I vividly remember the first Father’s Day sermon I ever preached. As I tried to figure out what to preach on, I remembered that someone told me that there were no examples of perfectly good fathers in Scripture (other than God). In other words, every father in Scripture who is given more than just a brief mention, had serious moral failures and shortcomings. They were all flawed.
So since there probably weren’t any fathers in Scripture that were good examples of how to be a father, I decided to preach on the worst father in Scripture–Lot. So that is what I did. I called it “The Worst Father’s Day Sermon Ever.” And wow, was it bad! It is not a sermon you will ever find in my podcast. I remember looking out as I preached seeing all the mothers and fathers staring at me with that “deer in the headlights” look, eyes wide open, mouth agape. Some of the mothers were covering the ears of their children. It was bad.
After the sermon, not one person even tried to be nice about the message by saying “Nice sermon, pastor.” I only had one man make one comment about the message. He came up to me afterwards and said, “Well, one thing is for sure. That truly was the worst father’s day sermon ever.” He was a good friend of mine, so we both laughed about it, but the truth is that I felt pretty ashamed. I still do.
But ironically, this sort of thing happens every year on Father’s Day in churches across the country. The sermons that are preached from our pulpits may not be as bad as mine was, but most Father’s Day sermons tend to beat up on dads rather than encourage them and challenge them to dream big, take risks for God, embark on an adventure, charge ahead, and be a man! Instead, we beat them over the head with everything they are doing wrong.
I’m reading the excellent book How Women Help Men Find God by David Murrow (I will post a review of it when I’m finished), and in the book he quotes Dr. Kevin Leman as saying:
Not only are men supposed to attend morning Bible studies, but they’re supposed to get home in time for dinner, spend time alone with each child, date their wives once a week, and earn enough money so that their wives can stay home with their young children. This is a heavy load, and some Christian men start to resent it” (p. 37).
Then Murrow quotes Nancy Wray Gegoire who said this:
I’ve often noticed that sermons on Mother’s Day tend to gush over moms, while on Father’s Day they tell dads to shape up” (p. 37).
Just yesterday, I read the following over at the Church for Men blog:
Mother’s Day: A day devoted to honoring moms.
Father’s Day: A day to beat up men for not doing a better job!
So I hope that this Sunday, you are able to honor, bless, and encourage the men in your church. If you want to learn how to challenge men to action, I recommend the books by David Murrow and John Eldredge. And whatever you do, don’t preach on Lot.
P.S. My “Lot Sermon” was my third worst sermon ever. My WORST sermon was at a wedding. Some day I’ll tell you about it. I hope that couple is still together, but if not, they can blame me for starting out their marriage on the wrong foot. Yes, it was that bad.
With all due respect, I don’t care for David Murrow or John Eldredge’s writing. I find them too sexist and too limiting. While claiming to be presenting what ‘real’ men are supposed to be like, to me they come across as creating one more stereotype which is going to be invalidating to those men it doesn’t fit. Their books are very popular among men who agree with their portrayal of what men should be like. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.
Also, Wild at Heart quotes approvingly from Iron John, a book based on pagan beliefs about gods and goddesses. Why would someone claiming to be sharing what the Bible teaches about men use a source book like that?
Even though I don’t care for those two authors I hope you have a wonderful Father’s Day 🙂
Helen,
That’s one thing I love about you: Your honesty!
I know that lots of people don’t care much for Murrow or Eldredge. I agree that they paint something of a stereotype. But if anything, they are just combatting the opposite stereotype that if a man becomes a Christian, he has to become a wimp. I think it’s a healthy correction.
I know I sure don’t fit the Murrow/Eldredge stereotype 100%. In fact, when I read “Wild at Heart” by Eldredge, I cried! How manly is that? Ha ha.
And the fact that Eldredge borrowed some from paganism doesn’t bother me much. There is almost nothing that we do or think today which is not in some way borrowed from “paganism.” Most of our “Christian” holidays, and Biblical genres are built upon pagan practices.
Thanks for all you do over at Conversation at the Edge!
Jeremy,
I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more on Murrow/Eldredge and paganism. The fact that a lot of Christian praxis today owes something to paganism doesn’t excuse a specific case of it; it just means that we’re in a target-rich environment.
Not to say we should be superstitious about things pagans have touched. I’m with Augustin on the accomplishments of pagans: just because some God-hating yahoo claims Mercury invented letters doesn’t mean we should give up writing. But all the same, some discernment is called for.
My broad-brush take on Eldredge, et al, is that it’s a pendulum swing from one pagan extreme to the other, having missed the point of biblical manhood entirely. It’s largely a retread of pagan manhood material (a la Robert Bly) with a veneer of Christianity spackled on the top. What they ought to have done is go back to Scripture and re-develop the categories from the ground up, which produces a very different set of categories.
I have a friend who is hoping to post his research on this subject within the next month or two (he’s planning to do his thesis in this area). I’ll let you know when it’s available; I’d love to hear your take on it.
By the way, one good example of fatherhood is Genesis 25:1-8. It looks like a throwaway at first glance, but if you take it in the context of the promises, it’s estate planning with the coming centuries in mind. Had the other sons settled in territory promised to Isaac’s descendants, God would have had to uproot or destroy them four centuries later, and Abraham knew it. What we see here is a man who has attended to what God is doing, and is settling his affairs accordingly for the well-being of his children. A good parallel: Proverbs 13:22.
Tim,
I’m not arguing that because Eldredge and Murrow are using pagan ideas, we should accept them. That would be crazy. All I’m saying is that we cannot reject what they are saying simply because they use some ideas that are also found in “paganism.”
I think the case could easily be made that Murrow and Eldredge are actually calling us back to a form of Biblical manhood because the most common conception of “manhood” in Christianity today is one that borrowed themes and ideas from various forms of “paganism.”
Praise God that SOMEONE is doing something to BRING MEN back to church and back to THE KINGDOM instead of driving them away. Jeremy, keep up the great kingdom work!
Cold pancakes, sticky syrup and lukewarm coffee and eggs will not bring men back to church. Doing the same thing over and over will get us the same results. Fewer and fewer men coming to church. More and more children following their father’s example…. Leaving church and not returning to church when they leave their parent’s home. We must stop whining and complaining and start focusing on the fact that men are staying home on Sundays or finding other communities (Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Dunkin Donuts, etc) instead of going to church. Can I get an amen from married ladies who become single women on Sundays? Why? Their husband isn’t in church with them. I know women who would drive 100 miles to a church if their husband would go along with them.
Jeremy,
Thanks for this. I went to church today…and grimaced through songs about leaning against Jesus and feeling his breath on my neck and feeling his heart beat next to mine. I couldn’t sing that. Then the pastor got up and beat us all over the head with how we all need to “man up” by being better fathers, better husbands, more honest at work. Then there was a testimony time where 6-8 women got up and cried and cried about their fathers. Afterwards, all I wanted to do was go kill myself. Instead, we went to McDonalds, which I guess is about the same thing.
Jeremy,
Re. “I’m not arguing that because Eldredge and Murrow are using pagan ideas, we should accept them.”
Of course you’re not; didn’t think you were. We’re just on opposite sides of the argument. You think some/many/most (I don’t know which) of the “pagan” elements in Eldredge, et al. are true, and the pagans picked them up through common grace. (I think that’s what you’re saying; is it?)
I think many/most of the “pagan” elements are pagan, without the quotation marks, and Eldredge picked them up through undiscerning syncretism. I should add, in fairness to Eldredge, that he’s identified some phenomena that are real problems, but I’m not sure he’s parsed them correctly, nor that he’s got the correct angle of attack on a solution.
Re. “All I’m saying is that we cannot reject what they are saying simply because they use some ideas that are also found in ‘paganism.'”
You’ll get no argument from me on the point. (Modern Postural) Yoga is part of my personal fitness strategy, and I practice a martial art invented and transmitted by animists, my most recent teacher included. Oh, and I learned geometry from an atheist. “The earth is the Lord’s, and all the fullness thereof.”
Jeremy, I’m curious, tell me about your worst wedding sermon.
Mark