Bring on the big purple hats

John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center, 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215. 770-719-0303

By JOHN HATCHER
Contributing Writer

In the 58 years or so that I have been carried to church or have gone on my own, I have seen traditions come and go. Mostly go. First, let me grieve over the loss of certain traditions and then I’ll do a flip side to prove I am fair and balanced or to prove I am totally divided on the issues.

I really miss the women wearing hats to church. In certain African-American churches, many women still wear their hats. I think they are beautiful. The more elaborate the better. I love the deep purple, multi-folded ones that say a queen is underneath. In all the White churches I have served for the last 30 years, a woman wearing a hat has been the exception rather the rule.

Yet, in my mama’s early days, most women would just as soon be caught naked as not wear a hat. I think beauty parlors convinced a whole lot of women not to spoil their Saturday permanent with a hat. Could be? But every chance I get now, I put in a plug for women to wear hats. My plugs are mostly ignored. It’s a tradition gone bye-bye.

Along with the hat there were the gloves. I remember — in one of those rare times my Daddy went Christmas shopping for Mama — he bought a pair of white gloves for Mama to wear on Sunday. Are funeral directors now the only ones wearing white gloves? It’s a tradition that’s gone with the wind.

Speaking of dressing up. Some of you will recall the expression, “Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.” Men who worked in the fields all week or worked blue collar jobs often looked forward to dressing up that one day a week to go to church. Men and boys would wear their best duds to church. Men would take pride in their beautiful ties and stick pins. The traditional rule was simple but sure: if you are going to church, dress up in your best.

As I try to feel through those memories of yesteryear’s church, I don’t think dressing up among the men folk was ever a matter of trying to look better than the next guy. It was church and church was the most important place you were going to be all week and it deserved your best.

Easter was, and still is for a minority, the apex of the year for dressing up. I would often get a new suit just in time for Easter. Girls would wear their beautiful new dresses Easter Sunday. Today, I see fewer and fewer people making much ado over Easter dressing up.

So, you get the idea. The tradition was that since church was the central place in our lives and was the most important place we would be, then we would show it by how we would dress. On the other hand...

God makes it clear in his Word that he does look at the outside appearance but he looks on the inside. Remember when Prophet Samuel was commissioned by God to go to Bethlehem to anoint the successor to King Saul? Samuel was directed to go to the house of Jesse of Bethlehem and there he would find the new king of Israel.

Jesse paraded his handsome, regal sons out one by one for Samuel to give a look see. But none impressed the prophet. So he asked if Jesse had another son. Jesse said yes, that he was out tending to sheep. They sent for David and Samuel saw his heart and you know the rest of the story. God is not so much concerned with the container but with what’s in the container.

The Pharisees in Jesus’ day were spiffy in appearance, but Jesus saw their inward lives as dead men’s bones.

Honestly, I, along with most of my fellow pastors, am glad to have whoever walk in the door of the church regardless what they wear. And, you know what? I believe that God has the same attitude.

So, please, if all you have is a clean pair of jeans and a crew shirt, put on that outfit and find your way to the nearest church. Even the folks all dressed up will be glad to see you. Ladies, nobody is expecting you to wear a hat, gloves, or even a dress. My wife often wears pants to church Sunday mornings. And men, you don’t have to wear that strangling tie. Seriously, I don’t know a single pastor who would not say, “Hey, come as you are!”

A couple or three generations from now, they may be talking about our generation that developed a tradition of going casual. And they may want to change the tradition.

Go ahead. But, remember, I like the fancy purple hats.