Bringing Home The Bacon

INTRO.- ILL.- Anne Carlson wrote: My 16-year-old brother, Ryan, was out late with friends one night. Suddenly he realized it was Father’s Day and he had neglected to buy a card for our dad. After much searching, Ryan located an open store, but was disappointed to find only two cards left on a picked-over rack. Selecting one, he brought it home and, somewhat sheepishly, presented it to our father.

Upon opening it, Dad read this message: “You’ve been like a father to me.” He looked at Ryan, puzzled. “Well, Dad,” Ryan tried to explain, “it was either that or the card that said, ‘Now that I’m a father too!’”

ILL.- Deanna Schneider wrote: Our Gen-X daughter, Cristie, made my husband a Father’s Day card entitled “Things My Dad Would Never Say.” Such as:
- “Can you turn up that music?”
- “Go ahead and take my truck. Here’s 50 bucks for gas.”
- “I LOVE your tattoo. We should both get new ones.”
- “Here, you take the remote.”

ILL.- Terri Cook wrote: Father’s Day was near when I brought my three-year-old son, Tyler, to the card store. Inside, I showed him the cards for dads and told him to pick one.

When I looked back, Tyler was picking up one card after another, opening them up and quickly shoving them back into slots, every which way. “Tyler, what are you doing?” I asked. “Haven’t you found a nice card for Daddy yet?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m looking for one with money in it.”

ILL.- Karla Kasper wrote: While flying from Denver to Kansas City, Kansas, my mother was sitting across the aisle from a woman and her eight-year-old son. Mom couldn’t help laughing as they neared their destination and she heard the mother say to the boy, “Now remember — run to Dad first, then the dog.” What would we do without dads?!

ILL.- On a serious note, Dr. James Dobson said: “The Western world stands at a great crossroads in its history. It is my opinion that our very survival as a people will depend upon the presence or absence of masculine leadership in millions of homes. I believe, with everything within me, that husbands hold the keys to the preservation of the family.”

I agree. Fathers must take their fatherhood seriously if the home is ever to survive and kids are to become decent, hard-working, responsive, and hopefully, Christian citizens!

PROP.- In this sermon, I want to appeal to fathers to please bring home the bacon, but in this sermon, the bacon is more than just bacon.
1- Please bring home the bacon
2- Please don’t beat mama
3- Please do go to church

I. PLEASE BRING HOME THE BACON

ILL.- The origin of the phrase ’bring home the bacon’ is sometimes suggested to be the story of the Dunmow Flitch. This tradition, which still continues every four years in the town of Great Dunmow, district of Essex, (England) is based on the story of a local couple who, in 1104, impressed the Prior (Monk) of Little Dunmow monastery with their marital devotion to the point that he awarded them a flitch [or a side] of bacon.

The bacon was, no doubt, a privileged gift at that time. The meaning, of course, for us today is that we’ve always thought of dad as “bringing home the bacon” or making a living for the family. And that’s what fathers in past ages did! They couldn’t do otherwise and didn’t think of doing otherwise! There were fewer “deadbeat” dads in the old days that wouldn’t work than there are now.