baptismal garb, though invisible, can become stained beyond recognition.

Those clothed in the garments of Christ are called to clothe others. When you clothe those who are naked and unprotected, Jesus said, you clothe me. My friend Susan remembers her church's attempt to clothe a refugee family from Cambodia. A man from the congregation stood before his brothers and sisters in Christ and asked them to provide clothing for the family. He told them that the children were getting ready to enter a new school and the parents were about to look for jobs that could support their new life in the United States.

A few weeks later, the man stood up again. He spoke in a quiet voice that was vibrating with anger. "I asked you to clothe this family," he said. "Instead I have received castoffs from decades ago, clothes that are out of date, out of style. Clothes that are missing buttons, clothes with broken zippers, clothes that are dirty. These are not the kinds of clothes a man can find a job in. You would never send your children to school dressed in the clothes you have offered to this family. I am not asking for your castoffs. I am asking you to clothe this family."

This man knew that clothes could offer protection for vulnerable people in need. And he believed that those clothed in the garments of Christ should know better than to offer clothes that would offer no such protection, clothes that could even increase vulnerability. Because of his willingness to bear witness to what Christ calls us to when he calls us to clothe our neighbors, that congregation had an opportunity to think about the relationship between their baptismal garments and the clothes in their overstuffed closets. And they had an opportunity to try again to clothe the Christ who had asked for their help.

One of my students grew up in an Amish community and wore Amish garb until her graduation from college and her entrance into the more liberal Mennonite Church. Recently I heard her preach a beautiful sermon in which she reflected on the story of Peter's denial of Jesus. Musing on how something had caused others to recognize Peter as a disciple, my student confessed to a nagging worry. "Now that I don't wear clothing that marks me as a member of a Christian community," she said, "is there anything about me that says I have been with Jesus?"

What marks us as children of God? Can our clothing bear witness to our commitments and our truest selves? Can the daily clothing of our bodies illuminate our invisible baptismal garb? And if bathing can heighten our attention to the mystery of our bodies and to our creation in God's image, might the clothing of our bodies do the same?

PEOPLE IN EVERY age have sought to illuminate who they are through clothing and adornment of the body. Just as we live in the tension of being a body and having a body, feeling sometimes that we are our bodies and at other times as if we simply wear our bodies like a garment that covers our true self, we human beings seem to have a great desire to wear clothes and adornments that do more than just cover our nakedness. We want our clothing to express something important about us. Not only do we have clothes, we are, in some sense, defined by our clothes.

Some express their deepest commitments through the refusal of adornment. The Old Order Amish wear their commitment to simplicity on their bodies in their plain clothes, unadorned even by buttons. Others, like medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen, who often adorned her nuns in jewels that she believed reflected interior spiritual gifts, invest every button with meaning. Those in mourning often wear black, allowing their clothes to speak their grief to the world. My friend Kay, who is losing her mother to cancer, believes that black also signifies, Watch out. I've lost my beloved and I am angry. Don't mess with me. In the Bible, grief and repentance are sometimes articulated in clothes of sackcloth and a head smeared with dirt and ashes and sometimes in clothes that are ripped and torn. When Reuben finds that his brother Joseph has been sold into slavery, he tears his clothes frantically, helplessly (Gen. 37:29). We wear our clothes as extensions of our bodies and as signs of what is happening invisibly inside of us.