If you’re the church-going type you may have been subjected to a special Father’s Day sermon this past Sunday. You might have noticed, as Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like notes, that there is a slight difference between the sermons for dads and the one for Mother’s Day :
On Mothers 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 Fathers Day however, the sermon most pastors preach is like this:
Dads, what are you doing? Seriously, get your act together! Its time to be leaders of your households. Its time to put away jobs that consume you. Its 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 its 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.
What do you think, dads? Sound about right?