Does This Robe Make My Calling Look Real?

Unraveling Reflections

33 days until “Unraveling” arrives in the world. Thanks for joining me here where I’m sharing moments, memories, and reflections of “Coming Out and Back Together” on the road to April 23rd.

Years ago, I gave a sermon titled “Does This Suit Make My Faith Look Big?” It was based on James, a letter written to a community experiencing hardships, feeling disconnected, needing a reminder of who they are and who they are called to be in this world. It begins with a warning,

…do you with your acts of favoritism really believe…? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2.1-4)

I suggested that what we wear makes a statement and not always the one we intend. And that we are prone to form opinions of others based on what they wear. I shared about a particular outfit I wore as a teen and how it felt much different on me than it looked on the mannequin.

This was during pandemic times. I was working for Metropolitan Community Churches, supporting and resourcing congregations. Most churches were gathering again in person, but still navigating social distancing and safety protocols. During this season, among other things, I was adapting to new ways of preaching, teaching, and leading discussions. My dining room became a recording studio. And my inner critic was often the head producer.

Usually churches wanted the video by Thursday or Friday so it could be ready for Sunday. After hitting send, I would be overcome by questions of doubt. It felt like such a disconnect, which is one way to describe the impact of the pandemic on humanity. Where is the connection? The engagement? The exchange? The interaction? Is this a real sermon? Is this real ministry?

Looking back, I recognize that my doubt-filled questions about what constitutes real ministry were magnified by my misunderstanding of what real means. I assessed realness by way of comparison. I evaluated one thing by comparing it to another. I judged this by setting it next to that.

Examining all things through a lens of pre-pandemic and pandemic pulled me into a trap of understanding the former as real and the latter as not. This hindered everything.

The Sunday that the sermon on clothes—recorded in Florida—was shared with a congregation in Minnesota something shifted. I started to receive feedback by email and social media from people not just at that church, but from others who had watched the live stream. People told me about outfits they once wore. Ones they loved. Ones that didn’t really fit. Or feel like they imagined. Ones that brought compliments. Ones that came with ridicule. About times they found acceptance in church for what they wore. Times they experienced rejection because of what they didn’t wear. Ideas about how church can be more just and less judging.

As the messages came I felt a connection. There was engagement. Exchange. Meaningful interaction. Suddenly, my frayed impression of real began to unravel. And a new perspective started coming into focus.

In 2014 shortly after being commissioned I officiated a wedding for the time. The day of the wedding I was in the hallway, wearing my freshly dry-cleaned clergy robe, when a family member of the couple approached me. They were visibly anxious, asking, “when will the real minister be here?”

Even though they had met me the night before when I led the rehearsal, and I was standing before them in my clerical attire holding a bible and the marriage license in my hands, they didn’t see me as the real minister. It didn’t take much time for the real issue to unravel. They thought that a real minister was a man and that as a woman, surely, I was just an assistant.

A short time later, as I stood just outside the sanctuary, another family member of the couple approached me. They were holding one the rainbow crosses this congregation kept in baskets near the name-tag rack for others to wear in affirmation of LGBTQ+ people.

“What is this?” they probed, waving the rainbow cross in my face. “Please don’t tell me you’re like those fake churches that think this is okay.”

I don’t remember my response only the real and rapidly growing knots in my stomach. Both of these exchanges left me feeling more fake than real. The heavy robe and braided belt around my waist becoming heavier.

Just like the feedback on the sermon transformed my understanding of what composes real ministry, these wedding exchanges impacted my beliefs on what makes a real calling. At the time they were jarring. Intimidating. Filling me with fear and angst. Today, I realize these individuals’ evaluations of real ministers and fake churches was built on comparison. If we have two things that are similar and yet different, certainly one has to be real and the other not. And the not equates the fake.

What a loss to think this way. How tragic to be stuck in this binary wardrobe of garments.

When I surrendered my credentials, I thought ministry was over and my calling was done. And I did it in the wild hope that there was something more waiting for me. I struggled for so long because I was trapped by an understanding of real that always made the new feel fake because, while similar, was different from the old.

I was doing the very thing James warned about. Believing that God was partial to people who wore clergy robes and favored callings that came with credentials. That robe was so tightly weaved with threads of real and fake that I couldn’t hear the Spirit calling me to authenticity. Being authentic is so much more—more whole, more complete, more powerful—than being real.

Last week I was back in that sanctuary, where I officiated that wedding all those years ago, for the first time in many years. As I sat listening to beautiful music, during a time of Lenten reflection, that clergy robe came back to me with a miraculous message. As clear as the piano and the organ, sharper and softer than those judgements before the wedding, I heard it say, “It was never a robe that made your calling real. It’s being authentic.”

What does authenticity mean to you?

What does it look like for you to be authentic?

Not sure yet? Listen for the miraculous messages around you.

Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10 Camels

---