With Another Dress, With Another Skin
Installation speech as the eleventh president
Rev. Doris J. García Rivera, Ph.D.
President
Professor of Hebrew Bible and Missions
Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico
November 8, 2014
Sermon Text: Exodus 28:1-4, 41.
Greetings and Introduction
Greetings to the board of directors, employees, and teaching faculty of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico. Greetings to the ministers, pastors and denominational executive Bishops. Dear friends, colleagues in the way, welcome! Especial greetings to my family on this occasion of great significance, to all those present and to this institution that is already 95 years-old.
I read a story in the book by Clarissa Pinkolas Estés Women That Run with Wolves. This story was titled “the return home: their return to itself—skin of a seal, skin of the soul.” This story of the “Selkies” (seal maidens) is told among the cultures of the north, farther north where the seas are seas, among the Inuit people, Siberians, Scottish and Finish.[1]
The legend says that in the land of the freezing seas a single man went out to hunt and he found some beautiful women, made from the milk of the moon, who were naked and danced and laughed over the rocks. The man noticed some skins on the ground. Without thinking about it, he jumped and took one of the skins and hid it in his coat. A moment later, one at a time, the women covered themselves with the seal skins and went back to the sea. All of them returned to the sea except the one who was agitated as she looked for her skin everywhere. Then, the man surprised her asking her to stay with him. The man promised her that after seven summers he would give her back the seal skin. Unwillingly, the woman accepted. Sometime later they had a son, to whom the mother would tell the stories about the ice and the sea.
As time went by, the skin of the mother began to dry up. Scales and fissures started to appear. This skin from her eyelids fell off and her eyes went dark. Still the man refused to give her back what he had stolen, accusing the woman of being a bad mother, of wanting to abandon him and her son. One night, the son heard his name in the wind. The voice called out to him to a cliff, where he found a seal skin hidden. With a mix of shame and happiness, the boy went back knowing that he would lose his mother. When he gave back the skin to his mother, a shout of joy and liberation came out from her throat. The woman put on the skin and became a seal, took her son, and went to the sea.
Our garments, similar to “the skin” in the story, are metaphors of identities, belongings, of being and the reflection of that being.[2] There are many ways to get dressed, and when we dress up we conform to a culture, to some ideological an identity values, be them to simply follow what is fashionable according to the values of the market, to express resistance and go against the current, or to express exclusion and differentiation in the face of a established referent.
The social world is a world of dressed bodies. We get dressed in different ways for different activities and moments. In those activities we act in different roles. We are teachers, assistants, physicians, lawyers, home administrators, sons and daughters, mothers, police and military officers, and pastors assuming our uniforms, dresses, gowns and various garments according to our identities. These garments are subject to specific rules, structures, conduct, times and rituals. Sometimes “some people want to be one thing”, as the Zapatists would say; they put on what they are not to deceive, steal, mistreat, and destroy. There is a saying that we know in Puerto Rico, “the monkey even when dressed in silk it is still a monkey.” The robes can deceive us. But there are interior garments that are part of the skin and that we cannot hide. They define us in the most essential way, more profound and radical, and they emerge even when we are dressed in other things that we are not.
Content
Exodus 28 describes the priestly robes and details their materials and their design. The text reflects ancient traditions from the period of the first temple during Solomon, around the 10th century BCE. But it combines aspects from the second temple tradition after the exile, when the priesthood was well-established. The priestly robes did not only show the relationship of this person with divinity, but also with the dignity of the priestly role in relation to its calling.
If you do a biblical search for the words “dress/dressed/clothing/dress up-put on, etc., you will find about 326 verses in the Spanish Bible.” Beyond the clothing made from leather, linen, wool, or jute, we also find mention of royalty and luxury attires made with silk and fabrics with gold. We read of military clothing, tunics, capes, and much more. The Bible is rich in adjudicating other senses for the action of dressing up, associated with “being in a certain state or existence”. We find texts in Jeremiah, Job and Isaiah, where “you put on” desolation, righteousness, darkness, skin of worms, and “clothes of shame, fear and affliction”. In the Psalms, the Lord “dresses you” of salvation, and God “wears” glory and splendor.
Clothing as a metaphor for identity also reflects our historical moment.
When we lose someone, we dress in black, but also dress in crying, morning, and pain. We put on courage in the face of injustices by people, governments, and systems. Today, however, we are clothed beautifully and elegantly. We wear celebration in our hearts and rejoice because we have been invited to be present in this party.
Nevertheless, when people, institutions or the economic-social and political system clothe us “by force”, violence is exerted on us. When we allow the systems of oppression to clothe us, to put a price on us, and to determine our image, these imposed garments designate a false identity that enslaves us. Sometimes we are not even conscious of the change of garment. The woman in the story lost her freedom because “someone” stole her “true garment – her essential identity” and she was “clothed by force” with another identity. She lost her clear view; her strength and the energy to live.
This issue of identities is complex and fluid. A man can be an excellent pastor, but a terrible father. A woman can be a terrible daughter, but an extraordinary teacher. We possess and construct more than one identity, but some prevail over others. Or better stated, some identities are more deeply stuck to the skin. But the word of life reminds us that being followers of Jesus defines us in our deeper and more real identity.
The passage of Exodus launched me to the image of Jesus Christ as “high priest”. When Paul exhorts us in Rom. 13:14, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” and “put on the new humanity…created in the image and likeness of God”, the invitation to put on Jesus Christ refers to finding an identity that gives life and meaning to life. But to put on the new humanity and to respond to the priestly calling and service, anointed and consecrated, we must get undressed.
Paul speaks of ridding ourselves of everything that is not in accordance with the image of our creator.
- To rid ourselves of self-defeating thoughts: I am not able, I don’t have, the internal pain, suffering, sin, and sense of guilt. (I take off my cap)
- Paul invites us to rid ourselves of the laziness with which we waste our days, our children, our partners, our lives themselves, our unhealthy emotional attachments and our toxic conducts. (I take off my cape)
- To read ourselves of consumerism, of individualism, of the search for status, of power and useless recognitions for life today and in the here and now of the reign (I take off my toga).
The call to clothe ourselves as priests—in this holy priesthood—is a calling to put on Jesus Christ. To put on profound compassion (Col 3:12), from deep within us, from the uterus and the bowels, that is prophetic and moves the deepest fibers of our being.
In Jesus God was incarnated, God put on flesh, God put on humanity.
God changed skin and acquired a new identity. Bible scholars continue to discuss whether God was impacted as Jesus became human. I maintain my wonder at the mystery of the incarnation. Because for me, God in Jesus Christ smells like humanity, a woman, a boy, a grandmother. In this wearing of humanity is that God wanted to come closer to you and me. To be incarnated is then to put on flesh—to become someone different. It is to be a people with a history and to make history together with humanity. To dress up with priestly clothing is service, mission, commitment, solidarious action, resistance, and living testimony.
Get rid of what is not of God and put on the glory of God; dress yourself with liberty!
Let us remove those garments that asphyxiate the power of the Holy Spirit, that derail the desire of God of wellbeing and goodness for all of humanity, because we have been called to freedom. Called to a wholistic freedom—emotional, physical, social, economic, political, and religious. Let us undress so that we can build identities according with the reign of God.
This is what the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico offers, a solid theological education that allows students to study the holy word with seriousness, and to explore many interpretations and historical difficulties. We are called to think and to share a theological education, that not only wrestles with the text but strengthens the faith, by allowing us to identify those outfits that dehumanize us. I think that the Seminary builds bridges between the text and the hard reality of academic and pastoral life, when it puts on Jesus Christ. The Seminary must not only work to build a more just world, because justice without love makes us hypocrites, hardened and cynical, but to act with integrity, with transparency and compassion. The pastor, the person, and the people that put on the Lord smell like humanity.
Listen—if you are here with your partner, you smell like your partner—smell them! If you are alone, smell yourself. Hmmm, how nice is that smell of a baby, that shirt of your partner, that perfume of the woman with whom you share your life, that smell of the grandma. But also, that smell of honest, well-sweated labor, of spices and the simple and attentive kitchen. We are a fragrant smell when we are clothed with Jesus Christ, with human rights, with respect for the earth, and with consideration for those that are different. When we are clothed with peace, rejecting outfits that push us to act with falsity, with fears, with unjust advantages, with malice, with politicking, we smell like Jesus!
The priest reflected the greatness of Adonai. To put on humanity is to clothe ourselves with that with which God is clothed—“clothe yourself with love, which is the perfect bond”. (Col 3:14) But that perfect bond needs another. The priest’s vestments were made by “the wise of heart”. Those “artisans” (vv3) with the tools of wisdom, the experience, and the flexible minds would create the design and the priestly vestments. The dexterity, creativity and intelligence of some of the artisans came together to sustain that divine calling.
Brothers and sisters, the business of the reign is not solitary, it is done in community. It is not just systems of oppression that clothe us. The talents in the abilities of others also clothe us. It takes more than one person “to clothe” a human being with glory and beauty. It takes a community “to clothe” a people with maturity, autonomy, self-determination and future. It takes communities of faith.
Conclusion:
What dress are you wearing today? That of a captive person or that of a follower and servant of Jesus Christ?
The World Cup has come to an end, and we have to wait four years. In Latin America soccer fans live the games, they clothe themselves, they paint themselves and put on the jerseys of their teams”. They run to buy the jerseys of their teams, get excited, participate, and invest themselves”. They are passionate. They have faith and wish for what’s best for their teams. Be passionate about a space of service, prepare for ministry!
At the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, we now celebrate 95 years. I ask you, what kind of identity are we going to develop? What clothes will we help our students to wear? What does it mean to put on the jersey of the Seminary? I have the commitment and the will to give the best of me to this educational endeavor. Because God called me, I put on the jersey to serve this community of faith. Because I see passion for the gospel, educational excellence, and extraordinary spaces of growth, I want to invite you to put on the jersey. Do you not want to put on the jersey of the seminary because you have heard that here people lose their faith and are too liberal? Then put on the jersey of your church.
If there is something that I want to leave in your mind this afternoon is, “let yourself be clothed by Jesus Christ”.
You who serve or long to serve the Lord, let God clothe you with another garment. Stand up and give your all to the Lord, your talents, your gifts, your doubts, those dehumanized identities. Surrender the imposed garments that enslave you at the altar of the Lord! Let God clothe you with a different skin!
It is your time. To prepare yourself to serve is worth it!
May God bless you.