A uniform tells who you are. . .

For the life of me I do not get those folks opposed to a clerical collar.  It is a group of folks divided by other things (doctrine among some of them) but united in their desire for the pastor not to stand out but to mirror the look of the culture.  Then, this morning, I watched a truck drive by with this on it:  A uniform tells who you are.... 

That is my whole point.  A uniform DOES tell who you are.  That is the whole point of it.  We put players on the athletic field or court with differing uniforms precisely so that the team can tell their teammates apart from their opponents and so that those watching from the stands know who belongs to whom.  We put some folks in uniforms so that the rest of us will know who they are when they are protecting us (police) or fighting fires (firemen) or taking care of us (medical personnel) or defending our liberty (service men and women), and so on.  We as pastors should consider wearing the uniform that tells the world around us who we are in part so that folks will know what "team" we play on and also so that those in need will know to whom they can turn in time of need.  

The uniform does not tell people that pastors think they are better than everyone else (which no pastor I know thinks or has ever thought) or that they are perfect and not sinners (which no pastor I know thinks or has ever thought).  The whole point of the uniform is to identify who we are to the world -- whether that reaction is good or bad.  I have had both.  Once someone sitting at a wedding reception near me cursed me under his breath and called me a blood sucking leach.  Wow.  And I thought I was rather ordinary!  Once I had someone insist that I was worthless because I refused to fill his car with gas while I pumped my own.  Guess that is all a pastor is worth.  But most of the time hospital and nursing home patients cry out to me asking for a blessing or a prayer or a simple touch to know that they are not alone and that God has not abandoned them (like many of their family members).  I love it.  I have met troopers at the side of the road in time of accident and people questioning God in airplanes and people who were reminded that they have been absent from the Lord's House too long.  I did not say much but uniform said it all.

A uniform tells who you are.  Unless you do not want to be known as a pastor?