I don’t care if you wear a tie. Or t-shirt. Or a coat. Or jeans. Or a dress. Or a big Kentucky Derby-esque hat. But what I care about is your fig leaves.
“…she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together…” Genesis 3:6-7
“Fig Leaves” in this case are the things you put on to cover over your sin, your shame, and your hurt.
Fig leaves have many styles:
- Fake smiles
- Meaningless banter about weather, sports, politics, etc.
- Insincere responses to “How are you?” when you’re truly hurting on the inside
You put on whatever you can so that people think you have it together. Don’t let anyone know that your entire family was arguing in the car on the way to church. Maybe you and your wife haven’t had a meaningful conversation in months. You haven’t talked to God in weeks. And He certainly hasn’t talked to you in longer because your Bible is collecting dust.
Instead of packaging up your brokenness in a suit of fig leaves, consider what God tells you to wear in 1 Peter 5:5, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”
Humble yourself. Admit you have problems. Confess you have sinned. Verse 6 continues, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
The only way church works the way it is supposed to is if we humbly admit our brokenness and sinfulness, turn from it (that is repentance), and turn to and toward Christ. If you don’t do that, you are simple coming to church to get more advice about how you can sew a better fig leaf week after week.