by Fr. Lanier Nail
Mothers’ Day is this Sunday. This is the quintessential “Hallmark” holiday, and in the South, it is a big deal. On this day, men abandon the fishing holes and golf courses of their Sunday morning routines and go to church with their grandmothers, moms, and wives. Only Easter Sunday can compete with Mothers’ day for church attendance figures. After the service, a Thanksgiving-worthy feast is likely to be served, ironically, by the women whom the day is intended to honor.
This image of women being “honored” by having to work extra hard to serve the men who “honor” them speaks, I believe, to a larger reality that plays out every Sunday in Southern families and churches. This reality is informed by the wisdom of the great Southern prophet Jeff Foxworthy, who is attributed with saying, “I know if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” The logic of this wisdom works as follows: we desire to honor mom with a meal so she will be happy, mom will not be happy with dad’s cooking, ergo mom must cook in honor of herself. It is ridiculous, right?
It is. Yet we see this logic play out Sunday by Sunday in a slightly different context: mom wants the children in church, dad wants mom happy, ergo mom takes the children to the church of her choice. Sometimes dad may even go with them! Isn’t he a nice guy?
No.
Here is the truth about men, church, and families. Men, we have been given a charge by God to be the first pastor to our wives and children (Ephesians 5:22-6:1). For generations, however, we have abdicated this responsibility to the churches. The churches respond to our abdication by gearing their services to women and children. We complain that the church offers nothing for men so we zone out or stay out. This is a cycle we must break.
The way forward is to recognize what it would mean truly to love our wives and honor them as the mothers of our children. Each husband will have to take back the authority he has abdicated to the church. Paradoxically, his wife may not like this very much at first. He is attempting to cook, and she may feel that is best left to the professionals. The church has become like a restaurant with many options, and she is going to insist they know cooking better than he. She will become unhappy, and the Southern man habituated to acquiescing for the sake of Mama’s happiness will be tempted to give up his cooking project.
Do not give up.
Find a church that does not cook for you, but that makes a cook out of you. In practical terms this means you must find a church that equips you to love, lead and teach your wife and children rather than a church that merely teaches them for you. Rather than pandering to you and your family as religious consumers, this church will broadside you each week with the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. The pastor at this church will preach God’s Word and it will make you squirm. The oven will feel too hot. The ingredients will taste too bitter. “No one wants to eat this stuff!” you’ll say while imagining your wife’s displeasure.
This initial discomfort will give way, in time, to a new appreciation and taste for a hearty and healthy diet consisting of God’s word – words of law, words of grace, words of life. This new diet can make of you a new man, and as a new man you will have a fit constitution to embrace your wife, meet her needs, and free her for service according to her abilities rather than your negligence. Your children will have a dad who has the strength to discipline and the kindness to encourage. Are you ready to sign up?
Initially, this will be be uncomfortable for everyone involved. Uncomfortable for you, because you will be challenged to lead your family in the things of God rather than permitted to sit idly by. Uncomfortable for the wife and kids, because they will no longer be filled with spiritual fast-food and will have to learn patience with you as you learn to cook for them. In the long run, however, you will be giving them what they need most –a husband and a dad who loves and serves with the sacrificial love of Christ. I cannot think of a better Mother’s Day gift than that.
Lanier Nail is the rector and founding pastor of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He has been ordained as an Anglican Presbyter since 2011. Lanier and his wife, Kari, have been married for thirteen years and live with their two daughters, Laynie (8) and Hallie (5), in Tuscaloosa.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In