Stopping a sermon before it crashes...

Monday mornings for some preachers is a time in which they feel bad about the previous Sunday.  For me, though, Monday morning is when I start outlining my sermon for the coming Sunday.  If all has gone well in previous weeks, when I've been doing proper Bible study and prayer and reflection about what needs to be said (or, better said, what God is trying to say through me), outlining the sermon that will be formally written on Wednesday is easy.  The sermon writes itself.

Today, though, I knew that there was going to be a problem.  Even as I had done my preliminary on this sermon, it never really felt right.  In doing this for almost 20 years, when I have to go hunting for scriptures to back up my premise, the sermon becomes something that is probably not worth preaching.  This was one of those sermons.  While I think that the premise was probably good and needs to be said, I had a hard time justifying the sermon.  I came to realize while looking over my previous notes that it was more like a rant than a sermon.  

Rant sermons are all too common by preachers.  We get fired up about something that is happened to us, or something makes us mad, and we want the congregation to know what's on our mind.  Or we get really invested in some particular doctrinal point and we think that the congregation isn't right until they agree with us.  So we rant and rave, and in the end we haven't preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Yes, it's frustrating to have wasted all that time on a sermon that won't (and should not) be preached...but it's better to have destroyed a sermon before it can do any harm.

If there is one blessing about having preached for almost 20 years, it's that there are plenty of sermons stuck away in the file cabinets.  Not all of them are good, of course, or are worthy of repeating.  But at least I have one that can be preached so that the church will be blessed rather than cursed.  

Sunday Best

I have a long-running and (mostly) friendly debate going on with one of our members about the necessity of wearing one's 'Sunday Best'.  Likely it comes from the fact that many of our members wear jeans, shorts, and other apparel to church that a generation ago would have been verboten.  As my family is one of the culprits, I think he's trying to send a message to me, but I think he's even annoyed because I don't wear a suit to church, I am down to wearing a tie on Sundays 80% of the time, and on Wednesdays I wear blue jeans.

I can understand his argument, as it's one that I was brought up with.  If you were going to visit the President, wouldn't you want to look your best?  Indeed, the idea of dressing nicely for God, for giving him your best, that on the surface seems to make a lot of sense.  And I agree that there are a lot of people who simply use changing fashions as an excuse to look sloppy.

But over the years I'm started thinking that his reasoning is all wrong.  First, there is no Biblical command about wearing one's Sunday best.  The only words about clothing in the NT are about what a woman should NOT wear: 1 Timothy 2:9 talks about wearing 'respectable' apparel, modest, and not 'braided hair, gold, pearls, or costly attire'.   'Modest' today has taken on the meaning of 'not indecent' and that's probably good considering many fashions today...but Paul's intent is explicitly that we NOT wear fancy or eye-catching clothing.  Indeed, the city of Babylon in Revelation 18:16 that is clothed in fancy attire is a city that is doomed!  1 Peter 3:3-4 is even more explicit:  "Do not let your adorning be external--the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear--but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."  Church is never to be a fashion center; I can remember when I was much younger how women were especially excited about spring in order to wear their 'Easter fashions'.  That's simply not right...and if we apply this to men, shouldn't we think the same thing?  Shouldn't we wear our common, everyday clothing?  If a man normally wears jeans to work at the plant, shouldn't he wear jeans to church?

Second, why do we think we are honoring somebody by wearing fancy clothes?  When did that come into play?  For much of humanity's existence a person who had two sets of clothing was considered rich.  The fact that the church has bought so much into the idea that there is even something called fashion means we have failed somewhat in our discipleship.  If we believe that 'clothes makes the man', then haven't we bought into worldliness?  The only kind of clothing we should be really looking for are clothes that are washed white in the blood of the lamb (cf. Rev. 7:14).  We are to be defined not by what it is that wear, but by how we have been 'clothed with Christ'.

It's fascinating how such an unimportant and unBiblical topic makes its presence felt so strongly in the mind of so many Christians.  May we be a people who focus on things that are important, rather on things that matter not one bit.