A Seamless Garment
Seventh Sunday in Easter - June 1, 2003
By The
Very Rev. James Hubbard
- Psalm 68:1-20 or 47
- 1 John 5:9-15 or Acts 1:15-26
- John 17:11b-19
My fascination with the passages of our readings began several years ago. Why include Exodus 28 in this reading for the Seventh Sunday of Easter? And then I began to look carefully at the other lessons. Acts contains a story which emphasizes the importance of having all of the necessary witnesses to the work and ministry of Jesus Christ. John 17 is the high priestly prayer of our Lord in which he as high priest in prayer with God the Father reiterates all he has accomplished and what he is doing in sending forth his witnesses, his followers into the world to carry out the mission he has come to fulfill. Well, maybe the Exodus 28 passage does have something to say in conjunction with these other readings.
Aaron, Moses' brother, is the central figure. God is giving explicit instructions as to what he should wear! “Moses, you shall make sacred vestments for the glorious adornment of your brother Aaron. And you shall speak to all who have ability, whom I have endowed with skill, that they make Aaron’s vestments to consecrate him for my priesthood.” That doesn’t seem terribly important to us, except that a number of the garments described look suspiciously like the ones that bishops, priests and deacons wear even now! [I ran across one comment in a Jewish commentary (Torah, p. 617) which itself explicitly says, The vestments here described are the direct antecedents of those now in use in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, whose priests -- and especially whose bishops -- wear similar robes while officiating.”]
Could there be something important in this that is very easily missed? In our society we dress in special ways for great events—tuxedos for formal occasions, a peculiarly beautiful white gown for weddings, formal dances that are especially important like the Prom, graduation from college, you get the picture. And here it is that this man Aaron and his sons are being set aside as priests for the God with the unpronounceable name. When they lead the people in the worship and recognition of God, the High Priest is to be adorned in a particularly beautiful way.
It just so happens that today is the parish picnic and what I am to say now is not meant to make you uncomfortable. In our time many is the congregation among Episcopal churches as well as most others, when people have begun to dress down for church. I understand the reasons for it and I don’t really object, but I have always felt that when people dress up for church they are making a statement, whether their lives bear it out or not, that the worship of almighty God is a matter of enormous significance. If it is not, I don’t know why people come anymore. Most don’t, and certainly there is no social judgment upon you or me if we stay home or go to the grocery store. But in this passage in Exodus, it is clear that God wants God’s high priest to be beautifully and strikingly adorned. Verse 31 caught my attention. “You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a coat of mail, so that it may not be torn.” This description fits that of the chasuable quite well actually. The image of the coat of mail, though, sticks in my mind for the collar of that garment is especially finely woven of metal. The collar is rolled and continuous, beautifully and intricately crafted. Then in chapter 29, verse seven the author writes, “You shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head and anoint him.” Those words triggered a memory, a memory of a psalm and I was off to locate it. It turned out to be 133, and so I have substituted 133 for the Psalm usually appointed for today. Let’s look at that. If you like you will find it in your bulletin or on page 787 in your prayer book.
Ecce, quam bonum! Oh, how good and pleasant it is,
When brothers live together in unity!
This is a piece of ancient wisdom, a saying known in Egyptian wisdom literature as well as Hebrew and it suggests an ideal family state.
It is like fine oil upon the head
That runs down upon the beard,
This image, which doesn’t much attract me, since I don’t like oil so copiously spread on my features, is nonetheless an ancient illustration of beauty and charm, of wealth and contentment as well as an act of consecration. Hmm. Now isn’t this surprising in verse three?
Upon the beard of Aaron,
And runs down upon the collar of his robe.
This special ephod robe, all of blue. Where have we seen that before? Here is an expression of manly beauty, of consecration and ordination. This unity
is like the dew of Hermon
that falls upon the hills of Zion.
Where? Zion, Jerusalem. This is an indication both of soil health and economic prosperity as water in the desert always suggests, but more it is a sign of the place where God will dwell with God’s people. Now Jerusalem wasn’t in the picture when Aaron was anointed, but the psalmist knows that the fulfillment of the Hebrew religious ideal is now and forever to be found in Zion, Jerusalem. Verse 5:
For there the Lord has ordained the blessing:
Life for evermore.
In Jerusalem God will live with his people, but then came the exile in 587 BC, and the prophets began to realize that God could also dwell in the hearts of his people. Perhaps Jerusalem in not required.
Now, jumping to John 17, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. The point of all of these readings is communal unity. Aaron, the priest, was to become a sign of God’s goodness to God’s people. He was adorned with all of the beauty that God’s gifts could create. But the reality being pointed to was that God would take up residence among his people. That same theme is the one Jesus picks up in John. The difference, if there is a difference, is that the disciples of Jesus are to be the witnesses, the God-bearers from that moment on. And to what do they witness? That Jesus is the Son of God and that he has provided for us life forevermore, eternal life now and in the life to come. If we were to have read the other lesson I John 5 this morning, we would see that its message is the same. “And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life.” [11-12]
So from vestments to eternal life—a seamless garment of human adornment. It is ours, it is yours for the asking. Allow this God of beauty and love to enter your life today. If there is some block to that, confess it when the time comes and welcome God in. Be clothed with the life which comes from God. Amen.