tuxedo t-shirts

I performed dave and erin’s wedding this weekend in new jersey. I got to see good friends from new london and eat some good Mexican food at ortega’s, but the best part of the week was a conversation the night after the wedding. I was talking to some new friends on our way back to the hotel after we ate dinner at a great pub called “the grasshopper off the green.” We were laughing pretty serious when we passed a very nice Presbyterian church. My new friend’s fiancée asked me if I was a minister in the Presbyterian church or some other denomination (I got asked a lot of questions about being a minister this week. Apparently im a little too young and “normal” to be a minister).

This sparked a great conversation. Somehow we started talking about Jesus and what he was like when one of them said, “you know, I wish Jesus was the kind or guy who would wear a tuxedo t-shirt.” I admit that until this moment in my life ive never heard anyone say they wished Jesus was a tuxedo t-shirt wearing kind of guy, but I was intrigued. After I asked them what they meant (through laughter almost causing tears) they explained that they always wished Jesus would have been a guy who would knew how to handle himself at a formal affair or church service but then also knew how to be the life of the party.

I don’t know how to tell you how good it felt to tell them that the Jesus they wished for was the Jesus who is. I grinned and laughed a little as I told them Jesus might have in fact been the tuxedo t-shirt kind of guy. They looked shock when I told them he got accused of being a drunkard and a glutton by the religious of his day. They loved the story of him partying with Matthew, tax collectors, and sinners after Matthew became a follower of Jesus. And they nodded in agreement when I them he said “its not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick.” They’re response was to ask why they never heard about this Jesus before.

You see, I realize more and more everyday that we don’t have to water Jesus down, butter him up, or protect him from his hard sayings or difficult ways. Jesus is intriguing on his own. Some people like Jesus, some don’t, and many are somewhere in this blend of apathy and ignorance. It seems if we’d just give him a good look and share what we know, without our well constructed outlines, without our acronyms, without our gimmicks and tricks we tack onto his name that people might actually be intrigued and ask who he was and what he did. He doesn’t need me to put cool clothes on him, make his teachings easy, or give him a Victorian halo.

He probably doesn’t like halos anyway… after all, he might just be a tuxedo t-shirt kind of guy.