Garments of Hope

Who are you wearing? Which designer is “you?” And, more to the point, what message do your clothes proclaim? It wasn’t so long ago that women would not have dared to come through the red doors of St. Peter’s or any Episcopal church without a hat and gloves, and men without a jacket and tie – the hat, of course, coming off at the door. What did our clothes then proclaim? Status, comfort, and wealth? In the 1970s, professional women were advised to “dress for success.” That dark skirted suit, worn with a light-colored blouse with a bow-tie collar, we were told, would surely proclaim our professionalism to our colleagues. In our laid-back culture today, does anyone still dress to impress? They do, at least in Hollywood. Every year at the Academy Awards program, the media declare the losers and winners in what the website Moviefone calls “the Super Bowl of movie star fashion.” The Moviefone writers ask, “Who sparkled? Who missed the mark?” Then they warn us that, “from stylish first-time nominees … to some of Oscars hottest couples … we've got glowing praise and brutally honest critiques for all of them.”1

Who are you wearing? On this second Sunday in Advent, the prophet Baruch poses this same question to all who are preparing to celebrate Jesus’ first coming, all who even now are seeing signs of his presence among us, and all who are waiting in hope for his return. Unless you go to an Easter Vigil service or perhaps a service of Lessons and Carols for Advent, this is the only time in the three-year Revised Common Lectionary that you will hear from this prophet. Although this prophecy is ascribed to Jeremiah’s secretary Baruch and is addressed to those in exile in Babylon in the sixth century, the book of Baruch was probably written to second-century Jews who were suffering oppression at the hand of Greek rulers. Like the Babylonian exiles, like those who heard John the Baptist’s message two centuries later, and like us, those who heard the prophecies in the book of Baruch were desperately in need of words of hope. And so the prophet tells them, “Take off your widow’s weeds, your clothes proclaiming your grief and desolation. Put on a robe and a crown, the clothes of a monarch, the clothes that proclaim hope.” Addressing the city of Jerusalem directly, the prophet proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the restoration and rebuilding of Israel. To complete the message of hope, to underscore why the people dare put on the clothing of hope, the prophet declares that God will change and restore all creation, bringing all Israel to that place of exultation and joy in the mighty acts of God.

We hear Baruch’s message of hope reiterated in Luke’s description of Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist. As you know, we are hearing the story out of order. When John comes out of the desert, Jesus is an adult, the much cherished nativity scenes well behind us. Indeed, shortly after John’s proclamation here, Jesus will be baptized by John. Jesus will retreat himself to the wilderness for forty days and then begin his own public ministry. To prepare people for the coming of Jesus, the gospel writer tells us that John proclaims a message of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But there’s more here than simply repentance, necessary as repentance might be. Using language borrowed from the prophet Isaiah and similar to that found in Baruch, the gospel reminds us that John’s message not only announces the coming of Jesus, it also offers us hope. In Isaiah’s language, originally addressed to those who are exiled in Babylon, John restates God’s promises of return, restoration, and the renewal of all creation. Most important, John proclaims that God’s promise of hope and restoration is intended for all – not just for those who happened to encounter the earthly Jesus.

Who is wearing the clothing of hope in our world? Whose clothing proclaims that God is at work, actively restoring God’s people and God’s creation? Who is working to rekindle hope among those whose situations seem hopeless? December 1st was World AIDS day. Two months ago, a woman named Esperança came to the health center in Cobue, a small village in a remote corner of Mozambique.2 There Episcopal Relief and Development partners with the Anglican Diocese of Niassa in running a comprehensive community health program called Salt, Light, Health. Esperança had faithfully taken her anti-retrovirus medications since she was first diagnosed with AIDS. Now she was unable to walk or sit up because of infected ulcers and bedsores and was clearly losing the battle. But Esperança lived up to her name. She had esperança, she had hope that was stronger than the bacteria that sought to defeat her. After working to clear her body of infection, clinic doctors gained approval from the national Ministry of Health to treat her with the scarce, more powerful “second-line” drugs. Though she had prepared herself for death, within a few days, Esperança was able to get up and walk. Soon thereafter she returned to joyful friends and family members who had been certain they would never see her again. The “Mother’s Union,” the local church women’s group, joyfully thanked God for her return. Esperança wouldn’t be alive today were it not for the support of all who cared for her, the availability of second-line medications, and the doctors and nurses at Salt, Light, Health. But, more than anything else, Esperança refused to wear the “garment of sorrow and affliction.” Instead, Esperança drew from her deep well of faith, courageously insisting on wearing the garment of hope. In surviving this latest assault of the AIDS virus she not only fulfilled her own hope, she also became a model of hope for others, among both her fellow AIDS sufferers and the Salt, Light, Health staff.

Who are we wearing? What message do our clothes proclaim? Do our clothes proclaim faith in God’s promises and hope for God’s restoration of our world? On Tuesday this week we took a different approach to the prayers of the people in the evening Eucharist. As some of you know, we put prayer request cards on the tables for Loaves and Fishes diners. There was a stack of them on my desk this week. I read them all, one by one, including those clearly written by children or barely legible. At the beginning of the Eucharist I passed out the prayer request cards to the people there. Instead of the set prayers of the people in the Book of Common Prayer we each in turn read out what was written on the cards. One person asked for prayers for someone newly diagnosed with cancer. Another prayed for a son just diagnosed with diabetes. “I had hoped to keep him from suffering as I have suffered,” the card said. Others asked prayers for someone with a hurt shoulder, someone needing dental work, or an uncle in jail. One prayed that the meager Christmas her resources allowed her to provide this year would not disappoint her family. Another thanked God for the healing of a spouse and asked prayers for upcoming surgery. I don’t know about what the others felt, but that evening I felt the weight of the world’s pain and grief more deeply than I had ever felt before. I also felt a deeper compassion for all those people who had opened their hearts to God and to us on those prayer cards. And I wondered: how can I, how can we rekindle their hope? How can we help clothe them with the garments of hope? How can we help them to share the promise of God’s restoration and renewal?

For, ultimately we are all called to be Baruch. We are all called to give God’s people a new hope and a new message: that they are to exchange the weeds of grief and despair for the robe of restoration and return. We are all called to be John the Baptist. We are all called to proclaim that God fulfills God’s promises. We are all called to proclaim that, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” We are called to rekindle hope in the world around us, in practical and concrete ways. We are called to look ahead to the final restoration of the world under Jesus’ reign. And we are called to proclaim that God’s promises are not meant for only a chosen few, but are ultimately given to all people.

What are you wearing? Are you wearing the garment of hope, restoration and return? Are you helping to rekindle hope in the world? As our worship ends this morning, we will sing “Fling wide your gates, O Zion; your Savior’s rule embrace. His tidings of salvation proclaim in every place.” With Baruch, with John the Baptist, with Esperança, may we too put on the garments of hope and wearing them may we proclaim glad tidings in our world.

1. Moviefone, http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/26/oscars-2012-best-worst-dressed_n_1302709.html, accessed December 7, 2012.

2. Rebecca J. Vander Meulen, “World AIDS Day 2012: Esperança ’s Esperança,” Episcopal Relief and Development, November 30, 2012, accessed at http://blog.er-d.org/, December 7, 2012. The rest of Esperança’s story is based on this blog post.