Sunday, October 31, 2010

COSTUMES: Which One Are You Wearing Today?

Tonight is Halloween and there will be all types of people wearing costumes. Some will be scary, some superheroes, some fictional characters, others will be vocational people, and others will fall somewhere in the middle.

A few of my more memorable costumes were: 2nd Grade - Superman, 4th Grade - Mr. T, 5th Grade - Juggling Clown, College - my minister. There was another one in college, but I’d have to explain too much about it, but it was “classic”, however you had to be there to understand the humor.

The idea of a costume is to put on something to cover up your identity. We all have an identity. We all have something about our identity that we’d like to cover up. Some things that we’d like to cover up could have just been an embarrassing moment. Whereas some are things we don’t want anyone to ever know.

One of the issues with Christianity is that we treat every gathering as “Halloween”. In other words, we may come together wearing some sort of a costume. Sure, our faces may not be painted - but they could be wearing a fake smile. Our clothes may not be out of the ordinary, but we may be wearing something we can’t afford to look better than we are in reality. We may be wearing a smile, but moments prior we were calling someone a name or at least thinking it.

What would it take to be “real”, to not put on a costume when we’re together? For some, even in your own biological family you may be wearing some sort of a costume because you do not want to show how you were disappointing to your parents or siblings.

Even aside from the church family, there are times when we are in public and are wearing a costume. Which one are you wearing today?

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