Dressing for the job without looking like someone else
Jesus says not to worry about what we will wear. Usually I fail at this.
If all of the articles of clothing mentioned in the Bible could be plucked from the page and draped on hangers, they could fill a small wardrobe. There’s Joseph’s coat of many colors and John’s shirt of camel hair. There’s the garments of salvation, the robes of righteousness, the ash-stained sackcloths of aggrieved kings. There’s a lovely set of wedding clothes that have never been worn. (What the unprepared guest at the wedding banquet would have done to have them in his rucksack when he received his last-minute invitation!) Stashed away on the top shelf, behind the belt of truth and breastplate of righteousness, is Jeremiah’s threadbare loincloth, so stained with metaphorical filth not even Fels Naptha soap could restore it.
Pondering these biblical garments makes me feel a bit better about something: in general, I fail to follow Jesus’s advice not to worry about what I will wear.
I tried on three dresses before I left for work this morning. (Okay, four.) I’m not a clotheshorse exactly, but I do like what I wear and wear what I like. I didn’t always feel free to do this. The week before I graduated from seminary I bought a black linen suit for my first job interview. It was terrible. I looked like a little kid playing dress-up. I was 24 and fully convinced that the only way I could be taken seriously as a pastor was to look like someone else. Someone less young, less girly.
