Trolling, Sight Casting, and Nets…

THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
February 7, 2010

“Trolling, Sight Casting, and Nets”
Luke 5:1-11

Jesus tells the fishermen to go fishing.
On the face of it, catching a fish isn’t all that difficult. We are talking about a creature that barely has something you could call a brain. Let’s say they have an advanced neurological system. You would think that it would be as simple as presenting a familiar food source to said fish in a life-like manner. But if this was true there would be no need for a color selector. If you don’t have one of these, it is an electronic instrument that tells the fisher person what color lure might be most appropriate. For one hundred and ten dollars you can have one of these things. I am not making this up.

Some of you know that I like hunting and fishing. For most of my life my Father and I have made an annual pilgrimage to Ontario on a weeklong fishing trip. While there we fish for various kinds of fish, using different techniques. Sometimes we troll. Now for the uninitiated trolling involves dragging a brightly colored lure behind your boat in hopes of it passing a particular fish that has an interest in said lure. While we are doing this, futzing along the shoreline trolling, I have a heavy fly rod (a ten weight) in the front of the boat with a large fly tied to the leader. We occasionally will see a big pike basking in the sun near a submerged log or other hiding spot. Then we will stop trolling, and I will ‘sight-cast’ as in casting a particular lure to a particular fish I can see, trying to get this particular fish in this particular place to bite.

Now, someone once told me that if you have to explain a metaphor, you strip it of its power. The problem with many biblical metaphors is that they are no longer meaningful to us because we do not live the agrarian life that the original hearers of the story lived. So let me point out what Luke believed was obvious: Jesus is talking about evangelism.

Evangelism is a central task for the church. It is part of one of the two tasks Jesus gave his disciples: The first one was ‘do this in remembrance of me’; and the second one was ‘go, tell, and baptize.’

Here in Luke, chapter five, the day had been long and unsuccessful. The weary fishers were washing their nets and probably wishing for the day to end. Jesus interrupted their evening rituals with a request to teach from Simon’s boat and a further request for them to try again — push out into the deep and fish there (verse 4). After a brief, polite, protest they conceded and were amazed at the results. Jesus’ request implies that the fisherman did not need to change technique, but position, moving from shallowness to depth.

See, evangelism is not about technique. Evangelism is about substance. Too many of our churchly efforts are shallow, lackluster, and, dare I say, half-hearted, while society suffers from a crisis of meaning. Yet the words of Christ speak across the centuries calling us to discipleship and calling us to depth. We are not to be captured by what one author calls “glittering images” of Christ. (Howatch, Susan “Glittering Images” Ballentine: New York, 1987)

The goal of Evangelism will always miss its mark if that target is to ‘increase membership.’ We would be wrong to see evangelism as a survival mechanism. It is not about recruitment for the sake of recruitment. That technique is about getting a ‘bite’. We can troll around on the surface all we want, fishing for a bite. But evangelism is not about getting a bite on the surface where there is a big splash for everyone to see. Evangelism is about casting your nets into the deep, into the substance of life, and offering meaning to a world that hungers and thirsts for it.

The lesson for today speaks about a “…great catch of fish, whose very abundance threatens to sink the apostles’ boats. ‘This is a metaphor for the church…we have caught onto an abundance of gifts. But this call involves risk; it is both a challenge and an opportunity…we need to be reminded that these gifts are a renewed call to ‘open ourselves and share ourselves with new and wider communities.” (Bass, Diana Butler “Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming Christianity” Harper: New York, 2006, p. 240.) The net is both the gospel and what the Apostle Paul calls ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ that we experience in our life together. This is not some gimmicky innovation in search of cultural relevance. That is trolling. I am talking about identifying the depth of our life together and inviting others to join us there, and share in Christ’s presence and power.

And this is not about entrapment. The Greek gets difficult here but suffice it to say that we are talking about nourishing people and not force-feeding them. This is about bringing life and not catch and fillet. It is about what we have to give to them, not what they have to give to us. It is about how this community has the power to rescue each one of us and bring us life. So this is, if nothing else, a story about the power of the Eucharist.

Most importantly, you will note that although they were somewhat reluctant, the disciples received this great catch when the listened to what Christ was calling them to do, and did it.

Amen.

Haiti, and so-called rescue efforts….

For some reason, those Baptist ‘missionaries’ recently arrested on the Haiti/DR border have been haunting me.

I don’t mean that they are haunting me in some ‘disembodied spirit’ kind of way. I mean that the whole situation reminds me that, as my grandmother used to say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

When I began hearing about this story I immediately thought, oh oh, bad idea. Then, I felt ashamed. I felt shame because in my view it is yet one more instance where North Americans think they know best for the developing world and sweep down to ‘rescue’ others. A colleague from Maine reminded everyone that no one needed to be rescued, only provided relief. There is a big difference between rescue and relief.

What was particularly disturbing to me was the fact that it was apparent enough to the press that some of these children were not orphans. Ben Quinn of the Guardian recently wrote:

The Baptists said they had planned to take abandoned children orphaned in the earthquake and raise them at a new orphanage in the Dominican Republic. But according to locals, none of the children taken from Calebasse were orphans nor even particularly desperate. Few houses in the village have suffered any damage in the quake.

A couple of days ago the ‘missionaries’ were charged with kidnapping, 33 counts. One of missionaries, Laura Silsby, told reporters as she entered the court: “We expect God’s will be done. And we will be released.”

I am haunted by old images of missionaries ‘saving’ the locals.  I remember someone who served as a missionary in SE Asia telling me about tractors sent there to ‘help’ farmers being mired in the muck of a rice paddy, or useless because of the lack of gasoline, so ignorant were we of people’s real needs.

These missionaries apparently told parents they were taking the children away to a “good life,”  as if these foreign white folk knew best.  Laura Silsby’s comment bothers me the most. The comment also implies a misplaced certainty that Silsby’s group were bearers of “God’s will” in the world.  I am troubled by the fact she seems to believe she and her group is above the law in Haiti, but I am horrified that she seems to believe she is certain that God’s will is inexorably tied to her goals in Haiti.

I pray that good Christian folk will learn through this that relief efforts are best done by experienced organizations like World Vision, Oxfam, and my own favorite Church World Service. I am not saying we always get right actions wedded to right intent. I am saying that they are less likely to get mixed-up psycho/religious issues tangled up mission.  I also pray that the Haitian people do not believe that all Christians want to rescue them.

Another good read on this issue is here. Thanks @revsongbird.

Is Youth Ministry Killing the Church?

Kate Murphy asks some of the best questions I’ve heard in a long time about Youth Ministry…check it out at: http://ow.ly/13WOZ

No Junior Pastor

The first couple of weeks at the new church have been great.

It is nice to meet new people, be challenged to remember new names and faces. Stumbling around in the chancel isn’t so bad when the ‘chancel’ elders whisper instructions to you.

Acclamation, Orientation, “Getting to know you” is a big part of this orientation period.

In the not-so-back-of-my-mind is a concern about our associate. We have a very competent ‘interim’ associate who is doing periodic visitation. Boy, is that helpful. His contract ends in March, and I am thankful he will be here that long. Still, one of the things I’ve asked the church folks to do is to think about what it is that we are dreaming about here at church so we might know what we need in an associate?

I ask this question because it has been my experience that there are certain tasks every minister engages in, but some are predominantly about maintenance and others are predominantly about growth. As a sole pastor, I know this all too well.

In my region of the church we are talking about ‘revitalization.’ Some congregations call pastors who are focused on ‘revitalization,’ and one of the big hurdles is that congregations must realize that the pastor will spend more than 1/3 of their time on evangelism. I’ve been reading Gary McIntosh’s book, “Staffing Your Church for Growth.” Although it is dated, I can see that his central premise is still true. There are general tasks done to gather a church and general tasks done to maintain a congregation.

McIntosh uses the experience of ‘church planters’ to describe these tasks. If you were to attempt to start a congregation from scratch the first thing you would need to do is to attract people. The next issue is to retain those people; it isn’t until late in the ‘movement’ of church that one begins to be concerned about educating and caring for these folk. I don’t think that McIntosh means any offense to those whose ministries focus on these elements of ‘being church.’ What he does mean is that these are maintenance tasks and not development tasks.

When I graduated from seminary one of my field advisers, Rev. Dr. Charles Hambrick Stowe, gave me a commentary on the book Acts of the Apostles. He wrote inside, “may your ministry be one of bring people to Christ.” And, as I read this book from our bible it is about gathering, not particularly maintaining, church. We must wait for St. Paul to hear about the challenges of maintaining a congregation. That may be our interest in St. Paul, his churches share many of the same issues ours do.

But I am concerned about staffing. This conversation makes me think that we should call a professional staff to give attention to an aspect of ministry that is from the ‘development’ side of the scale and not the ‘maintenance’ side of the scale.    It isn’t that these tasks do not deserve a good bit of attention.  My question is about emphasis.

I asked some colleagues from the #FBuniverse and the #twitteruniverse to weigh in on this.  Nearly unanimously, they suggest that it is the role and practice of the Senior Pastor that has the most significant ability to bring about an effective ’shared-ministry.’  I suppose this is true, but like all relationships it is a two way street.  Some friends (who are Associates) note that one must sense a ‘call’ to that position.  Others reminded me that it isn’t just a rung on a ladder.  So part of the issues is one of mutual respect, responsibility, and accountability, isn’t it?

What would this look like? I honestly don’t know, but I think it would mean that this other ‘ordained’ person and I would share many basic (maintenance) roles, but we would not take our eye off the revitalization side. Would one be focused on evangelism? Maybe. Would another be Spiritual Nurture?  Maybe.  I think it would be best not to focus on a segment or age group of the congregation, but an area of ministry that needs to be ‘bolstered up’ to strengthen the members we have, attract and integrate members.

And because I am fresh from hearing Paul admonish the Corinthians (12:12-31a) last week, I know that one role is no better than another. It is all about the Body of Christ.

One Mission Statement

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
January 24, 2010

“Who Are You?”
Luke 4:14-21

Do you know who you are? It is one thing to have a decisive moment, like we spoke about last week, and it is quite another thing to have a sense of your own identity and purpose that arises from deep within yourself.

I may be dating myself in mentioning this, but when I was in college, it was not uncommon for parents to speak of their children who appeared to be without direction, as ‘finding themselves.’ Do you remember that? Young people went off to find themselves through a series of experiences, a trial and error experiment, to ‘find yourself.’ Ever since the advent of depth psychology there has been a movement in the human community to ‘find yourself.’ Theorists suggested that there was part of you which you could discover but was veiled, needed discovering. I don’t really know about this. I do know that there are different personalities and preferences that shape our attractions and our professions.

Since when has deciding for yourself ‘who I am’ ever been all that helpful to anyone? Even on the television show “American Idol” relies on so-called ‘experts’ to tell people who they are and who they are not. It is obvious that some of those people think they are someone they are not and need to be told.

Now, In the case of Jews and Christians, it has never been too important who we decide for ourselves we are, but who God claims us to be; and, the gifts that God gives each of us to live out that particular identity.

Luke’s Jesus arrives back on the scene, fresh from his retreat in the desert. Luke notes that he comes ‘in the power of the Spirit.’ A retreat can do that to you. A true Sabbath experience can do that to you. Time away where you have the opportunity to listen to God and discern what it is that God desires for you can be empowering.

He arrives and gets about his work. Jesus is an itinerant Jewish teacher.

He comes to his hometown, which is always a tough crowd, and preaches there in church. As is the case in our Christian worship, preaching is never divorced from the text. Scripture is read first. And, in the synagogue the lessons are part of a continual reading from the scroll. There isn’t any of the jumping around we do today by virtue of pages and not scrolls. Ironically, or providentially, the text was from the prophet Isaiah. It is apparent that he has taken this text as ‘his own.’ A person of justice, a prophet. The Messiah.

The value of knowing who you are is a sense of contentment when your life is in sync with that identity. We are not all called to be itinerant teachers, as Jesus was. It is obvious, when you read the second half of Luke’s Gospel, the book of Acts, that there were believers who came into discipleship with very different abilities. Paul’s correspondence to the church in Corinth confirms this fact as he urges the believers there to be gentle with one another; in a sense he urges them to quit forcing a square peg in a round hole. So one aspect of this whole process of self-awareness is the realization that we are all different, called to service in different ways, but one is no better than another.

In a congregation our size it is important to recognize the fact that there will be groups whose ‘call’ or ‘Christian vocation’ varies from another group. Some might have a certain fervor over doing hands on food pantry type things. Others might have an interest in music and sing their praises to the Lord. Others might be teachers, others evangelists, you get the idea. My point is that while our congregation might have a ‘personality,’ it will be made up of a variety of interests and activities.

Now, there has been a certain movement in congregations lately to sharpen up their ‘mission statements,’ to describe succinctly who we are and what we are about. There is a pile of church and business books written in the last five years that attempt to help people discover who they are and what they are supposed to be about doing. The most popular of these, for the religious set, was Rick Warren’s “A Purpose Driven Life.” I know of one Sunday school teacher that used the book as the curriculum for the better part of a year. The proceeds from this book has added to the kingdom of Warren’s “Saddleback Church” in California. The book is full of biblical references, as you would expect. But I was surprised to know that this text from Luke’s gospel is never mentioned. Apparently this brief, concise, statement of purpose for Jesus’ ministry is not that relevant for informing modern Christian’s lives.

Isn’t it? If this same Jesus is the Christ, is the one whom we believe in, in whom we live, in whom we die, does not this statement pertain to our mission? I think this announcement from the prophet Isaiah does matter. It notes, as we have always believed, that identity does not rise up from within ourselves, but is given to us by God. And, the resources which we are given are not resources for our own exploitation, but rather are to be used in the exercise of this identity…in service to the world.

Let us note that this identity is all about mission. It does not indicate that Jesus will be doing all this himself, but it does describe a certain proclamation that will undoubtedly move and motivate others to be the hands and feet of this mission, even as he is the heart. If we affirm our place in the Communion of Saints, in the Body of Christ, then our particular skills, gifts, interests, abilities, are purposely given in service to the greater mission of Christ…not to fulfill our own particular needs.

The lesson from First Corinthians makes the same point, but in a different way: that all parts of the church come together in different ways to serve the mission of Christ. Today, as you participate in the Eucharist, I challenge you to remember that it is in and through this feast we are united with Christ and with one another. This is not for our own mental health or physical well being, we do not benefit from the mystical presence of Christ so that we might reach some new spiritual plane. Christ offers himself to us, so that we might offer each other and the world the best of what we have: Ourselves. For some of the poor, the marginalized, the hurting of this world; we may be the only Jesus they ever meet. Each of us is one part in this body, with an opportunity to serve and reveal that whole body in the world. That is who you are.

Amen.

Having a “good” Cry

One of my favorite texts from the Hebrew Bible is the lectionary selection this week from Nehemiah 8. It is a story of a people who have been through great hardship and have begun to rebuild their lives. They pause in this process to hear a word, which is about them, but comes from outside themselves. There has been a discovery in the wall, a scroll is found and the people gather to hear from it. The reading is from the Law, something we Christians know as the ten commandments. My Jewish friends remind me that it is more than that, it is part of what makes the claim “I shall be your God and you shall be my people.” It is part of covenant.

When this text is read the people weep. They weep because they remember who they are and whose they are. It is easy, I suppose, when some disaster strikes, to believe that God has somehow abandoned you. This text reminds us that “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.” – Fyodor Dostoevski

Work To Be Done…Still

WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
January 20, 2010

Some of you remember with great disdain a banner which flew on the bridge of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln which read: Mission Accomplished. There was a boisterous celebration on deck; even then, while some believed that the mission was accomplished already, or that it would be accomplished soon. Others have been quite content to be chipping on those others, saying, “See the work must go on.” This is the nature of partisian politics.

It was this scene that came to mind as I prepared to gather together to pray for Christian Unity. In one of the preparatory meetings Calvin Kurtz mentioned the beauty of the nave here at Sts. Constantine and Helen; and that today should remind us of the ‘Communion of Saints’ rather than the fractured body of Christendom that we often lament. So we pray, today, for Christian Unity, that the reality of that unity of the saints be demonstrated in us.

On days like today there is part of me that wants to say, “Mission accomplished.” To think about the Communion of Saints is to engage in a review of history. When I speak to young people about this biblical idea of ‘saints’ I want to remind them that ‘saints’ does not only include people like St. Paul and Peter, but also our great-grand-parents who served God in the church and in their daily lives. The communion of saints is, of course, the ninth article of the Apostle’s Creed. When we say this, we are saying we believe in a spiritual union that exists between each Christian and Christ; thus, between every Christian, whether in the Church triumphant or the Church militant. You will notice that the essential link is Christ. The certainty of our faith, the dependability of our Savior should lead us to say “mission accomplished.”

And there are days like today. There are times and seasons when various stripes of Christians gather together and not only recognize but celebrate our one-ness. Today we do it in worship. I happen to know for a fact that we have been doing it for the last week in a much more significant way as we have joined together to come to the aid of the people of Haiti. Church World Service is but one charity that partners with others to ensure that aid is delivered in the most efficient manner possible. CWS partners with International Orthodox Christian Charities, Lutheran Disaster Response, Catholic Relief Services, and many others partner to serve the world in places like Haiti. On days like today, when we witness the setting aside of those things which may serve to divide us in order to serve together in Christ’s ministry of peace and justice, who would not be tempted to say “Mission Accomplished.”

Yet there is another part of me that wants to say, “hold on there, we have more work to do.” If the church was fully the Church of Jesus Christ, we would be one. We would be one in meaningful ways, like serving the world, and not only on days like today. In John’s gospel, Jesus said to some outsiders who were wondering about his disciples,
John 17:20-23 (NIV)

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:
23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

The prayer has not been realized in any institutional sense. There is division, there is schism. Even in my own denomination whose motto is these very words of Jesus, “that they may all be one,” there are strong forces that seek to ‘steeplejack’ congregations out of the fold.

In the wider church, we reformed folks signed the ‘Articles of Agreement’ a few years ago. This document says that the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA); each recognize the other as a ‘real church,’ their pastors as ‘real pastors,’ and their sacraments as ‘real sacraments.’ I excitedly raced home to my congregation to tell them the news. They looked at me quizzically and said, “We always believed that.” This is not unique to the reformed folk. There are dialogues going on between Rome and Canterbury. The Lutherans recognize the Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians recognize the Methodists, but none of us recognize each other in the liquor store.

Let’s be honest and say that the mission is not accomplished and we have a long way to go.

So what is the work that remains undone? I would suggest to you that the work, is in some sense not our work, but God’s work, that work which extends all the way back to Genesis. It is I would refer to as “the Ministry of Reconciliation.” It is the mission of our Lord was given when he was named. Jesus is his name, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now the mission is done for which he was sent into the world. He has saved his people from their sins.

A month or so ago I met with my confirmation students. We had been studying the Heidelberg Catechism and as is often the case with Jr. High students the conversation had wandered off course. They had turned to legalisms, and I interrupted and asked if any of them could name the two commands Jesus left with us. One young man quickly raised his hand. “Yes, Christopher?” He said, “Do your best and don’t have sex until you are married.” I paused. Then asked, “Who told you that?” He said that his father had offered this sage advice. I told him that it was wise advice but it was not what Jesus commanded us to do. Our commands had to do with evangelism, and the sustenance of that effort, “to go, baptize, be my witnesses.” And “do this in remembrance of me.” It is a sacramental task, this work we have to do. And a task we can all engage in.

In these sacraments, baptism and Eucharist is the power he gave his disciples, his followers. It is the power of the Good News about our own personal rescue from the evil loose in the world, and our own desires. When you know and see that only through the actions of this Servant King Jesus that we can become whole, get it together again, find purpose in our cracked, leaking pots of the great Potter, then power is ours from on high.

I am not opposed discussions about doctrines or ecclesiology. I am afraid of conversations whose subjects lead to sharpening the distinctions between how we take the very basic elements of the work we are called to do and how we see fit to do them. “These things,” however, are at their core the very basis for unity and not division. Are there not, begs St. Paul, a variety of Spiritual Gifts, but the same spirit that gives them?

In this text from Luke’s gospel we are witnesses, too, of “these things.” We are witnesses of the ministry of Christ; in this text, we witness his Ascension and thus must realize that his urgings are more than just nice ideas or suggestions for our consideration. This command to those standing by comes from the one who sits upon the throne, who comes to judge the living and the dead, who ushers in a new creation by his grace.

Luke 24:44-48 (RSV)
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,
46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,
47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
48 You are witnesses of these things.

In one sense, the mission is accomplished in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. But we do live in a world of ‘already’ and ‘not yet.’ In the mean time, before He comes and unites us, once and for all, He commands us to be witnesses to these things in our own lives, our own communities, in the great church: I for one believe that this effort is perhaps some of the most important work we engage in. I am thankful for days like today that reveal to us glimmers of hope for Christian Unity through worship and mission. Still, t here are bridges to be built, some to be maintained, others, dreamed of…for Christ’s sake, we cannot act as if this work is done.

A little more Identity…

A colleague, who recently retired replied to my recent blog post with this:

I stopped wearing a collar when I concluded in the present culture it is seen more as a costume than a uniform. And rather than bringing to mind a sacramental presence it brings to mind a cartoonish stereotype. Also personal reflections revealed my decision to wear and not to wear the collar were sometimes arbitrary and other times worn or not worn with manipulative intent. Finally to be collarless was one tiny way to affirm the priesthood of all believers. This affirmation is of course in contrast to what a collared Roman Catholic priest intends to convey.

I am thankful for such thoughtful reflections on what I write, and say. I pray for dialogue like this because it is to me, when prayerfully taken in, part of everyday discernment.

Earthquake Appeal

My denomination, the United Church of Christ has launched its appeal for Haiti:

http://www.ucc.org/disaster/major-earthquake-strikes.html

Identity

I stopped off the other day at the local supermarket to get a salad for lunch. Because I had my picture taken this morning (one of those ‘head shots’ for the church wall, website, dartboard, etc.) I was wearing a collar. At the check out a young woman turned, after taking the money of the previous customer, to check out my salad. She looked at me, did a double take, and said: “I’ve never met one of you in real life before.”

Now, I think I know what she meant. Part of me wanted to ask, “one of what?” You know, a space alien? What did she mean, never met ‘one of you’ before? It was the black shirt and neckband collar that was the distinctive clothing that she noticed. Clericals, as they are called, have been around for a long time but not forever. The most explicit testimony is that afforded by a letter of Pope Celestine in 428 to certain bishops of Gaul, in which he rebukes them for wearing attire which made them conspicuous, and lays down the rule that “we [the bishops and clergy] should be distinguished from the common people [plebe] by our learning, not by our clothes; by our conduct, not by our dress; by cleanness of mind, not by the care we spend upon our person” (Mansi, “Concilia”, IV, 465). The ‘collar’ itself was developed in the 19th century and was a product of prior use of the cassock and a white shirt underneath, for daily wear…hence the black collar and the white ‘notch.’ Cassocks were not intended to be fancy clothes, quite the opposite. And in fact clerical shirts are not intended to be ‘special’ but ‘bland.’ I do not believe that Armani makes clericals, yet.

There is no doubt that the collar identifies you as a clergyperson. I wear one when visiting the hospital, nursing home, bringing the Eucharist to the home bound, and of course in worship/sacramental responsibilities. I view it as my ‘uniform’ just as the nurses or postal workers wear and are easily identified. I suppose I also wear it for myself so I remember my labor, my purpose. Today, at the hospital, the ‘new’ trauma chaplain saw the collar and launched into a recruitment spiel for ‘associate chaplains.’

This identification can go both ways, of course. I used to ride a motorcycle. My wife asked me to stop off at the store for some item. There I was, leather jacket, hanging onto my helmet. The cashier was giving me looks. Finally I asked, “is something wrong?” She replied, “ain’t you a preacher?” Apparently I had been in the store in my clerics often enough that she identified me as “a preacher” and my civilian clothes seemed to give her a case of cognitive dissonance. The reality is, however, that I do not have a collar on my PJ’s.

At my new congregation, the previous pastor(s) pictures are replete with clericals. Yet I know that the immediate predecessor has not worn one for years. I don’t know why. It has become part of my sense of ‘role’ as a pastor. So I wear one often, but not every day. I think that that the reason why some people do not wear ‘the uniform’ is because that there is a certain amount of anti-Catholicism present in their neighborhood. That, I also think, was the root of the check-out girl’s comment to me. I wear it as a reminder. It isn’t a reminder for others, it is a uniform that identifies me and what I do. It reminds me of why I am there; for sacramental purposes, to provide testimony on behalf of our congregation, and not to only speak about the box scores or the weather or grandchildren.

My faith needs practices.  I need reminders, structure. So that’s why I pray the daily office and why I often wear clericals, its  for me. It isn’t the kind of reminder that one itinerant preacher got from his mother, saying to the effect, “let’s get this party started buddy.” (John 2:1-11)   If nothing else,  this collar and the encounters I experience while wearing it,  serves as  a reminder to me that the act of ministry keeps going on in the least likely of places.  I hope how I serve the gospel in those places will leave a lasting impression, not my shirt.