WHERE WILL WE GO, TODAY?

WHERE WILL WE GO, TODAY?

Sunday, June 21, 2020 – Father’s Day

Sermon by The Rev. Dr. John A. Dalles

Psalm 86:1-10; Matthew 10:24-39

Today being Fathers’ Day, someone is going to wonder, “John, why in the world did you pick that particular passage of scripture to read, today of all days?”  The answer is: “I did not pick it.”.  Far from it.  In fact, it was selected for us – as the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary.    It is an extremely odd set of verses for today, when we are honoring our fathers – which (of course) is one of the Ten Commandments, “12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

That is a central fixture of our belief.  As it was in Jesus’ day. So when Jesus says, “I have come to set a man against his father…” and, “Whoever loves father and mother more than me,” we wonder: What is Jesus doing?  Is he setting aside the Fifth Commandment?   Or is something else at the core of what he is saying? Does it mean something greater than the Fifth Commandment is now at work in the lives of people who would follow Jesus? let’s try thinking along those lines.  When we do, what emerges?

First, there is that passage about the sparrow.  “His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me”, is how the beloved hymn says it.

Even more, God’s eye is on people.   Jesus calls God, Father.  So, we call God Father too.  We begin The Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father…”  Jesus doesn’t call God “The Sparrow Keeper”.  Like the guy on the rooftop with the cage full of pigeons.  God, caring for and feeding, and training, and letting those birds fly – and when their flight is done, welcoming them home again.  All the time, God’s eye is on them.  But Jesus doesn’t call God The Sparrow-Keeper.  Jesus calls God Father.  It is an even-closer relationship than we might have anticipated. 

God, who cares for those he has made.  God who secures their lives.  God who watches them grow.  God who provides for their needs.   God who tends them when they have broken wings, God who loves them. This Father’s Day, remember: The Father’s eye is on the sparrow. The Father’s eye is on you. 

Jesus says more.  “I have come to set a man against his father…” What does Jesus mean?

Sometimes, as we grow we go in a way that is different from what our father may have had in mind for us.  Whether you say that a person “rebels”, or that a person “finds” her or himself.  Scripture promises “Train up a child in the way that he or she should go and then when they are grown they will not depart from it.”  But –what if a person was raised with no faith, or with wrongly placed faith? And then at some point they came to understand that Jesus is Lord, OF all creation, and of that person’s very own life?  If their father… did not know it, or believe it, or did not want to hear it, who would be the greater authority in that person’s life? It is a real-life dilemma that some of Jesus’ first disciples faced.  

Do I do what I have been taught to do?

or…

Do I do what Jesus calls me to do?

         You may never have had to make that choice.  Your father may have been a deeply-committed Christian.   Who made sure you got to know about Jesus.  Who brought you to church.  Who taught you to pray.  Who set an example for you, of Christian servanthood.  Who lived his faith in such a way that it inspires your own.  So you are not set against your father. You are in synch with your father.   On Father’s Day, just thinking about that is a joy.  I rejoice wish you that is the case.

Apparently, it was not the case for some of Jesus’ listeners.  So, if you had to depart from your father’s beliefs and convictions, in order to be faithful to Jesus – then you have done what they had to do.   You have acted according to what Jesus teaches.

Now it is my sincere hope and prayer that, your father will come around to your own faith understanding.  That Jesus is Lord, and grace is to be found in Him.  Hopefully, these truths will have a warming influence upon your father.    

And then Jesus says, “Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  In other words, “Whoever loves me more than their father and mother, is worthy of me.”  On this Father’s Day, you have memories of growing up, and of your father, that are part of who you are now.   You may do things the way he did them.   You may say things the way he said them.   You may tell his same dad jokes and get the same inordinate amount of pleasure doing so, that he did.  You may do things the way he taught you, from home repairs to driving a car.   You may work hard, like he worked.   You may sacrifice for your children; the way he sacrificed for you. Do you know that in all those ways, you can love Jesus even more?

What Jesus did and said are a part of who you are now.  You do things the way he did them.  You say things the way he said them.  

You may even remember some of his turns of phrase and get the same pleaser saying them that he did. You may do things the way he taught you, even the ordinary stuff of life.  You may work hard like he did.   You may sacrifice for others, the way he sacrificed. On this Father’s Day if you have memories of your father that parallel your love for Jesus, it is good and right that this is so.

When I was a kid and the weekend rolled around, there was something my father used to say that brought joy to my heart, and it still does.  He would look at me and say, “Where will we go, today?” And whatever we did, whether we went to the beach or the store, or the backyard, or just running errands, it was the whole sense of sharing in it that was so very special.

  “Where will we go, today?” Somehow, I can still hear it, and see him smiling when he said it.

“Where will we go, today?” Somehow, I can also hear Jesus saying that.  With a sense of love and joy and anticipation of what will unfold in the nest moment, and the next hour, and throughout the day

“Where will we go, today?” Wherever you go – whatever you and Jesus do – hold before you the wonderful truth that Jesus is sharing it, with you.  Amen.

This is an original sermon by The Rev. D. John A. Dalles, Interim Senior Minister and Head of Staff of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA .  It was delivered on the date indicated in the text. You are encouraged to read it and reflect upon it.  Please keep in mind that the sermon is Copyright © 2020 John A. Dalles.  Permission from the author is required to reproduce it in any fashion.

TOUGH TIMES TRAITS

TOUGH TIMES TRAITS

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Sermon by The Rev. Dr. John A. Dalles

Shadyside Presbyterian Church

Psalm 100; Romans 5:1-8

Paul is speaking from his own life’s story.  Especially as he has learned and grown in the faith.  And from the careful observations and conclusions he made over a lifetime. In which he was no stranger to suffering.  As he says in his second letter to the Corinthians:

         “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches…”

(2 Corinthians 11:23-28)

         When Paul speaks of suffering – he knows where of he speaks.  Robert W. Barbour, a great theologian of the 19^th century, says this: “Perhaps there are comforts and compensations that one who has not suffered knows nothing of – like the lamps that nobody sees till the tunnel comes.”  As we consider what Paul says in Romans, we will be highlighting those various “comforts and compensations”.

In this letter to the Romans, Paul relates that there are things to be gained through suffering.  Not that anyone longs for suffering, but as anyone who has come through many dangers, toils and snares will tell you, they have learned something in the process.  Like my friend Linda Hambleton, who was a juvenile onset diabetic.  And whose struggle with that led to a book called IF TODAY IS ALL I HAVE.  It is a way she made positive meaning out of suffering.  I am sure the writing of it was therapeutic for her.  And I am also sure that it has helped others dealing with those same challenges, and other challenges.  We learn through suffering.  We find that our entire society is learning through the suffering of George Floyd.  Lessons that we may not have known we need to learn.  Anyone who has come through many dangers, toils and snares will tell you, they have learned something in the process. They are older and wiser, more in touch with the realities of the human condition, and more alert to the wonders and beauty of creation, than they were before.  They have a keen sense that time itself is precious, and the people who share life’s journey, are dearer still.

Paul was not the first, nor the last, to say there can be value in suffering.  Viktor Frankl has said: “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering.  Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as (is) death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.” (Viktor E. Frankl).  The Bible shows us that suffering – hard times – come to everyone.  Songwriters sing of it.  Amy Grant sings:

“Hard times come to everyone

Hard times come

Hard times come

And they'll come till we're done.”

And there’s the lament of the song by Pittsburgh’s own Stephen Collins Foster:

“'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,

Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh! Hard times come again no more.”

Paul indicates that… It is how we deal with suffering that sets us apart.  Suffering quite possibly helps us to become wiser, and more compassionate.  It may also produce in us a desire to help others, to change society, and to bring about a better world.  As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Observes: “human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” 

Are you dealing with a season of suffering now?  Do you have unhappy residual memories of a season of suffering from your past?  Are you wondering the whys and wherefores of that season of suffering? Consider this:  A season of suffering may produce a lifetime of service.  A season of suffering, like a bleak winter, may bring about a season of new growth, and a bountiful harvest.  Suffering should not make us bitter people, it should make us better people: Better listeners.  Better advocates. Better comforters.

Paul says that suffering produces endurance –inner strength that is proven or shown over time. It is a factor of time.  It is also a factor of distance.  If you go in search of endurance records…they have to do with both.  For instance, the flight endurance record is the longest amount of time an aircraft of a particular category spent in flight, without landing.  That is a perfect way to think of endurance, even when our feet are on the ground.  We travel a great distance over a long period, without relief, or resolution.  We bear up against the odds. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do that. Even when things are at their worst.

Suffering produces endurance.  Endurance produces character –Integrity.  Solid and steady. It is like a patina on a fine old piece of furniture.  Character shows.  It is hard to create something brand new that has immediate character.  It takes time.  “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved,” says Helen Keller

Character produces hope.  Hope is one of Paul’s big three.  Remember he says:  Faith, hope, and love endure.  The hope that you have within you surpasses any trouble, trial, or tragedy. Sometimes, in ways that surprises others. Sometimes in ways that surprise even us.  In spite of the bald facts of the matter.  We hope, because god has set within our hearts, a vision of what will be.  Like a lighthouse sending forth its light in the storms and darkness, we steer our lives toward it. 

Someone will say, “That is all very well and good for us, here today.  But what about the people we have lost?  People who have gone from us?”  I have an answer from a friend in the faith.  Not someone I know, but someone whose thoughts are with us when we ask this question.  It is Benjamin Jowett, (1817-1893); Master of Baliol College, Oxford.  Here is what he says:

“We acknowledge that there are broken lives, piece of lives which began in this world, to be completed, as we believe, in another state of being.  And some of them have been like fragments of ancient art, which we prize not for their completeness, but for their quality which we can hardly see anywhere upon earth.  Of such lives, we must judge, no by what the person said, or wrote, or did in the short span of human existence, but what they were.  If they exercised some peculiar influence on society, and on friends, if they had some rare grace of humility, or simplicity, or resignation, or love of truth, or devotion, which was not to be met within other. God does not measure lives only by the amount of work which is accomplished in them.    There have been persons confined to a bed of sickness, blind, tormented with pain and want, who yet may be said to have led an almost perfect life.  Such persons afford examples to us of a work, whether finished or unwished, which at any moment is acceptable to God.   And we desire to learn of them, and to have an end like theirs, when the active work of life is over, and we sit patiently waiting for the will of God.”   (Quoted in A Diary of Readings, compiled by John Baillie, day 358)

Hope does not disappoint us.  God brings to fulfillment everything that God begins.  “Suffering is part of the divine idea,” says the noted preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. The centerpiece of the message of Jesus has to do with suffering. Without suffering, there would be no cross.  Without suffering there would be no tomb. Without suffering there would be no resurrection.   The entire journey from mortality to immortally is through suffering. You cannot make some sort of pious pole-vault over pain, trouble, illness, and death.  You have to walk the lonesome valley Jesus walked, before you can walk beside the still waters and in the green pastures.  It is by suffering that we become heirs of the grace of life.  Or as Victor Hugo says, “It is by suffering that human beings become angels.”

In Christ may it be so.  Amen.

This is an original sermon by The Rev. D. John A. Dalles, Interim Senior Minister and Head of Staff of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA .  It was delivered on the date indicated in the text. You are encouraged to read it and reflect upon it.  Please keep in mind that the sermon is Copyright © 2020 John A. Dalles.  Permission from the author is required to reproduce it in any fashion.

Pastors' Message in These Anxious Days

The pastors of Shadyside Presbyterian Church are profoundly dismayed by the tragic murder of George Floyd. We stand with our Lord Jesus Christ and in unity with all who honor all persons and seek their well-being. We stand opposed to any form of hatred, prejudice, or racial injustice. We pray for the world, for our society, and for all who live in fear because of the cruelty of others. We pray that all will hear with compassion, and that our wounded nation might be changed in ways that are in accord with the love and grace to be found in Christ. Grant us healing. Grant us hope – in these days and in all our days.

THE GREAT ONE IN THREE

THE GREAT ONE IN THREE

June 7, 2020 – Trinity Sunday

Sermon by The Rev. Dr. John A. Dalles

Psalm 8; Matthew 28:16-20

Here is a mountain top moment in the lives of the disciples. Few of us live on the mountains. Even here in Western Pennsylvania where there are plenty of them to choose from.  Some weeks, it feels as if we are living in the trenches.  But we savor mountaintop moments, they stand out from the rest, they are formative.  They define who we are.  They shape our future.  They grant us confidence for today.

They went to Galilee, and to the mountain, because Jesus had directed them. Directions are important in life.  On a journey or on the journey of life. It all depends, on who is giving the directions.

When it is Christ, the second person of the Trinity.  The directions – are from God.

This past week has been a time for many to ponder the question, “I wish God would tell me what to do.”  The killing of George Floyd is a national tragedy and a societal disgrace.  What happened to George Floyd has reopened a painful wound in our country that has never healed.  We are heavy in heart.  We know that our society is in need of healing change.  A bridging of the divides that separate.  The establishment of trust.  We may be able to find direction in our scripture today. This particular passage from Matthew. In which we find almighty and divine direction for the disciple’s lives.  And direction for our own. If you have been thinking about what God wants you to do, then this passage is for you.  It invites you to engage your life with God’s purpose.  It says that Jesus directed them, and because He directed them, they went.

I recall asking my stepdad about his service in the South Pacific during World War II. He was in the Navy.  It was a challenging time.  He had enlisted.  When I asked him about why he went, he said, “Because my President asked me.” He put tremendous value on FDR as our nation’s leader. Even as Christians put great value in Christ, our leader.

“I did this because my Jesus asked me,” is a clear description of the why and the what of our life of faith.  The authority of Jesus is first and foremost.  Let Jesus direct you.  Then, do as he directs.

Did you notice that the eleven worshiped him – but some doubted?  We would like to know which ones were among the doubters.  But Matthew doesn’t say. That’s good. It allows room for us to doubt and wonder, and reflect and ponder.  All of them, important to the growth of our faith.

Any shared enterprise has those who are on the forefront.  Those who are convinced of what is happening.  Before others are even aware.  And then there are those who need a bit more convincing.  The honest doubters.  One of those eleven on the mountain was Thomas – famous for having been among the honest doubters.  The ones who aren’t there just yet.  The Risen Christ convinced Thomas of the truth of the resurrection, and the imperative of spreading the good news.  Church tradition has it that after that, Thomas went from doubt to laboring far afield – all the way to India – to proclaim Christ as Lord.

That is how it is. Honest doubters who see and believe – are often the most engaged of all who work for a particular cause. Do not become discouraged if you are an honest doubter.  Let there be room for the Holy Spirit to be at work in you.

Evelyn Underhill, whose book Mysticism is a Christian classic, says:  “On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

To those who are not doubters:  Please learn – you can help others catch up with you.  To help them see Christ.  To know his truth.  To let it rule their lives.

If you had been among the eleven there on that mountain that day, you would have received your assignment for life. Your reason for being: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” is about as inclusive as you can get. There is not one nation left out. Nowhere will you find Jesus saying: “Go therefore and make disciples of some, but not of others.” The message of the Gospel is to include, not exclude. The message of the Gospel bridges boundaries.  In a world that seems to thrive on choosing sides, and pitting one group against another, and acting out of prejudice and fear, those eleven disciples and those they managed to reach were to be different.  They knew that we cannot judge the human heart. Only God can do that. And the history of the faithful is all about divisions coming down. And people ministering together.  And upbuilding one another.  And serving not the forces of intolerance, but the one eternal God, who is love, and kindness, and grace.

You may know about Latasha Morrison, and you may have read her book, “Be the Bridge”.  I hope you have.  Here is something she says in that book and lives in her life.  It is entirely in keeping with what those first eleven disciples set out to do:

“In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring – and not color blind. We have to recognize the image of God in one another. We have to love, despite – and even because of – our differences.”

The word “disciple” occurs 269 times in the New Testament.  

It is that important.  A disciple: follows Jesus.   “Come and follow me…”).   A disciple: is changed by Jesus. (“I will make you…”).  A disciple: shares the mission of Jesus (“…Fishers of people”).  If we consider ourselves as the descendants of the first eleven disciples, then what does this commission say to us?  The threefold goal is this:

To make disciples – who can continue to make disciples. To baptize them in the name of the Great One in Three, the Father, and the Son, and  the Holy Spirit.  To teach them to obey everything that Christ has commanded us. 

When a Christian is faithful, she or he will ask: “How am I accomplishing the commission of my Lord?”  When a church is faithful, it will ask, “How are we doing the things Christ commissioned us to do?”  

It is like this:

A middle-aged man turned to some people he trusted, so that they would to make a home for him.  The first home he had ever owned in his life.  They did it. As they began they asked him if there were any colors he did not like.  He answered that he was color blind.  And he didn’t like the color orange. The funny thing is, he was wearing a shirt that was blue and orange plaid. He just didn’t see it.

They went on and created a great first ever home for him.  And when the big reveal came, he toured it with them, and marveled at how perfectly suited to him it was. When they had toured the house, they went out on the back porch.  And then the couple gave him a gift.  A pair of glasses that address being color blind. 

And then, he went inside and was filled with astonishment and amazement.  Because he was seeing it again, as if for the first time.  He was no longer color blind.  He was color brave, color caring, color honoring – and not color blind. 

We can grow into being color brave.  We can grow into being color caring.  We can grow into being color honoring.  Not color blind.

Christ has a work for you to do. You can know that as you share the faith, you will become more brave, and caring, and honoring of all people. Hear Jesus saying, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” As we go into the world, we are not alone.  God is at work.  God is saving and restoring.  God is sustaining and renewing. Whoever we are, God is with us in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit to the end of the age.  Amen.

This is an original sermon by The Rev. D. John A. Dalles, Interim Senior Minister and Head of Staff of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA .  It was delivered on the date indicated in the text. You are encouraged to read it and reflect upon it.  Please keep in mind that the sermon is Copyright © 2020 John A. Dalles.  Permission from the author is required to reproduce it in any fashion.

HOW IS IT THAT WE HEAR?

HOW IS IT THAT WE HEAR?

A Sermon by The Rev. Dr. John A. Dalles

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Acts 2:1-21

If you are good at languages, you are fascinated by this event.  Here is a virtual summary of the languages of the eastern Mediterranean, and what was once called Mesopotamia.  Their religion was – the Jewish faith of the Old Testament.  Yet, they were as diverse as the people after the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel.  Suddenly, they heard, each one, in their own language… the news about Jesus and his great love.

If you are NOT good at languages, you are even more fascinated by this event.  It would be like a gathering of people from Western PA suddenly speaking all the languages of the people at the General Assembly of the United Nations, and without the need for headphones.

Did you know that 88.98% of Pittsburgh residents speak only English?  Now, there is another 11.02% wo speak other languages.  From Afrikaans and Albanian, to Vietnamese and Yiddish – and even that one particular language that is spoken nowhere else on the planet: Pittsburghese, (if ynz will pardon the expression, n’at). 

How is it that we hear...?  The phenomenon of Pentecost gave the church a reach beyond one culture.  Suddenly, by God’s initiative, the disciples of our Lord, were filled with the Holy Spirit, so they could share the Gospel beyond themselves.  It would be marvelous, wouldn’t it?  To be able to speak in other languages?...  Without taking any classes, or reading textbooks, or suffering the challenges of pop quizzes.

How do we hear what God has to say?  What are the secrets of that great blessing?

We hear because God wants us to hear.  God brings the message to us.  It may come – as it did on the first Pentecost – through unlikely agents.  Humble fishermen and backwater people who hailed from the equivalent of the hills and hollows of West Virginia.  We might not expect such people to have anything to say to us.  We would be wrong.

God can use whom god may choose to convey the message of grace.  The people who heard on that Pentecost, had not awakened that morning thinking – “Today I am going to hear a message from God.”  The event of Pentecost tells us that God can break into our ordinary routine with extraordinary power.  God has been doing it all along.  

We remember that Moses was tending his father in law’s sheep – minding his own business, when God spoke from the bush that burned but was not consumed.  On Pentecost, flames appeared again, God spoke, anew.  When God speaks, People listen.

How is it that we hear? We hear because God wants us to hear.  We also hear what God wants us to hear. The Pentecost message was unlike any other. The promised Messiah had come, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.   He communicated what God is like.   He spoke words of insight, and blessing, with authority. His words were confirmed in his work. Teaching, caring, healing, enraging with people in their hardest struggles. Suffering and dying, and being raised to new life.  Promising this to all who believe.

The world of medicine will tell us that hearing depends on a series of complex steps that change sound waves in the air into electrical signals. These sound waves enter the outer ear and travel through a narrow passageway - the ear canal - which leads to the eardrum. The eardrum vibrates from the incoming sound waves and a combination of mechanical and electrical and fluid processes cause chemicals to rush into the cells, creating an electrical signal. The auditory nerve carries this electrical signal to the brain, which turns it into a sound that we recognize and understand.

From the mouths of the first followers of Jesus, to the ears of the next followers of Jesus – the entire process depends upon God, who created us, and gave us the gift of perceiving and understanding sound.

On the first Pentecost, the miracle of hearing was amplified by this new miracle of comprehension. The word began to spread. And it has been spreading ever since.

This Pentecost morning, I am glad you can hear me.  And I am glad you can understand what I am saying.  But on this Sunday, as on every Sunday, that is only part of the process.   We depend on the real, but usually unseen, presence of God’s Holy Spirit, to convey what God wants conveyed.  We all depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to make that wonderful connection between the message – and its meaning for us today, for our world, for our intentions, and for our future.  With the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the word becomes a ministry of limitless power.  

“All of that is well and good,” someone will say, “but what if I haven’t been hearing anything lately?”  What if?  It may be that a person has forgotten to listen. ‘Thinking about other things, or nothing at all.  Distracted.  Convinced that God is not interested in speaking to them.  They say: “God has more important things to do than speak with me.” Or, “I am probably not worthy of God bothering with me.”   Don’t let those thoughts guide your ways.  God cares so much for you, it is as if you are the only person on this earth.  No one is a bother to Jesus. If you have not heard, do not be discouraged.  Trust that God has a desire to speak to you – and will – just when and how God sees fit. In a way that you will understand. In a way that will cause your faith to deepen, and strengthen.

This Pentecost moment, can happen at any moment.  Bringing something marvelous to hear, and something wonderful to tell: the wonders of God, in ways we can hear, and understand. In Christ may it be so.  Amen.

This is an original sermon by The Rev. D. John A. Dalles, Interim Senior Minister and Head of Staff of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, PA .  It was delivered on the date indicated in the text. You are encouraged to read it and reflect upon it.  Please keep in mind that the sermon is Copyright © 2020 John A. Dalles.  Permission from the author is required to reproduce it in any fashion.