On Collars and Titles

Collared
Originally uploaded by Gary McMurray

One of my Lenten disciplines this year, in addition to blogging regularly, has been to wear my clerical collar once a week. I try and wear my "clergy uniform" on days when I am going to be away from the church office and out in the world. The whole point is to try and remember that I am a minister of God at all times and that my speech, behavior, even my driving (yikes!) should reflect the image of God that I hope others will see. It's been humbling, and, I will admit, fun to see people's reaction. Today at lunchtime, as I was walking out of a restaurant with my rabbi friend, a man who was coming in audibly gasped when he saw us. Maybe he thought it was one of those bad jokes (a pastor and a rabbi are eating sushi...)

But the other piece of this is that I am constantly wrestling with my pastoral identity and the whole mix of pastor, mom, human being that I am everyday. When I put on my collar, the first thing that people see is my pastoral identity, but I am still all those other things, too, and those identities are just as important to me.

Today someone suggested to me that I shouldn't let people at church call me just "Rachel"; that I should have people call me Rev. Rachel at least, so that they show respect for the office and my role as pastor. I have never had a problem with people calling me by my first name--I want to be accessible and don't want titles to stand in the way of relationship. I have accepted the responsibility and privilege of being "set apart" for this work of God. And yet, I feel that I must earn people's respect--that it shouldn't just be given to me because I have a certain degree, title or shirt.

I hope that people will offer me respect just because I am a child of God and because all people deserve compassion, patience, love and mercy. And I also hope that whether or not I am wearing my collar, my words and deeds will show that I am someone who seeks to follow Jesus everyday.

Snow Day

I am reading a new book by Brian McLaren called Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices in which he declares that Christianity should be more of a way of life than a set of beliefs. He encourages a return to "the way" through the ancient practices of pilgrimage, fasting, sacred meals, common prayer, giving, Sabbath keeping and the liturgical year. So far I think this book has got a lot of good ideas that I'll be blogging about here, but today I want to celebrate Sabbath. After all, what's a better sabbath than a snow day?