Personal: What Would Jesus Wear?

When I was growing up in church, I heard over and over again how Christians were supposed to be holy--a confusing church vocabulary word that means 'set apart'.

The way that got translated, especially in my junior-high mind, was that Christians were supposed to be 'set aloof'.

If you had shown me this picture then, I would have said that the people in dress shoes represented the Christians and the person in the ripped jeans was the person who needed to get their act together and dress to match the others. And I do still see, to a certain extent, how dressing and comporting our bodies in dressed-up kinds of ways brings honor and respect to the God of our worship.

But I much more see authentic Christianity as the kind of relationship with God that is comfortable in sneakers and grubbies. This world needs to see our genuine honesty about how not-together we can have it, and the understanding that it's not a crafted appearance or faked finery that counts for soul salvation. Being 'set apart' means being an agent of change and a breath of fresh air, even in our bodily life.

Don't get me wrong: I like my peep-toe pumps just as much as the next girl. But God says that my shoes (and the rest of the earthly stuff I can be so distracted by) are mostly beside the point when it comes to experiencing him and the life-change he wants to bring about in me.