May 10th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
The bad thing about this experiment is that it takes a month to complete.
The last couple of sets of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day I was in a different church than the one we go to now. It will be interesting to see how things unfold at this one.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day represent a departure from the traditional Christian calendar for some churches, and for others it is the adaptation of the American Civil Religion calendar where the church doesn’t follow a calendar except for Lent/Easter and Advent/Christmas.
The last couple of times I have seen Mother’s Day and Father’s Day handled in a church it has gone this way: On Mother’s Day the pastor will launch into near worship of motherhood, how his mom is so great, and how we should love, cherish, and revere our mothers. Proverbs 31 becomes less an example for wives and more an example of how men should praise their wives. Contrast that with the Father’s Day fare of the fathers’ dereliction of duty. We need to serve more, give more, and be better people.
With both types of sermons being Law for Men, it is no wonder there’s a book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. Of course, that book seems to have more Law for Men according to the description, so I’m not sure it’s going to help much. 
We should care for Moms and Dads more than once a year. The sermons that come out of the pulpit on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day need to have the same things that should come out every Sunday: Law and Gospel, for everyone.
Yes, sometimes I am a terrible Dad, but God is the perfect Father who cares for us and sent his Son to die for us. Dare we say also that human mothers have their obligations as well, also imperfectly kept, but the bride of Christ, the Church, keeps us steadfast in the true faith. These are the type of things that need to be heard, not the festering of the war between the sexes.
So conduct an experiment this Sunday and on June 17. Do we hear an Ode to Mom, at the expense of Christ crucified for us? Do we hear a call for more pious behavior on the part of our dads, instead of the forgiveness of sins? We’ll soon see.
Of course, maybe I’m just biased. Do Moms feel like they are getting the third degree on Mother’s Day?
May 11th, 2007 at 9:36 am
This is a tough one Dan. I’ve only preached one Mother’s Day and one Father’s Day, so my range of experience is a little lacking. If I remember right, I preached about God’s relationship to us as a father on Father’s Day, and saved most of my “Father” talk for the Gospel. That’s mostly because the text went that way. For Mother’s Day I used the “Church as Mother” metaphor.
The tough thing to do is find ways to talk about Fatherhood and Motherhood in texts that aren’t tailored for those holidays. Sometimes it’s near impossible. I think that is when much of the bad sermon writing comes out, when we’re trying to make sermons stretch. One way I’ve seen people work with this is to change one of the readings to a father/mother text, but not use it as your primary text that you’re preaching on. This still allows you to construct a fairly church-year oriented sermon while it allows you to send a passing nod to what is on everyone’s mind.
jW
May 11th, 2007 at 11:24 am
I preach on the assigned Gospel readings for the day. Funny, but they have never been about mothers or fathers. If someone mentions it, I will include a prayer of thanksgiving for mothers or fathers on that day.
I have (on more than one occasion) totally forgotten about them until after the fact, but then, they aren’t church festivals, so I don’t really care. My wife does, and I buy her flowers for mother’s day, and try to get her to not buy me a gift for father’s day. She usually does anyway. But you won’t hear a “mother’s day” or a “father’s day” sermon at my church. It is the Lord’s day, so I preach about him.
+INJ+
The Reverend Lincoln Winter
Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Wheatland, WY
May 12th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I would suggest to you that EVERY Law/Gospel sermon is an example of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day application. For true catechesis is the life the Church, which prepares father’s to catechise (examine) their families. Whenever the pastor preaches Christ crucified in true Evangelical style (as St. Paul would define evangelism), that pastor is setting the example for Christian living, for this is what the life of a Christian is. In the family it begins with the father. The mother follows the example of her God-ordained head and continues the preaching to their children, in godly cooridination with her husband, who follows his Head, Christ. Every day is Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in the true Christian household, with fathers and mothers acting as God’s appointed nurturers and life-givers, and children joyfully honoring Father and Mother and receiving God’s well-being and long life on the earth.