Earrings and Pony-tails

(Proverbs 25:12 KJV)  As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

I tend to get distracted by cultural aberrations.  I have my normal.  There is a penumbra with raised eyebrows.  From their we move to strange and on to evil incarnate.  To me it is almost like every day is Halloween and the problem is really in me, not in the people I am observing. 

Sunday was an example.  I was visiting another church and when it was time for the sermon this guy got up on the platform and my mind just started saying, “No.”  Someone brought out a stool with a bottle on it.  I assume it was water, but one never knows, does one?  Then this guy walks out and I am assuming he will be a comedian opening up for the pastor.  Maybe he has an announcement about a street ministry.  No, he was an elder in the church and has been asked to teach today. 

He was very fashionable if you know modern ideas of fashion.  He was wearing the required jeans that looked like they had come from a dumpster behind a thrift store.  I kept telling myself they were probably very expensive.  You don’t get those perfect tears and irregular fading without a lot of artistic work.  They really were not dirty.  They just looked that way.  I adjusted to that and the required long sleeve plaid shirt worn with the tails out and the sleeves rolled half way up the forearms.  He was very contemporary.

What I had trouble getting past was his head.  Being a bit overweight made it wider than it was high.  This was emphasized by a haircut that had his head shaved up to the 10 and 2 o’clock positions.  At first I thought he had a Mohawk but then, when he turned his head, I saw that he had one of those cute little pony-tails sticking out about two inches from the back.  It was not long enough to hang down.  It stuck out.  It caught my eye every time he turned his head.

Why am I sharing all that?  After a few minutes I was able to get beyond the devotion to current trends and actually listen to what he had to say.  He was preaching about anger and how God expects us to control it.  When I listened he had a lot to share.  Notice our verse in Proverbs.  It talks about ear-rings.  It doesn’t say women.  I think we can assume that in Solomon’s day men wore earrings.  We can assume they did not wear pants.  They would look strange to us.

So?  Don’t let fashion or the lack of it keep you from listening to what God is trying to tell you.  It is too easy to judge people by the way they dress.  They may not know any better.  Or, it may be you that doesn’t know any better.  Look to the heart.  Look with agape.