Okay, I am going to weigh in on this topic, even though I suspect many of you will disagree with me. Some might think, yes, that is just an old man talking. To that I say, most of you don't know how I dressed in the 60s, and if you know anything about the 60s, you know there were some big changes in what young people wore then. I can remember cutting nice big triangular wedges out of my worn out red “Brian Jones pants,” as some people called them, and inserting them into the lower legs of my slim blue jeans to turn them into nicely flared bellbottoms. LOL.
And believe you me, there were lots of older folk who didn't like how we dressed then. That's when people started doing things like wearing jeans to church, which was one line I did not cross, even then. Now I know some of you might be thinking, God is no judge of persons and he accepts everyone, no matter what they wear. To that I say, this is not about God, it is about us.
God does not need us. He created us because of the love which made him want to show his love to us. Remember, love lives in freedom.
However, God does have standards, and we know that. Look at the Old Testament. God gave us detailed descriptions about what those who entered the sacred parts of the tent/Tabernacle and then Temple were to wear and even limiting those individuals to those who had no physical defects. That was not because God had something against that. Well, yes, perhaps he did, in that it reminded him of what his former angel Satan had done to his beloved good creation. More to the point though, I think it was to remind us that in God's perfect world, we are perfect, and having more perfect people with better dress enter the sanctuary reminds us of what it would be like in God's kingdom. Some of you may also be saying, but that was dress for the priests. Yes, but the New Testament teaches that we are all priests, representatives of God. That is something we especially as Anabaptists and Mennonites believe.
So, coming back to dress, particularly what we wear when we attend “church.” Some of you who have been in discussions about this will probably have heard the question, What would you wear if you were invited to have an audience with The Prime Minister, The Governor General or even The Queen? Yes, I think there have been some of those - was it Justin Bieber? - who wore things like torn jeans on such an occasion, but is he our model?
Seriously though, what is appropriate to wear in the presence of our Maker, given what we have already said? I think there is another aspect to this that bears bringing into the discussion. What message are we giving nowadays, and to whom, when we wear sort of ragged looking clothing in public and even to church? Are we saying that is all we can afford? Indeed, that is part of the issue. Some of you may know that there is a whole segment of the fashion industry that is devoted to designing clothes that look like they might have been worn by homeless and street people. Now what kind of respect for them is that? Most of them would probably love to dress a little better and here we have an industry making and charging exorbitant prices for clothes that look like castoffs that the homeless and street people have to wear. If we look at it this way, I think we are being disrespectful and do a disservice to our poorer neighbors by wearing ragged looking clothes when we can afford better.
I could say more about other ways in which we dress, but this is enough for now. But think about it - we are priests representing the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How did and does he dress???
