Casualness is Good

It always has bothered me that Jesus’ robe is always whiter than anyone elses.

Jesus was a casual person.

we are told that Jesus spent his entire ministry among common everyday people –
in very casual settings, (remember?)



I remember it was a Friday, about 11:30 – it was before noon –
I was in the car.
I had the radio on and the traffic report came on.
She said, “Traffic is bumper to bumper southbound on the Schukhill expressway from the Valley Forge interchange all the way down to I-95.
And I-95 is bumper to bumper from Chester all the way to the Turnpike.
And traffic is bumper to bumper northbound on the Schuykill Expressway from I-95 all the way to Valley Forge interchange.”

The summer weekend migration had already started – before noon on Friday.
The roads full of people going somewhere – pursuing happy times.

Perhaps you saw the cartoon, when Charlie Brown was going away for a couple of days, Linus says to him, "I guess I won't be seeing you until Monday, Charlie Brown, so have a happy weekend."
To which Charlie Brown replies, "Thank you."
Then, after he ponders for a moment, Charlie asks, "Incidentally, what is happiness?"


It’s summertime in the Delaware Valley.
And the unmistakable signs of summer are being seen all around.
People are out jogging more.
Convertibles go around with the tops down.
All sorts of people with sorts of shapes and sizes exercising their constitutional right to wear shorts.
Golf leagues and softball leagues have started.

For most folks around here, summertime is a more relaxed, casual, and playful time of year.

One thing that is especially characteristic of the days of summer is a more laid-back, informal attitude towards dining, right?
People come to picnics and cookouts, backyard barbecues in a various state of dress – or undress: golf shirts;
wild, loud, plaid Bermuda shorts;
T-shirts with all manner of strange pictures or sayings on the front;
sandals;
flip-flops;
bathing suits;
hair tangled from salt water,
legs covered with sand from the beach,
sweaty from softball games,
whatever.
It seems that casualness got its definition from what we have done around here in the summertime.

For those of you who notice such things, you might of observed in the newsletter that I am embarked on a series of sermons this month that I call What Summertime Teaches Us About Our Faith.
And today the lesson is that Casualness is Good.

Four or five years ago the Session broached the subject of making our summer worship experience somewhat more casual that usual.
I suggested that we needed to spread the word that casual was the order of the day.
No jackets and ties for the men – including the preacher.
And our service and music should reflect a more casual nature as well.

Now, this is not done to turn our noses up on the worship has been done here for the past 85 years,
but we do this to show that really, Jesus was a casual person –
a very casual person.

So casual, in fact, that the proper folks who knew how to look religious and knew how to play the religious game, were always coming down on him for violating some code or another.

Now, you what Jesus looked like, don’t you?
We have seem hundreds of images depicting Jesus in paintings and sculpture and film and whatever.
And, always Jesus is shown in a white robe, right?
And, it always has bothered me that Jesus’ robe is always whiter than anyone else’s.
Why is Jesus’ robe cleaner and brighter and whiter than anyone else’s.

We are told that Jesus spent most of his lifetime in the Judean hill country –
it had to have been hot and windy and dusty and dirty.
I am sure that Jesus got dirty and stinky like everybody else.

And we are told that people did come to him and ask him to clean up his act.
This is not the way ministers are supposed to do, Jesus.
You shouldn’t be associating with those folks,
and you shouldn’t be eating and drinking so much,
and you should observe the appropriate behaviors for Sabbath time.
And, by the way, –
well, you get the idea.

You know, Jesus never taught any upper level religion courses in the local university,
Jesus never wrote a theological text book,
Jesus never lead a seminar on spirituality,
Jesus never preached on satellite television from Yankee Stadium like Billy Graham did a short while back.

In fact, we are told that Jesus spent his entire ministry among common everyday people –
in very casual settings, (remember?):
a wedding party,
in a living room of someone’s house,
on the roadside,
in the field,
on a hilltop,
at a lakefront,
– it doesn’t matter where you turn, this is what you find.
Jesus’ ministry was a very casual ministry –
with many everyday occurrences used as “teaching moments” –
rather than formalized instructional settings.

No one ever accused Jesus of being formal.

And, you I need to remind ourselves that Jesus was very much a casual guy.
This is reflected in all kinds of ways including in how he prayed –
telling us that instead of addressing our prayers to Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, Majestic and all powerful, etc, etc.
we should address our prayers: “Our Father...”
Actually, that is not an accurate translation of the words he use – he used language much more informal than that.
He actually said, we should pray “Dear Daddy, . . .”

Every once and a while we need to remember that much of what we do and expect today, is a construct of our times and our ideas of reference.

So, I think it is good that we openly say that our worship this summer is casual.
Jesus was –
and we should take some clues from that.

Jesus was a casual guy.
He was totally informal in all he ever did.
And, when the Disciples came back from the first mission he sent them on,
and they told him all that they had done and taught,
Jesus said to them:
Now, “COME AWAY BY YOURSELVES TO A LONELY PLACE, AND REST AWHILE.” (6:31)
That’s what Mark said Jesus said!
Take a break now.
Get away for a while.
Rest.
Relax.
Recuperate.
Rejuvenate.

Jesus knew we all need that.
Jesus did.
The Disciples did.
We do, too.

How many times did Jesus say to his disciples, "Let us go off by ourselves to some place where we will be alone and can rest awhile?"
How many times do we read, "So they went away in a boat to a deserted place by themselves?"

Have we ever entertained the notion that perhaps Jesus set the best example for our lives when he went away often to be alone and contemplate on that which was most important?

Jesus seems to be calling us to observe a summertime of leisure.

Leisure has been defined as whatever restores you to peace while you are doing it.

So, gardening, golf, reading, puzzles, and many other things can restore us to peace as we do them.

A cousin of leisure is the word "paragon."

A paragon means "the second thing that we do in life that keeps the first thing in tune."

So, a leisure thing restores us from a paragon thing.

It was that catholic nun in Calcutta, Mother Teresa, who said:
"There are no big deals anymore,
just small things to be done with great love."

You wouldn’t know this but for centuries the church has divided up the year into seasons –
times of emphasis –
we Presbyterians have been paying more attention to the church seasons the past 40 years or so, and you know some of them:
Advent, Christmas, Easter, Pentecost.
But, the longest season is the one we are in now.
And it is called “Ordinary Time.”
This is the season of “Ordinary Time.”

It is ordinary time that we live and slug it out for the common good while no one is looking.

It is in the middle of ordinary time that God comes with extraordinary moments that make all others bearable, believable, and worthwhile.

A lot of us go through our lives looking for and waiting for that one special event to happen that will clear up a problem or a pain that it carries.

Seldom if ever is there a word or event that heals our pain.
And, often we learn that that pain is healed at a moment when we are not looking.

I have read that in the last century there was a leather-worker who had made a name for himself through the art of creweling leather.
His designs were famous and people coveted his works of art.

One day while sharpening his tools, something went horribly wrong. One of the tools disintegrated and flying pieces of steel hit him in both eyes.
And he was left unable to see.

It took many weeks for him to go back into his workshop.

He felt the tools he would never use again and the leather with images he would never release.

Anger overtook him.
He started stabbing at the leather in rage.
His tears and anger were overdue.

Without knowing it he stabbed a piece of paper.

In time at that same desk he would learn that on the other side of the paper that he stabbed were little bumps.
He learned that he could arrange the bumps in sequence.
It was at that desk that Louie Braille learned to lead thousands of people, including himself, out of darkness into light.

Later he would conclude that while looking at his blindness by a different angle of vision, he was healed.
He was healed when his tragedy was turned into service for others that were blind like himself.

It was in an extraordinary accident that he was blinded.

It was in an ordinary moment in time that he discovered what could lead him and others to new light and life.

This is ordinary time for the church.
This is summertime for us and all who live in this part of the world.
I do think if we didn’t have a summertime, we would have to invent it.
Because, we so need a time when expectations on us are different.

We are judged by different standards.
We take on different behaviors.

It is in the summertime that we hear the message:
It’s OK.
It’s OK to take off your shoes.
It’s OK to goof off a while.
It’s OK to do nothing.
It’s OK to be informal, to be casual.

I am sure that if Jesus showed up today, he would not be dressed in a bleached white robe,
he would probably be wearing a golf shirt –
or a t-shirt, perhaps.

And he would say to us, Right On.


The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, heard these words during a worship service August 14, 2011.