Sermons in Shoe Leather!

Look out! They’re watching!

At the time our daughter Erin was about 9 years old, I had not been too long out of seminary and had accepted a call to First Presbyterian Church in Pascagoula, Mississippi. We truly were about as poor as the proverbial church mouse, and Erin had just gone through one of those childhood growth spurts that made her well-worn school jacket look like it had three-quarter-length sleeves and belonged to someone else.

Barbara and I realized that our daughter needed a new jacket and took Erin along to the store that sold them. Financially, it was a bit of a stretch to buy a new jacket, but we did it. The next day Erin left for school looking better clothed than she had in a while. We had done our parental duty, we thought. We had clothed our daughter and her older brother, Gary, in suitable attire.

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That afternoon when Erin arrived home without the new jacket, a question was in order. Barbara asked Erin where her jacket was and Erin quipped something about giving it away. Startled, her mother asked, “You mean you let somebody borrow your new jacket?” Then Erin dropped her bombshell in such a way that there was no mistaking what she meant: “No. I didn’t let her borrow it. I gave it to her. There is a girl in my class who doesn’t have much, and she was cold. So, I just gave her my new jacket and told her I’d go back to wearing my old one.”

“You what!” from both her parents brought this response from our daughter: “Well, doesn’t Daddy preach that we’re to do what Jesus says? And Jesus said that if we have two coats, we’re supposed to give one to someone who doesn’t have one.”

Be careful what you preach. Your own kids might start doing it. It’s hard to argue with a 9 year old who quotes Scripture right back at you! And there I was, witnessing my daughter delivering a better sermon than I had ever done, or maybe would do.

Edgar Guest says it well:

I’d rather see a sermon

than hear one any day;

I’d rather one should walk with me

than merely tell the way.

The eye’s a better pupil

and more willing than the ear,

Fine counsel is confusing,

but example’s always clear;

And the best of all the preachers

are the men who live their creeds,

For to see good put in action

is what everybody needs.

I soon can learn to do it

if you’ll let me see it done;

I can watch your hands in action,

but your tongue too fast may run.

And the lecture you deliver

may be very wise and true,