The usual dress for most members of our church is casual. I took note of this and dressed in accord with that when I worked at the church. My usual mode of dress for Sundays when I was working at the church included long-sleeved shirts, mostly fishing guide shirts in bright colors, and cargo pants. I like to wear bright colors and I have a number of guide shirts. The bright colors were attractive to young children and my work at the church included leading the time with children in worship as well as supporting church school. Since I was regularly working with the children of the church my choice of clothing seemed natural. Furthermore, I had heard my then-boss, the lead pastor of the church comment on over dressing for worship. She had commented that she once told her father that wearing a suit was “a bit too much” for the church. Her parents live in the Eastern United States and I have never met them, but I believe that they are similar in age to us. They celebrated their 50the anniversary the year before we celebrated ours.

Now that I am retired, however, I’ve returned to my usual for worship before I worked at the church, which is to wear dress shirts and most weeks I wear a tie. I even wear suits some weeks, though many weeks I don’t wear a suit and often do not wear a sports jacket. I know that wearing a tie is fairly unusual in our congregation, though one of my friends in this church also usually dresses up for Sunday worship and often wears a tie, especially on the weeks when he serves a head usher.

For many years I always wore a tie when working at the church, when attending church meetings and when leading worship. Even in later years of my career when I didn’t wear a tie on many weekdays, I continued to always wear a tie for leading worship, including Sunday worship, weddings, funerals, and special services. I was comfortable in what was common for pastors of my generation. Even when I attended meetings in the national setting of our church, where casual dress was more common, I wore ties and often suits when participating in activities there.

So, now that I am retired and not worried about meeting others’ expectations, I dress up on Sundays. It is a way of marking the special day. It is also an opportunity to wear the clothes that I collected during years of serving the church. I have a pretty good collection of ties and I enjoy wearing them. I’ve even bought a few new ties this year - a couple for the celebration of our anniversary and a couple more purchased on an after-Christmas sale at one of the makers of ties that I enjoy. Although I used to wear long ties often, for many years I have preferred bow ties and I enjoy the simple fact that they are a bit less typical. I guess I like to stand out from the crowd a bit. Perhaps that is why I enjoy dressing up in a congregation where casual is the norm. Perhaps I enjoy standing out a bit.

In addition to my typical white dress shirts, I also have several colored dress shirts. Thought pastel colors are what I wore most often when I served as a pastor, I also have a black dress shirt and dress shirts in the liturgical colors of red, green, and purple. There isn’t much attention given to liturgical colors in our church, though the vestments and sanctuary decorations are generally purple during lent and blue during advent in this church. In a more liturgical congregation, the color for Epiphany Sunday is white, with green being the color for the other Sundays of Epiphany. So, I’m planning to wear my green shirt with a tie today. Which tie to wear is a bit of a conundrum for me because I don’t have many that go with the green shirt. Even though green is the most common color in the church year, being the color for the Sundays after Pentecost, also known as ordinary time, most of the ties I wore during those seasons when I was working were more suited for wearing with white shirts. Not every green tie looks right with the green shirt. Ties generally are contrasting colors with the shirts.

I’m not worried, however. I’ll find a tie to wear today in my collection. After all, I have a good selection.

Another task for my day, after worship today, is to pack for a week-long trip. I leave early tomorrow morning for nearly a week in Saint Louis where I will attend a meeting of the board of the Association of United Church Educators and the large annual gathering and continuing education event of the Association of Professional Church Educators. I’m looking forward to being with friends and colleagues who are professional faith formation leaders in their churches. They are some of the most creative, caring, and engaged people that I know. I’ve always had a passion for education in the church and a week with my educator colleagues will be a treat.

I’ll be packing dress shirts for my trip. I know that it is an occasion where casual dress is the norm and few folks who are not presenting keynote addresses will be dressed up for the occasion. However, I would definitely have worn ties and jackets for similar meetings prior to my retirement and I’m sticking with what is most familiar to me. One of the treats of being retired is being able to wear what you like. While some of my colleagues have used retirement as an occasion to ditch ties and embrace causal dress every day, I prefer to dress up for church and church meetings. I don’t mind being seen as a bit quirky. Another treat of being retired is that I pretty much don’t pay attention to what others think of me. I don’t mind having my younger colleagues think of me as that strange older guy who over dresses. More likely, they don’t pay any attention at all to what I am wearing.

Happy sabbath to you. I hope that you feel welcome in worship dressed however you are most comfortable. There is no need for you to imitate my style. After all, I’m wearing what I like to wear and I hope you are free to do the same for yourself.