Should We Stop Celebrating Father’s Day?

June 23, 2015 | ziononth | 3 Comments | Pastor's Blog

Father’s Day, as well as Mother’s Day, presents difficult circumstances for the church. The further we get from the perfection of creation, the more sin corrupts who we are and how we treat one another. Thus, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day can bring up painful memories of abusive, absentee, or neglectful parents. Even at Zion this past weekend we had people get teary over the hurts that they had experienced at the hand or lack thereof of their fathers.

Do you blame Hallmark? Do you blame the government for sanctioning certain holidays? Do you blame Facebook or other social media engines for continually inventing new days to celebrate something?

I think it’s human nature to want to put a positive spin on something and to honor people or events that we as a society feel deserve honor and respect. That’s why we have the 4th of July, Memorial Day, President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Grandparents Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and on and on and on. I personally like January 22nd which is National Hot Sauce Day. If there’s a National Hot Sauce Day, you know we’ll celebrate anything.

There is always a risk to celebrating; not everyone is going to agree that it is worthy of a celebration and, depending on people’s circumstances, that celebration to the general population may be a joyous time, but to others it reminds them of a particular void. Because of the shooting in Charleston, SC last week there is a big debate about the Confederate Flag still being flown on state grounds. I heard of a study that, the study’s author claims, found that showing the American Flag in public made people relate to one of the major political parties over the other, and so it should stop being used because it would seem to be a bias in influencing how people think and vote.

God created us as thinking, rational people. Thinking, rational people make observations on the world based on their experiences. Those observations lead to opinions on how to make decisions to do what is best, either for the individual or for society. When opinions differ and we make decisions that clash with dissenting opinions, that can lead to hurt.

So, should we just stop making decisions that we know will hurt somebody? Not at all. Should we just barrel ahead without regard for the feelings of others? Not if you want to be able to have relationships.

Some people advocate for doing away with all secular “holidays” that the church celebrates and keep everything focused on either the church calendar or a current sermon series. Others believe that it is acceptable and beneficial in celebrating these days from a Godly perspective, to affirm what people are doing right. Do you embrace these certain “holidays” or remove them, knowing they cause pain to a certain percentage of those who come to worship? Can we never preach on the positive aspects of a father or mother knowing that it will pain someone? Can we never talk about same-sex marriage knowing that a lot of people know someone who is gay and may have a strong opinion one way or another? Can we never talk about the sanctity of life knowing that there is probably someone in our midst who either had an abortion or has a relative who had an abortion?

If all we do is talk about the perfection of the Heavenly Father and abdicate talking about earthly fathers, we lose the connection to righteous living. We can’t talk strictly about God without ever talking about the world in which we live. If we just talked about the goodness of God, would that solve the problem of bringing up a wound in someone’s life? Even at that point, what if someone feels hurt by God? So, we then need to stop talking about God. So, why come to church if someone’s going to get hurt in the conversation?

Here we have the intersection of sin and life. We need to talk about these things, but we need to really think through the approaches we take in dealing with people’s hurts. Sin isn’t just something we do, sin happens against us. But it’s also those differences of opinions where no one is wrong, it’s just a different philosophical approach to life. We need to be able to learn how to live in Christian love with people we know do not share the same opinions with us.

So, how would you propose we deal with these difficult “days” or sermon topics in the life of the church? Stop observing them as “days” and relegate them to a sermon and/or series? Only Bible Studies where people can choose to go to another one? Have more “days” that we observe together as a church? Or, something else? We must always be compassionate in how we deal with the sensitivity of those who need the healing power of the Gospel because of their spiritual pain.

I encourage you to share the link for this blog post with others and invite them to join in the conversation. I am especially interested in hearing from those who are struggling with either Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. I would like some insights from you in how to best proceed forward. The world changes and how we celebrated once upon a time may not be appropriate now. Let’s dialogue together. For the sake of Christ and the power of His healing Kingdom. Amen.