Off The Rack

One of my least favorite activities in all of the world is trying on new clothes. When I have something new to add to my wardrobe I'm fine, but it is the routine of trying on new clothes that has always driven me crazy. I remember as a young boy the day that we would hop in the car and head to Anthony's Department Store where we would spend what seemed like hours trying on pair after pair of pants and jeans and shirts of all colors. I always hated those toughskin pants that were meant to endure an entire school year's worth of abuse because they were made of some sort of dark denim colored steel-laced burlap, and I especially disliked that my particular pairs of toughskin britches were in the cleverly named, "Husky," section of the store. Husky being the marketing genius' way of saying, "The fat kids clothes are over here!!!!" I did however manage to be born soon enough to miss the grrranimal underwear that I tortured my little brother about at the breakfast table making sure he didn't mismatch his lion underwear with a monkey t-shirt.

We played hard in those days. We were outside as soon as the school bell rang. Playing football, basketball, baseball, and anything else we could figure would pass the time. We once had the brilliant idea to take a long length of bungee cord and attach it to a bicycle frame so that it could swing from a tree. We would climb the eighteen rungs made of 2"by4" scraps of wood to launch ourselves from my friends clubhouse. It was a great idea, in fact I do believe that my small band of friends on 48th Street are the true inventors of bungee jumping, but didn't realize there were people dumb enough to pay us to do what we were doing. We would begin by getting on the saddle of the bicycle frame and over the edge we would go. We would pretend we were the BMX bicycle racers and practice our tricks as we flew through the air. That practice stopped the time the cord broke and sent Shane on a free trip into the wild blue yonder and through the fence of his back yard. But all of those activities were pretty hard on the invincible toughskin pants, which always meant another trip to the, "Husky," section of the store once the patches wore off the holes in the knees of the jeans. Toughskin my butt...those things were no match for Captain Holes-In-The_Knees-Of-His-Pants.

I guess the marketing think tanks came up with another term for husky, when there became the, "Big and Tall," section. It was just the grown-up version of the husky section filled with clothes that were meant for those who didn't find it easy to buy clothes straight from the rack. The brand names that graced the pants and shirts of those who were the popular good looking types were in the other section. Funny, I never saw a, "Short and Spindly," section.

One of the funnier times I ever recall being asked about shopping in a big and tall store came when a friend and I were watching television late one night in the lounge of our dorm in college and a commercial came on for, "Rochester Big and Tall Store." It was a high-end store that sold expensive suits to those who could afford them.

When the commercial ended my friend, Mike looked over to me and asked, "Does it cost more money to buy clothes from those stores than from regular people stores?"

"Yeah, a little bit more I guess," I said with a kind of smile on my face at his innocently asked question as I saw an embarrassing look creep upon his face.

"That sucks. It's just wrong that you have to pay more for clothes just because you're so......uh......uh.....tall."

"Yeah, we TALL people ought to get special parking places or something, huh?" I answered. Mike just kept staring at the television, I kept smiling.

Trying on new clothes is something that has always posed a challenge for me. Time after time I wanted to look like someone else, dress like someone else, be someone else. But I've rarely been what I call an off the rack kind of person. The kind of person who knows exactly what they want to wear, can pull the item from the shelf or the rack, and fit perfectly in the new clothes that cover them and project an image of who they are or who they think they are or aspire to be.

Perhaps you've heard the comment, "just because they made it in your size, doesn't mean they made it for you." It is a cruel comment, spewed unfortunately mostly toward females. But there is some truth in the comment. Trying on clothes is a metaphor for life, none of us are off the rack people. We're unique creations, special in our own God-made way, with a precision that surpasses the greatest human artists of any era in history.

When we were children it was perfectly acceptable to dress up as someone or something else. I wanted more than anything to be a football player or a cowboy, and there are pictures to prove it. I remember the Christmas spent with family in Ruidoso, New Mexico when I opened a box with a Dallas Cowboys uniform complete with pants, jersey, and a helmet. I didn't take off that uniform including the helmet for anything, including bed time. It was normal to want to emulate our heroes. My son wore a Halloween batman costume for several years every day until it was worn to shreds and no longer had any life in it. That was normal, except for the neighbors only knew him as Batman.

But as we grow older we begin to want to look like the images we see in glamor magazines or on television. Maybe we want to dress or look like our friends, or the crowd in which we were included. Maybe you have no idea what I'm writing about because you were the object that served as the model for someone else. We begin to think about projecting images of who or what we hope to be when we grow up. Believe me, there are no grown ups in this world until their lives are over, because we're all in the process of growing.

Too many of us spend time trying to be someone we're not, afraid of what we'll find when we see our true selves as God made us. We cope with that fear of being seen for who we really are with a variety of disguises. And when we wear those clothes that are not ours, life can be a very uncomfortable undertaking.

Imagine a time when you wore something that didn't fit YOU. It was too small or too big, too long or too short. It could be that no one noticed but you and the discomfort stayed with you the entire time you were robed in the cloak of another, and it felt good to be remove the borrowed covering. So it is with life.

As a preacher for the last sixteen years I've projected a number of images that weren't mine, I tried to be different people that I thought exuded success as I defined it at the moment. As a husband and a father I have modeled both wonderful and despicable wardrobes of attitude and reaction and action. As a friend I have been both a tight-lipped confidant and a selfish jerk. But as I look at all the roles I have to play in life there is one constant that must remain the same. I have to wear the same, "me," or I find life to be as miserable as an ill-fitting sports coat or a pair of slacks that are two sizes too small.

That's where the tricky part comes. Finding out who we really are in God's eyes. We are for sure loved and adored, we know that. Too many people project their relationship with their earthly parents or lack thereof onto God which isn't a true projection of the One who knows the very number of hairs on our head (for some of us it's getting easier for Him to count). God knows the secret you have that no one else knows, that tortures you day in and day out. God knows where you've been, what you've done, what you've said, he knows who you are!

God knows us for who we are. He knows that I am a man of excess. He knows I've had times when I worked too much and times when sloth held me close. He's seen me be a glutton and He's watched me fast. He knows I've drunk too much and times I've abhorred the drunkard. He's heard me ridicule someone else to remove the attention from myself, and to that end He's heard me be self-deprecating to beat someone to the punch in making jokes or hateful comments about me. Me, His creation. He knows I've been filled with hate and times I showed kindness when it wasn't merited in my eyes. He knows I've left everything on the field and when I coasted along in life and didn't reach for my potential. He knows I've seen, heard, said, and done things that I wish I could erase, but, praise God, He erased them for me on the cross, and by faith they're gone, and when we take hold of that it is as if an ever tightening belt around our heart and being is released and destroyed. Our remembrances of such things can move us in two directions. We can be destroyed further by guilt, which is a tool of Satan to remind us of how ugly we might think we are. Or, our memories of such times can move us forward, guilt free, but with the conviction that we are God's beautiful creation dressed in the robe that is the blood of Christ.

As I write I'm reminded of a young boy I can only remember as Nathan. Nathan and I attended the same elementary school in Lubbock, Texas. Nathan had very few, if any friends. Nathan was the youngest in his family of brothers and sisters and lived just a couple of blocks from my house. Nathan was quite a bit taller than the rest of his classmates. His hair was always too long and messy. His t-shirts were plain white and looked liked they'd been washed a million times. His pants were too short and too big in the waist providing with one of his many nicknames, "highwater." Nathan sat at the, "yellow bird," table with three other students in our class. The class was divided into four tables, each with a different colored bird hanging from a piece of yarn from the ceiling. We didn't know it then, but we suspected that each table represented the level of learning and aptitude for success a student possessed based on his or her seat at a table. I was a, "red bird," I hope it was the top table, but Mrs. White would never tell us. One thing we knew is that the, "yellow birds," often had to miss recess to finish work or get extra help, and I've wondered if that was alright with Nathan to miss thirty minutes of teasing as he would usually sit against the building when he did get to go to recess.

Nathan wore three time hand-me-down clothes, wasn't suspected of being too bright, rode his sister's old bicycle, and didn't have many friends, he was an outcast. His parents were rarely home, I supposed they worked a lot to care for their family. And one day my mother did the worst thing she could do to me. In front of everyone, she offered Nathan a ride home from school. What was she thinking? My friends saw "highwater," and me in the same car pull away from the school yard, and my mother had the audacity to stay in front of his house to make sure he made it inside since it was raining. That wasn't the only time she gave Nathan a ride home. I remember he always thanked my Mom and called her, "Ma'am." I wonder today where and who Nathan is. I wish I could go back and tell him I'm sorry that I wouldn't talk to him in the back seat of my Mom's car during that ride to his house and that I'm sorry that I was ashamed to be seen with someone who wasn't one of those, "off the rack," kind of people that I so wanted to be. I can't, but I can look for the Nathans in my life today and see them as the same creation that I am.

It doesn't matter what section or store we buy our clothes from, or what we drive, or where we live. What matters is that we all realize that in some way, shape, or form, we're all that kid wearing the husky toughskins with patches on the knees ashamed to ride with the Nathans in our world finding our pecking order in society, and remind ourselves daily that Jesus' words flowing from his mouth said this:

"But many who are first will be last, and the last first." Mark 10:31

Jesus was talking to his disciples who were amazed that Jesus' words to a man of great wealth that in order to follow him, the young man of great means must sell all that he possessed and give his proceeds to the poor, because Jesus knew that as long as the man owned much of earthly value, but truly his riches owned him. He had to be willing to be stripped of the things that labeled him as valuable. He had to realize that his earthly possessions and the status he held was not eternal, but fleeting. The man went away sad, because he was unwilling to give up his status to become an outcast disciple of this rabbi Jesus.

When we are clothed with Christ, there are no sections for the sizes of body or ego. From the woman in the richly decorated office to the man sitting quietly in his prison cell, when we profess our faith in the one who came for us and allowed his tough skin to be pierced with spikes on a splintered cross made sure for us to understand this truth; that while the earthly ways may have an order for who matters and who doesn't, the, "Huskies," and the ,"Highwaters," the model and the wealthy, all have the same standing in the eyes of Christ.

So dress for success by donning the robe of Christ, bought with his blood. The way I see Jesus' words is that when this life is over when the first are last and the last are first, that means it's a tie.