Sunday of Orthodoxy
Scripture: Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40
Nutshell
Oops!
Our Lenten read, which discusses shame, suggests that shame is a result of our broken communion with God, and this leaves us naked and ashamed.
Ugh!
In this condition, we panic because no one wants unwanted exposure. As a result, we seek to cover our nakedness using all sorts of strategies, including putting on false identities and engaging in sinful behaviors.
Aha!
But, we don’t find ourselves by putting on different layers of identities. Only when we’re willing to stand naked before God can we be clothed with Christ.
Whee!
Today, St. Paul tells us that Moses was given one of the most prestigious identities anyone could ever have: the son of an Egyptian pharaoh. Yet, he realized that this was nothing compared to embracing his true identity: a prophet of the living God. Though it wasn’t easy, Moses found his true self in being who God called him to be.
Yeah!
As we begin Lent, we’re called to follow Moses’s lead. Through fasting and confession, we too can take off our false identities and discover our true selves in Christ.
Full Text
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and everything in them, including the human race.
We’re all familiar with this story from Genesis. We know how God created Adam and Eve, and told them not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet, they disobeyed and ate of that tree’s fruit anyway. As a result, they were cast out of paradise and into this fallen and broken world.
Like many of you, I’ve heard this story since I was a small child, but how do we understand this story today? Is this a story about the origin of evil? I imagine that’s how most of us think about it.
However, Fr. Stephen Freeman, in our Lenten read Face to Face, doesn’t think so. It’s not a story about evil. Instead, he argues, it’s about how humanity broke communion with God: How we were separated from life itself. This, of course, has huge consequences and implications.
Fr. Stephen writes,
“When communion is interrupted, anything is possible. We have no assurance of how things around us will unfold, nor of our own selves and our ability to cope. We experience all this in a moment, not as a train of rational thought but as a response to our brokenness.”
In other words, because we broke communion with God, we feel naked and ashamed.
Ugh!
In this condition, we panic: No one wants unwanted exposure, whether it’s physically, psychologically, or even spiritually.
We feel vulnerable and unprotected. Without God covering our nakedness—as was the case with our First Parents in the Garden—anything can happen. Everything, potentially, is dangerous.
To protect ourselves, we cover our nakedness using all sorts of strategies such as false identities and engaging in sinful behaviors. We mask our true selves through culture, language, and worldly customs. We put on a brave smile but keep people at a distance. We post only happy moments on Facebook and Instagram.
These things become the clothes we put on to keep ourselves from feeling naked and ashamed. They’re a shell we wear as we present ourselves to the world.
However, these clothes aren’t who we really are. They may deceive others, and, if we’re not careful, they’ll deceive us as well. Soon, we may begin to think we are that shell of a person we show to the world.
However, a false person can’t be saved—because a false person doesn’t exist.
Aha!
The truth is: We don’t find ourselves by putting on different layers of identities or hiding in a shell.
It’s only when we’re willing to stand naked before God can we be clothed with Christ.
Only by seeing ourselves as truly as we are, can we begin to have a “change of heart”—that is, repentance—and let Christ transform us.
Like the drug addict or alcoholic who first has to admit that they have a problem before they can get better, we too have to admit that we’re in need of God’s grace.
Only when we’re able to stand naked before God, as we did when we were baptized, are we able to be clothed by God with a “garment of righteousness,” a “robe of divine light.”
Whee!
Today, we hear about such a transformation. Before today was the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we originally started Lent with the remembrance of the Old Testament prophets. This is why St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Hebrews how the prophet Moses threw off his false identity and stood naked before God.
St. Paul tells us that Moses was given one of the most prestigious identities anyone could ever have: the son of an Egyptian pharaoh. It was, as we can see now, a false identify that prevented Moses from seeing who he really was.
Eventually, Moses realized that this was nothing compared to embracing his true identity: a prophet of the living God. Though it wasn’t easy, Moses found his true self in being who God called him to be.
St. Paul writes,
“In faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing to be ill-treated along with God’s people rather than to hold onto a temporary enjoyment of sin, esteeming the reproach of the Anointed a greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking off to the reward.”
By facing the shame of being a Hebrew, Moses was able to find salvation.
Yeah!
As we begin Lent, we’re called to follow Moses’s lead. During this somber period—a period in which we seek silence and self-reflection—the Church offers us ways to cast off our false clothes, and, instead, seek the cover of Christ. These ways are through fasting and confession.
Fasting is, in many ways, a denial of our passionate desires—desires, such as pride and ego, that seek only to puff us up and deny our reliance on God. Fasting gives the discipline we need to to see past these false images. It gives us the courage we need to conquer our passions, put them in their place, and free us so that we can move towards Christ.
Likewise, confession is the sacrament par excellence that encourages us to open up and be truthful, not just with Christ or the priest, but with ourselves. Where have we missed the mark and sought to hide, like Adam and Eve, from God? How have we been misled and eaten the forbidden fruit? And, what types of false clothing have we put on instead of Christ? Confession is about honesty so that we can remove that clothing that wasn’t meant for us.
Through fasting and confession, we, like Moses, can take off our false identities and discover our true selves in Christ.
By willing to be naked and ashamed, we’ll find that we actually aren’t: We’re clothed with the divine robe of Christ by a God who loves all of us, no matter what.
Amen.