Dude it up!

The Readings for 14th Saturday after Pentecost (2 Sept)

• 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 (Liturgy)
• Mathew 23:1-12 (Liturgy)

IC XC
✙
NI KA

They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.

Matthew 23:5

AFRIEND WHO IS A LATIN RITE DEACON Tells of meeting Byzantine Rite Deacon who was dressed as for Divine Liturgy. Byzantine Vestments are very spiffy, indeed! My friend asked the Deacon, “How do I get one of these???” It’s real easy to get wrapped up in the finery of liturgical dress. We all want to look nice. Dressing nicely for liturgy is a good way to honor God: you would not appear before a judge in a torn wife beater and cutoffs.

Or maybe you would.

More and more it seems that cultural boundaries around clothing are not viewed as important or serious. Flip flops at the opera? Cargo shorts at a wedding? When four bikers came to my brothers wake in 1983, wearing their leathers, my grandmother said, “At least they are wearing black…” I still don’t own a black suit. One advantage of liturgical dress is you can wear whatever underneath. But the other advantage, when I’m honest, is that people see you. But there is a difference: are we wearing our vestments like a peacock or like a first responder?

This is where we need to understand what we are and why we do what we do.

One reason to dress up at Liturgy is to honor God present among us. Another reason is to honor each other: liturgy, colors, smells, icons, chants, etc, all arose long before television. In a life of undyed fabrics and unwashed scents, liturgy was Grand Theatre. Even in a City, the dirty and poor could, at Liturgy, see something beyond their wildest imaginings. A third reason we dress up is so we know who we each are:the duties of a server are different from a cantor or a priest. A deacon waves his orarion around exactly to get everyone’s attention and direct it elsewhere – like a guy with two cone flashlights telling the piolot where to park the aircraft. Or like a fireman wearing a day-glow vest so he stands out in the smoke. This way to safety, this way to life…

Or, we can make it all about me. Don’t I look good dressed like this? Don’t give me one of those hippy dippie vestments, I only want trad ones. Because this community’s liturgy is all about my personal preferences. Conversely, I don’t like trad vestments because they scream patriarchal oppression and nostalgia for a period of time that has passed. Because this community’s liturgy is all about my personal preferences.

How do I get one of those?

There is both a Scylla and a Charybdis here: to avoid the urge to tear everything down and to avoid the urge to dress up just because. There was a time when clergy tried celebrating in only stoles just to look like everyone else. And there have always been times when a set of Sunday vestments cost more than a large car or the average annual salary in the parish.

How do we worship God without adorning our ego either by our feigned simplicity or our finery? God “who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts” can tell the difference. But we should be mindful of where we stand.