It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Clergyman!

Superman wears a cape. Batman wears tights and a toolbelt (a Batbelt?). Spiderman wears a onsie with a hood. All hide their mild-mannered personas under tight-fitting spandex. Me? I hide inside a clerical shirt. 

A clerical shirt is a fancy name for the traditional shirt worh by clergymen. Traditionally black, the shirt has a unique style unlike any other garment: it has a black flap that covers the buttons, a stitched-down, ringed collar, with either a white tab insert or a full, button-in white "dog collar" ring. The clerical shirt, or just "clerical," for short, identifies his vocation as much as a white jacket marks a doctor or a badge and 5.11 pants announce the presence of a cop. No one else wears a clerical shirt except, perhaps, a kid at Halloween who wants to be like his pastor. While the clerical can be had in almost any color or pattern (I did have one with maroon stripes, once, because it was on clearance), the traditional black is less the fashion statement and more the theological one. Black represents the sinful man, the old nature, that resides within the shirt. It is a humble reminder for the pastor, of the pastor, that while serving as God's called and ordained servant who proclaims the pure, holy, cleansing Gospel - thus the white collar residing at the level of the voice-box - the pastor remains a sinner among sinners, never above those whom he serves, always needing for himself the Good News that he preaches to the congregation. 

It's been said that clothes make the man. In the case of the clerical shirt, the clothes mark the man, setting him apart both within the church and outside it. While I don't wear it every day, I do wear the clerical on Sundays, for seasonal services (Advent, Lent, Christmas) and other special services (weddings, funerals) and certain occasions. I wear it when visiting at a prison, for example, my uniform separating and distinguishing me from others who wear their vocational uniform of prisoner or guard. The shirt gives me a measure of respect from both sides of the fence and, God forbid, if the balloon ever goes up while I'm behind the concertina wire, perhaps even a modicum of safety. I wear it when going into the hospital ICU, an ecclesial "get in free" card, recognized by doctors and nurses who direct me to the dying or to the family that waits. Often misidentified as "Father," the shirt has gotten the attention of people who want, need, yearn for a word of comfort, hope and peace. 

When I put the shirt on, I don't become someone or something else. To borrow from the great theologian, Popeye, I yam what I yam. It gives me no superpowers. I can no more leap tall buildings in a single bound than I can sling webs from my palms. People sometimes misunderstand this. "Pastor, please pray for me - after all, you're closer to God." I like to reply, "The only way I'm closer to God is that I'm 6'4" and you're only 5'8"." Someone asked me recently if I "always have to be good" because I am a pastor. "Just like you," I said, "we are both called to live as children of God in our baptism." 

The shirt doesn't give me super-hero faith, either, where I meet every tentatio - the intersection where faith and life often slam together in seemingly opposed ways - with the faith of Peter, Paul and Mary (the Biblical heroes of faith, not the folk singers of the 60s). When I button the buttons, I don't suddenly have perfect recall of Scripture passages. 

    "Pastor, what does Ezekiel 34:11 mean?" 

    [Me, muttering just loud enough to be heard....] "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." 

    "That's Genesis...I asked about Ezekiel." 

    "I know," I said. "Give me a few minutes...I'm getting there." 

When I slip the tab collar into its slots, I don't suddenly have the super-power of prayer where God gives me what I ask for. It doesn't stop people from dying. It doesn't solve the congregation's budget need, an interpersonal squabble, or make the sermon flow like water from a faucet. Oh, that it would! If that's all it took, I would wear it 24/7, only taking it off to wash. Or, perhaps I would become superstitious like a baseball player, only buttoning it top to bottom, putting it on left arm first, or air drying it on odd-numbered days of the week. 

No - it's just a shirt, one that reminds me of who I am in this vocation: a sinner who is saved by God's grace through often imperfect, slow, and weak faith. But this faith rests not in the color-fastness of the dye, the height or style of the collar, or even the number of buttons. Faith that rests in anything other than Christ is no faith at all. Faith in a shirt is as silly and ridiculous as it sounds - and there are plenty of other such examples in the world in which we live - a fading, shrinking prospect at best; a flaccid, washed out rag without frame or substance at worst. 

The shirt reminds me of who and what I am. But, more, it reminds me of whose I am. Just as I stand in the stead of Christ and at His command, I also stand under the cross of Jesus, redeemed, forgiven, and made holy. 

Years ago, I went to see a person at the Rusk State Hospital in East Texas. I understand that in recent years, it has gotten a much-needed facelift and modernization. What I remember was a dark, creepy, foreboding place. Think Brubaker and you get the idea. It was as if sunlight didn't dare pass the guardshack. There's an old saying, "Fools rush in where angels dare not tread." So, there I was, at the guardshack, daring to enter the Rusk property. To enter, you had to state your name, who you were there to see, and your relationship to the patient. I was wearing my clerical and when I rolled up to the guardshack, I discovered that it was manned - or womanned - by a very large, guff, no-nonsense lady in a badged uniform. She scrutinized my face and ID, and then my clothes. 

"You some kind of priest?" she asked in a tone about half-way between sneer and snarl. 

Channeling my inner Robin Williams-meets-Chandler Bing, I fired back, "No, ma'am. I'm here to work on the plumbing. The black doesn't show stains so bad." My smile was met with silence, more glaring, and even deeper scrutiny. 

"You think you funny, mister preacher man?" she demanded flatly, implying there was only one answer.

"No, ma'am. Thank you for setting me straight. Obviously, there's nothing funny about a clerical shirt!"