I Can See you Naked…Be Re-Nude in Christ

I can see you naked. This is the title of a book on public speaking I came across during my days as a college speech professor when I was teaching, a lifetime ago. Catchy title, eh? It refers to the well-worn advice that if one gets nervous speaking before a crowd a simple technique to help make one less anxious is to imagine the whole crowd in their underwear, or naked. Imagining that the audience is completely unclothed and therefore vulnerable is supposed to help a nervous public speaker feel more at ease and less anxious, the audience being more vulnerable than the speaker should help take the nervous edge off. This advice has never been good for me. Imagining speaking to a room full of naked people would actually make my anxiety spike. I would be wondering what kind of occasion I must be speaking at.

However, truth be told, I have seen you naked. I am privileged to be invited into your lives as your pastor, preacher, confessor and teacher. One of the greatest gifts of being your pastor is that I am and have been privileged to see you naked. Let me be clear, I do not mean unclothed. That would imply a host of problems and a call to the bishop, not to mention my wife, that would not end well. By naked, I have been in the honored position of being there for you when you are at your most vulnerable, at your best and worst of moments. Your openness is a gift to me and I pray that my presence in these moments is a gift to you. At such moments I hope to offer the best that is in me with the gifts I have been given, even divesting myself in those times, being vulnerable to you, sharing tears and joy. Heart meeting heart and finding God in our midst.

This is what Paul is pointing at, guiding us in, in this passage from his letter to the Romans. We are to be a gift to one another, even and especially in our transformed, unclothed, naked state; presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, offering ourselves, body, mind and spirit, not by what we usually put on, in an unlively or dead state as the world most often gives or defines us as, but by the deeper, more raw, alive and transforming gift of our selves, displaying our truest Self, our naked self that God has given us and given in us. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” In being transformed rather than conformed we discover/discern what we are offering in and through our bodies, in our gifts is our truest selves. That is what we mean by being alive in Christ.

Be transformed, says Paul, let the mature mind that was in Christ inform your vision, renew your mind and self concept, clean the lens of how you view even WHO you are and what you have to offer. Then offer your self, in all it’s authenticity and imperfections. You are God’s unique gift. There is only one you. Being made in God’s image and renewed in Christ does not mean looking like a Greek god or goddess. That would be the world’s concept for us. And this worldly, over manicured image making covers and distorts our thoughts as well as bodies.

Too often we find that we are dressed in conformity to the thoughts of the false world around us. The world has clothed us enough. Commercial advertising has told us what to wear, literally, what to buy, what we should look like and live like. The world, which presumes to tell us what our value is and what our self worth is worth, in image, body and life, tells us what we should be eating, where to live, how much money we should make, what kind of house we should have, how fat we should be, how thin, how strong, how capable, how smart, what schools our kids should go to, what vacations we should take, how perfect we should be by some standard of measure none of us can live up to but can invest in for only thousands of dollars in debt and only 75 uneasy payments per month. We are addicted to conforming to the ways of the world.

Be transformed, be renewed through discovering your unclothed self, imperfections and all. Most of us stumble into this I our worst moments. That is when I have been privileged to see you naked. This is where our truest selves lie and where our truest giftedness is shown. For it is only when we embrace our most vulnerable selves that our true gifts come alive, that we share most authentically, that we are most deeply connected as humans and as God’s divine people in the world. And in such times our best ministries and gifts are revealed. Over this last month, this last year, I have grown in vulnerability. Your pastor has grown more naked. And your gifts have been revealed.

My grief has made me naked. I have wept with you.

In doing so, your gifts have been revealed. Your prayers, you have been as Christ to me. You have been the body of Christ, are the body of Christ and we have all the gifts we need for fulfilling the call to transformation.

Vulnerable community: need teachers, need sr warden and jr warden, need treasurer, need event organizers, need vestry leaders…no need to be perfect…need vulnerable, naked selves willing to be the community of Christ together, the authentic, messy, lovable, real true selves that make up the Body of Christ, even as Paul is describing it, giftedness defined not by the standards of the world but by the raw and unvarnished, vulnerability of living a real life together. Then those who teach, tach, who give give, who encourage encourage, and we’re not going to get it right, but we can truly give of ourselves and full give ourselves to the transformed and transforming life happening through us.

I can see you naked. It’s not just a technique for reducing anxiety, it’s a plan of vulnerable action to bring about a risky adventure in being God’s people together.

Can you see me naked? Can you see yourselves naked? I hope so.