I was stood on some stairs outside the toilets admiring a friend's Christmas jumper. It was a bit different - it could be not a Christmas jumper and a festive season to new year to whatever comes next wear (in fact it didn't to me look too Christmassy at all - not like my jumper which says Christmas on so you know what it is). It said 'believe' on the front. Believe what? Well, it could be a conversation opener. I don't know who designed it but I wonder what they were thinking should be believed - believe in Santa? Believe in better? Believe in yourself? Believe in miracles.....?
Believe in the good news of Christmas perhaps. Definitely telling you to believe in something. Ordering you to believe in whatever it is, perhaps, if you take it a step further. Perhaps it should be a question rather than just a word......
We live in a world that wants something to believe in - there is a massive identity crisis, we are told we can be anyone we want to be. There are a plethora of labels and words - confusing, befuddling - they need a dictionary in themselves for interpretation.....
Believe tells us that there is something worth putting our faith in - that we can find an identity. I have no problem with that. As a Christian, clearly, I believe.
So, whilst I get the whole premise of a believe jumper and why people might love it, I didn't want to get one because I'm not a fan of M&S clothes. I also struggle with large writing across the chest. But that's for other reasons altogether (the jumper I'm wearing is a big baggy mansize jumper so it's all OK).
But then, as time has gone by, I've found the jumper making me a little bit angry.
It's not the jumper as such, but the message around it. It started with a few Anglican vicars taking a photo of themselves wearing it and their dog collar and putting it on social media with #teambelieve. Then other denominations and movements of churches carried the whole thing forward. Out there beyond my window are many women vicars, ministers, pastors, normal people wearing this (apparently very soft and wearable) jumper.
So why is it making me a little bit angry and irritated....?
Well at first when I saw the newspaper article, my inner rebel took hold. I am Baptist both by conviction and personality. Baptists are dissenters, non-conformists, most see no need for uniforms or dog collars - if everyone in the room was wearing black shoes, I'd be the one wearing sparkly ones. I don't want to be like everyone else. Whilst I looked at the jumper, I was very happy with my own jumper (which thankfully, no one else I know seems to have wanted) and the conversation that jumper starts (what's feminist about a jumper?). As Baptists should we be conforming to the pattern of the C of E world? It's not in our make up.
And then, as more and more Baptists got the jumper, it felt like I was being pushed out. If you don't believe in the believe jumper do you not belong? My inner 'I'm not welcome here' came out. The peer pressure was rife. So I did have a little look in M&S, realised how much it cost, realised, as is normal for M&S, getting a size that would fit me in a store was almost impossible, and I promptly walked out again. Sixty seconds of nearly succumbing. Thankfully my reasons for not loving M&S (apart from the food section) stopped me from making a decision I would regret 10 minutes later. Our need to belong is huge - but can a jumper ever say we belong? We can brand anything, but it's what is happening on the ground that really matters.
And that comes to my third reason. It's the same reason that makes me feel on the edge at many a gathering. As someone who doesn't fit in and is OK with that, there is always a pull to conform, and for my community that is sat on the edge of London, often feeling left out and unable to fit in, it says something else - it says something about an inner circle - a clique, where only a jumper or a certain theology or a way of going about life is 'normal' - we're not going to ever conform, however hard we try. If the call to belong is a call to conform, then we're never going to be part of the montage.
I'm not (although it may seem that way, I understand) being judgmental about this - I am in fact judging myself, because I am trying to understand why this is making me so angry - I could blame Covid, which has heightened my emotions just now, or tiredness which does the same.... but..... I also wanted a little rant.... and to say - that it's not a jumper for everyone, and also not a team for us all, and that's OK. It really is OK.
In the image of God we are created, in community where each one belongs, where the jumper you wear shouldn't matter, or the shoes or the badge or the socks. There is a place of belonging for us all - misfits and conformists, the ones on the edge and the ones in the centre, the ones with and the ones without..... God breathes his breath over us all.
Flipping jumpers....
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