I have to confess, the first time I saw my fourth grade teacher at a restaurant, I was terrified. She was so out of context that it was like seeing a komodo dragon eating hot wings in a booth. Had I been a more confident child, I would have walked up to her and said, “Mrs. Harris, what are you doing here? You live at school. You need to get back to school. My worlds are colliding right now.”
I didn’t say that, but I will say that sometimes we all get the same feeling when the pastor comes casually dressed to VBS. Although this feeling is diminishing as pastors start to wear jeans to church, back in the day, seeing those never exposed to natural light legs poking out of a pair of shorts was confusing.
My friend Jeff is a pretty serious guy and loves wearing work clothes. So much so that he mows his lawn in a pair of khaki pants. That’s kind of how I imagine pastors are too. Most of the time, they wear a suit or at least a fancy pair of pants. But that all changes for one week every summer. Because there he is, on a Tuesday morning making the rounds at VBS in shorts and possibly sandals. With, and I’ll go ahead and say it, black socks. But even in the moment, the shorts did not look that casual. They seem as if they have been sealed in a plastic bag marked “To be worn in VBS.”
If you have a cool pastor with the word “truth” tattooed on his hand in Latin a la the movie “Boondock Saints” and a goatee, this post made no sense. But if you had a pastor that wore a suit or maybe even a robe, I just rocked your world.
