The church where I grew up didn’t have a high church liturgical tradition. Our ministers were as likely to wear an academic hood as they were to wear stoles. But the church was in the process of moving towards a recovery of some of its liturgical traditions. This was due in part to a rising sense of ecumenism. The conversations that produced the United Church of Christ included a strong sense of Christian unity. After all, our church comes from four distinct denominational backgrounds and the union included the adoption of the new motto of the United Church of Christ: That they all may be one.” Black robes in the pulpit were the norm. Our congregation and our sister churches were proud of our tradition of educated clergy. Our ministers had completed undergraduate degrees and a three-year postgraduate seminary program. Academic hoods were seen as a mark of clergy. On the other hand, all of the pastors I knew growing up had a basic set of stoles. The most common stoles were reversible, with green backed with purple on one stole and red backed with white on the other. We were ordained a bit before the appearance of the beautiful and varied liturgical stoles that began to show up a few years later. At our ordinations we were presented with that basic set of stoles. In our first parish, it wasn’t the tradition for ministers to wear liturgical regalia in the pulpit, so we wore street clothes when we led worship. However, when we officiated at communion or a baptism we wore our stoles.

When we moved to a larger congregation, we began to wear robes and stoles to lead most worship services. At the tenth anniversary of our ordination we received gifts of new pulpit robes from the congregation we served. By then we had acquired a few more stoles, including some decorated with bright colors. We had a pair of matching white stoles with several other colors woven into them. For the next three decades I wore a robe and stole when leading worship nearly every week. Our collection of stoles began to grow. Because I followed the Revised Common Lectionary and the congregations I served were comfortable with liturgical traditions, we spoke often of the colors of the seasons. Advent and Lent were times to speak of purple and we often mentioned the colors in our time with children. Christmas, Epiphany and Eastertide were seasons of wearing white and we wore our green stoles for the season following Pentecost, which was the longest season of the liturgical year. Our red stoles were reserved for a few special occasions. We wore them when we attended ordinations. We often wore them on Reformation Sunday, but we didn’t always observe Reformation Sunday in our congregations. And the one Sunday of the year when we always got to get out our red stoles was Pentecost.

After years of service, the red stoles saw much less use than the other colors. Our red stoles remained vibrant when our other stoles became dulled with frequent use.

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday and the Worship and Arts Board of our church really did a beautiful job decorating our sanctuary. A Pentecost banner was hung and a special hanging with dozens of long ribbons of red and yellow with descending doves of white provided a strong visual image at the front of the sanctuary. In this congregation the Ministers of Faith Formation do not wear liturgical regalia for our role in worship, so after years of service our robes and stoles remain in our closet on Sunday mornings. The Lead Pastor and Associate Pastor, however, do wear robes and stoles for worship. They have many different and beautiful stoles. Some of them are in matching sets. They have a fifth liturgical color, blue, which has always been an optional color for Advent and is becoming more common in Protestant congregations. But they also have stoles in other colors, some of which are not part of the formal liturgical tradition. We enjoy seeing their beautiful stoles and are very much at home in our roles as Ministers of Faith Formation. Not wearing liturgical robes makes it a bit easier for us to get down on the floor and minister with young children.

I have several red shirts, so deciding what to wear to worship yesterday wasn’t much of a challenge. I put on a red shirt and adorned it with a black bow tie with the symbol of the United Church of Christ printed on the tie in white. I had a larger than usual role in worship as it was Confirmation Sunday as well as Pentecost. Our bell choir also rang two numbers, so I was up front for that as well.

However, as worship began, I noticed right away that neither of the pastors of the congregation were wearing red stoles. One had a white stole with purple accents and the other wore a brown stole. It seemed that both had chosen their stoles from a sense of fashion and favorite colors more than from the traditions of liturgical color. It struck me in part because wearing our red stoles always seemed to be a festive and anticipated time for us. I don’t think I ever wore any color except red on Pentecost for my entire career as a leader of liturgy.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Another member of the bell choir commented to me that nothing had been said this year about wearing red for Pentecost and that it surprised that person that the ministers weren’t wearing read stoles. The times are changing. I am well aware of the simple fact that I am growing old. I have passed the common age of retirement. The future of the church is in the hands of younger people, as it should be. They have new ideas and they will invest in new traditions. I can be a bit nostalgic about the way things used to be and I know that I should not let that nostalgia get in the way of the new things that God is doing in the church.

I believe, however, that the fire has not gone out of Pentecost. The season remains important in the life of the church and the story of the first Pentecost remains the focus of worship on Pentecost Sunday. I’ll be paying attention and I’ll celebrate when pastors wear red stoles. Yesterday was an anomaly. Brighter days are coming.