Last week, I told my wife that it would be appropriate, dare I say “loving” of her to get me an iPad for Father’s Day. Her response? She laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, it was more of a giggle that seemed to say, “An iPad? That is adorable. Should I buy it with one of our offshore Cayman Islands bank accounts Lord Featherton?”
Needless to say, I did not receive an iPad for Father’s Day, but I did have a great weekend … until a reader named John Harris exposed a church-flavored Father’s Day scandal to me.
I didn’t notice it at first, I give him all creative credit, but upon hearing about it I knew I had to share it with you.
The controversy? The scandal? It’s simple.
On Mother’s Day, the sermon most pastors preach is like this:
“Moms are amazing. They are like human unicorns, special, beautiful, smelling of lavender and night jasmine, deserving of our gratitude and our complete affection and pedicures. Mothers, please stand up so that we can shower you with applause and have the ushers give you roses commemorating this moment when we, the body of Christ, were able to bask in your combined loveliness.”
On Father’s Day however, the sermon most pastors preach is like this:
“Dads, what are you doing? Seriously, get your act together! It’s time to be leaders of your households. It’s time to put away jobs that consume you. It’s time to put down your Blackberrys and serve your family with your heart and your soul. Cowboy up already! Your role is critical to the family and it’s time for you to get motivated and active in your family, your community and your world.”
One feels like a Lifetime movie, the other an episode of “Scared Straight,” where high school students are forced to listen to convicts yell at them about their lives.
Dads, am I wrong? Do you need to cry on my shoulder at the “Wild at Heart,” live like William Wallace style sermon you received two days ago? Moms, am I wrong? Like my own mother who told me that there’s no such holiday as “Kid’s day” because everyday is kid’s day, is one sermon not going nearly far enough in our appreciation of you? (And it’s not moms, you are in fact amazing.)
Moms?
Dads?
Kids?
What say you?
