Clothing and Nudity on a Biblical Scale

Clothing is a subtle yet powerful theme in the Bible.  So is nudity.

For instance, Adam and Eve's nudity is explicitly referenced in Genesis.  It is also their nudity that they realise and try to cover up.  And finally, in this short story alone, the pair is given hide clothing by God as they leave the garden.  (As a farewell gift or a mark of their shame?)

Noah too, only a few chapters later, has an episode involving nudity.  He got drunk one day and passed out naked in his tent.  His son Ham then stumbled in upon him and was cursed for it.  Not only Ham but his entire progeny.  (Why such a harsh penalty?!)  Ham's brothers had to walk in backwards after Ham to cover Noah with a blanket...

From here the theme of nudity and clothing persists in the Bible, right up to the book of Revelation where those who remain in the end are not naked but dressed in white robes.  Here the chosen people are not covered by (shameful?) hides and blankets but clothes that remind us of the original light of creation.  Or better yet,of  Joseph's magnificent coat given to him as a gift from his father to bespeak Joseph's glory.

Clothing and nudity is a subtle yet powerful theme from beginning to end.

And that's just it, or what I believe is one of the most fundamental patterns of the Bible: the peculiar movement that constantly emerges there from being naked in the beginning to being clothed in glory through grace at the end.

"Naked I came from the womb," declared Job, "and naked I will remain!"  But in faith and truth Job is not naked in the end.  Rather, like those who remain at the end in Revelation, he is clothed in glory through the grace of God.  He is not naked but decked in richer and more beautiful clothes than ever before...

It is the same pattern in the book of Job that holds on the broader Biblical scale.  From Adam and Eve to those who are dressed in the white robes in the end times.  Again and again the movement from being naked to being clothed in glory through grace emerges in the Bible.

Even the hides given to Adam and Eve and the blanket placed upon Noah fit this holy pattern.  Despite their shameful connotations.

Thanks be to Job.

Derrida's Cat

There was a famous philosopher named Jacques Derrida.  In one of his final works he wrote about the animal and nudity.  What I found immediately provocative about this work, which I have only begun to engage, is an experience that he describes with his cat.  Coming out of the shower one day Derrida was caught naked by the cat.

He tells us that in that moment he was ashamed.  He was naked and he was ashamed.

Now I don't know why Derrida was ashamed before his cat.  Shame is not something that I tend to feel when naked before an animal (my dog for instance).  But Derrida says he was ashamed.  He also says that he was ashamed of being ashamed. Standing naked before his cat Derrida was ashamed and he was ashamed of being ashamed.

As to why Derrida was ashamed of being ashamed I like to think that he was harking back to bygone days.  To childhood.  To that time in our lives when we were just beginners in wisdom and there was still pride and joy to be taken in nudity.  When we didn't know or care about our nakedness and we couldn't recognize good from evil. 

I like to think that Derrida was lamenting the loss of a remarkable openness toward others and an acceptance of others that we once possessed as children.  (An acceptance that I find for instance when I stand naked before an animal.  An openness that makes it impossible to feel any shame before them.  Unless I have done them harm.  Or have been too hard on them.)

I like to think that Derrida, in confessing that he was ashamed of being ashamed, was proclaiming the wisdom of nudity.  That while part of our moral development is finding out that we are naked the next step is not covering up or hiding in this state but persevering.  Whether we are ashamed or not.  Whether we should be ashamed or ashamed of being ashamed.

I like to think that Derrida is professing the potential glory of humankind by describing the experience that he has with the cat.

Thanks be to Job.

Jeremiah's Loincloth

Jeremiah was a prophet.

His story holds an interesting account where God tells him to go get a loincloth.  Any one that he chooses.

God then tells Jeremiah to wear the loincloth and not to clean it.  God wants Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear (and nothing else).

From there the ridiculousness goes on, but instead of continuing the story I would like to change registers.  I would like to use this story to address a modern cultural problem, namely, that some people expect such foolishness of the Bible, and might jump to the conclusion that this story is a confirmation of their expectation.

In response to this pervasive belief that the Bible is absurd my point is simple: Such baffling moments in Scripture, moments such as the story of Jeremiah and his loincloth, are not a sign of the Bible's absurdity but are a call for us to discern.  Such moments are a challenge to us to figure out what the hell is going on.

For instance, in the case of Jeremiah's loincloth is this some kind of a punishment?  Is Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear because of something he has done?  No!  Jeremiah condemns the iniquity of his people and works miracles among them.  He is a good man and has done nothing to deserve such treatment...

Is the point then to show Jeremiah that without his care the loincloth is ruined?  Is it to say that without God's care Jeremiah, and Israel more broadly, would be nothing, just as without Jeremiah's care the loincloth is nothing?  If so, why would God need to teach such a lesson to Jeremiah?  Doesn't Jeremiah already know the ingratitude of his people as well as his smallness before the Almighty?

This last possibility is closer to the mark though.  The trick to figuring out the story is indeed that the loincloth is to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God, but God's point is not that Jeremiah would amount to nothing without God, but rather that Jeremiah has been selected as an article of pride. Jeremiah's loincloth is in the same relationship to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God: they are both chosen adornments.  Articles of clothing chosen of their own accord to gird the chooser's loins.

In other words, it is not the grace of God that makes Jeremiah worthy, nor Jeremiah's tending of the loincloth that makes the loincloth worthy.  Rather it is the personal qualities of Jeremiah and the loincloth that make Jeremiah and the loincloth worthy of their place of pride.

Jeremiah is not to clean his loincloth because God wants him to learn this lesson.  God wants Jeremiah to learn that despite the iniquity of his people Jeremiah was, still is, and may continue to be the glory of God.  Israel and humankind more broadly were once articles of pride and may be so again.  Without the grace of God and of their own accord.

That is what we learn if we discern what is going on with Jeremiah and his loincloth.  We see our value as human beings in the eyes of God.  We find that we can be worthy of adorning God's own loins.

Such a baffling moment is not a sign of absurdity but of a humanism of greatest consolation and joy.

Thanks be to Job.