When my daughter was in junior high school, she was spending weekends with me and the rest of the week with her father, since he lived in her school district. Church was always a priority when she and her brother were with me. We typically wore “church clothes” on Sundays. She and I would wear a skirt or dress and my son would wear slacks and a Polo shirt. One Sunday morning she came out of her bedroom saying she couldn’t go to church because she “forgot” to bring her skirt. Nice try. I said, “put on whatever you do have and get in the car! God doesn’t care what you wear to church… all God wants is for us to show up!”
After worship recently, the person I was greeting looked toward the back of the sanctuary and exclaimed, “I should go back there and tell him to take off his hat!” I looked where the finger was pointing and saw a young couple, and he was wearing a Fedora-type hat. My response was, “I really don’t think that God cares what we wear. I think God just wants us to come to worship.” Then, I said, “that’s what the grace of God is all about.” After thinking about it, the person said something like, “he must be a visitor because I’ve never seen him before, so I guess I will just be glad he is here.” Good idea!
My home church, the one where I worship when I am not serving as a pastor, is similar to many, many churches today. (Generally, no one wears hats). The parents of Baby Boomers, who were a large group of church goers, are now deceased, or at such an advanced age that they are not always able to attend worship. Most of us who are Baby Boomers are well past retirement age. The youngest of us, those born in 1964, will turn 58 this year, so retirement age is coming fast for them, too. My point is, the majority of church attendees are in their Golden Years. And the children of Baby Boomers and those even younger, for the most part, are not making church attendance a priority. The fact that they don’t generally attend worship is of great importance, but I’ll save that discussion for another day. So, when young people do show up… even wearing hats… we should whole-heartedly welcome them. That’s Grace! Chiding or correcting them to the “right way” is judgment. We have too much judgment and not enough grace these days! I say, “err on the side of Grace!”
As a Baby Boomer, growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I remember my mom AND dad dressing up for church. My dad always wore a suit and tie, and a Fedora type hat. My mom wore a dress, stockings and high heels, gloves and a hat. My sister and I were always dressed in church-appropriate matching dresses. My dad did not wear his hat in the church, but my mom wore hers. I later learned that this had to do with Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (11:3-10) where he writes that men should never wear a hat in church and women should ALWAYS cover their heads. However, my mother did not have my sister and me wear a hat, so I assume that the “rule” didn’t apply to children?
Paul was writing to the first churches after the resurrection of Jesus. Christianity was in its infancy and Christians were being called to set themselves apart from the cultural and religious practices that they were familiar with… including Judaism and the multi-god culture of the Roman Empire… in favor of practices that kept them focused on Jesus alone. In Judaism, men generally cover their heads. So, perhaps leaving them uncovered was another way to show that you were a follower of Jesus.
Nevertheless, now, I’m wondering whether I have been offending God because I have never worn a hat to church? Certainly, cultural practices have changed in my lifetime. When I was in high school, in a city where we got a lot of snow, girls were never allowed to wear slacks to school. We trudged through the snow in our boots and mini-skirts. My sister graduated from the same high school 4 years later, and the dress code for her was “anything goes!”
Fast forward 40 years to when I had the “what to wear to church’ discussion with my daughter. While I had always made sure that my children were “dressed up” when we went to church each Sunday, I was aware that my ideas were becoming a bit old-fashioned. By the time I was in seminary, it was not unusual for men and some women to wear shorts and flip-flops to church during the summer. We live in the desert southwest where the normal temperatures hover around 110 or higher most of the summer. And, while baseball caps have become a popular accessory for men and women, I can’t recall ever seeing anyone wearing one in church. I have had to tell a few groomsmen at wedding rehearsals to take off their ball caps, though.
As a second career pastor, I started seminary in the 1990’s. I don’t recall the topic of “hats” ever being discussed. None of my professors ever asked, “where is your hat?” when I went to chapel or church. Two thousand years after Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, hats are apparently no longer on our church radar.
Don’t get me wrong. I think that it is respectful for men to take off their hats during worship, and I have no problem with women wearing them, although I think I might look a little silly in my alb and stole with a fascinator like this one on my head. What do you think? Should your female pastors wear hats as the Apostle Paul demands in order to show our respect for God? I think God forgives us for not wearing a hat. If not, am I in trouble?!
As a pastor, what I want is for everyone is to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and with a Christian community. What I won’t do, therefore, is judge anyone unworthy because of a clothing item they may or may not wear as they enter the sanctuary. When I say, “come as you are, all are welcome!” I mean it.
In this day and age, we cannot assume that people have a working knowledge of what it means to be the church or to go to church. I am called to be the church in all times and in all places, regardless of what I am wearing. So, if a young man is curious and comes to worship wearing a Fedora, or a Baseball Cap, or any other head covering, I will not make his first encounter with me a negative one. I believe that God and Jesus are rejoicing that he came at all… and I will do the same. I will welcome him and say, “God and I are so happy you came today! Please come again… and by the way, I love your hat!”
Grace Notes 