Chapter 17 My Handsome Sweater

If you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as I walk away.

Watch me unravel, I’ll soon be naked.

Lying on the floor, I’ve come undone.

Weezer

It occurs to me, right about now, as I’m listening to the angst ridden lyrics of Weezer, that I too wear a sweater. Thankfully, mine is still intact, but it seems I take this for granted, when in fact I should count it all joy, and be forever grateful, if only for the simple reason that I’ve been adorned with much splendor.

Still, I casually but confidently dither about in these garments of grandeur -- the very regalia of the One who loves me. Certainly it’s a leap of epic proportions to jump from Weezer to God, I know, but you'll just have to trust me, and I promise to stitch it all up by the end.

You see, He, being in fact God, fills my lungs and suggests my pulse this day, and come to think of it, yours as well; and He clothes us in such a fashion that we are quite beautiful to Him. So, to expand upon this darn of consciousness, Weezer got me to thinking, that even as God weaves amazing and stunning beauty into His design, the stark reality is that we're always just one string pull away from becoming drastically and quite conclusively undone.

Indeed, I'm but a mere moment away from being discovered -- naked and prostrate, lying face first on the floor next to a bundle of yarn that used to be my handsome sweater.

I say all of this, because, it seems in my audacity, that I have ignored this notion, and I am perhaps not alone -- especially in the church -- because, well, we've reached a supreme level of self sufficiency and superiority, and for lack of a better word, superciliousness.

Somehow, in some way, Weezer is enlightening me, and hopefully you, and revealing in no small way that we need to dispense with the misplaced and long held presumption that God, in His infinite wisdom, saw fit to love us more than the next group of people. Certainly, He loves you and he loves me with a passionate, unrelenting and often unrequited love, but he loves you just as much as he loves me, and yes, he really does love that man or that woman or that group of individuals you’re pondering right now, which is certainly unthinkable, but it is ever true.

I have a hunch that in our circles, we don't give this much consideration. At least I don't, as I toss stares of judgment at the stylistically challenged and repeatedly render guilty verdicts in the trials of my mind.

We go to great lengths to muster our own strength and we elbow our way to the front of the line and we endeavor quite smashingly to do it all on our own; we smugly assume that we're entitled to more favor in the eyes of our own private Creator, more favor than perhaps He would or should show for the next guy. We conclude that we're more pleasing to Him and more obedient, and with that affection and preference locked in for a lifetime, we set about to capably and confidently choose our own outfits and attempt to accomplish much through our garb and gear and accessorizing.

And this ability, this self-sufficiency, this cavalier independence, whether we like it or not, has its way with our denominational dress, our righteous and regal religious trimmings, our chic bias and our prideful and prejudicial panache.

But somehow we must repudiate the notion that these new trends we fashion and these styles we strut are exclusive reflections of God, the very One who, lest we forget, became a common, unadorned man, by choice, two thousand years ago, without pomp and circumstance; the very One who, right about now, in my imagination (and maybe yours), is seeking and loving all as he circles our respective towns as an unassuming Harley riding peace maker, wearing a leather vest that has some dried mud on the back of it, jeans that need a good wash, and boots that are beyond polishing.

Malign others, if you must, for their inherent differences and their errancies, but beware, for each of us bears the unfortunate but true unraveling point -- that dangling, hanging string. We are, in fact, a mere stitch and pull away from being stripped naked on the floor, our destroyed sweater in a pile next to us, crying out to a Maker who sees mankind as His creation, a Stylist whose vogue is ever now; his love, ever true and unchanging.

Indeed, there must be acceptance and humility, a nimbleness and flexibility of spirit, a darning of a gentle mosaic manner, especially as a new kind of church, that serves not merely to tolerate, but to appreciate and integrate, for our world is increasingly made up of those who don't always fit into or match the clothing we pull from our collective closets.

And so, that, my friends, in a thimble, is what Weezer taught me today.