10 Sermon Illustrations on Manners

President Calvin Coolidge once invited friends from his hometown to dine at the White House. Worried about their table manners, the guests decided to do everything that Coolidge did. This strategy succeeded, until coffee was served. The president poured his coffee into the saucer. The guests did the same. Coolidge added sugar and cream. His guests did, too. Then Coolidge bent over and put his saucer on the floor for the cat.

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Erik Oleson from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Patty Hansen

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Another version from the Fredericksburg collection:

To have unquestioning reliance upon a pastor or other spiritual leader can lead to embarrassment and even bitter disillusionment. I was reminded of this recently when I came across an interesting item about President Coolidge. Once he invited some friends from Vermont to dine at the White House. They were worried about their table manners, so they decided to do everything their host did. All went well until coffee was served. Coolidge poured his into the saucer. The guests did the same. The President added sugar and cream. So did the visitors. Then Coolidge leaned over and placed his saucer on the floor for the cat.

A Christian and philosopher and educator, Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest classical scholar of the northern Humanist Renaissance, determined that manners was the best instilled at an early age. Here are some samples from the three-century best seller, “On Civility in Children” (c.1530):

“To lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the table cloth or the serviette.”

“Some people put their hands in the dishes the moment they have sat down. Wolves do that.”

“You should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed. Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearls and rubies might have fallen out of your head.”

“If you cannot swallow a piece of food, turn around discreetly and throw it somewhere.”

Miss Clarke, a teacher at a Christian school in northern Virginia, described the reaction from her students when she began teaching etiquette. “When we got to the section about table manners,” she said, “the students were completely perplexed. 'People do THAT?’ they said to me.” She observed that etiquette at the dinner table and elsewhere is foreign to kids because they're coming from homes where everyone's on a different schedule and the families rarely sit down together for meals. Even in these Christian homes, there was no regular time and place to learn good manners.

Judith Martin, also known as Miss Manners, commented on another challenge to etiquette: that is, adults who make remarks to children like, “Don't call me 'sir' — that makes me feel old.” Or, “Why are you getting up? Do I look as if I'm too old to stand?” One mother noted that adults will tease her children for addressing them as “ma'am” or “sir.” Sadly, reactions like those make raising ladies and gentlemen a real challenge.

I'm glad to say that many parents, especially mothers, keep trying in spite of obstacles. And now Karen Santorum, the wife of Senator Rick Santorum, has put together a wonderful resource that every family should have in their home — and every school in the library. This beautifully illustrated book is called EVERYDAY GRACES: A CHILD'S BOOK OF GOOD MANNERS.

Rather than a list of “dos and don'ts,” Karen Santorum has compiled stories and poems to illustrate how we ought to treat one another. Thus she taps into a child's imagination to help him understand about his own dignity and how to show respect to others. After all, manners are an outward expression that acknowledges human dignity in everyone.

Karen uses writings from Beatrix Potter, C. S. Lewis, Mark Twain, Max Lucado, and others — pretty good lineup. Under the section on “Good Manners at Home,” she includes a Shel Silverstein poem about taking out the garbage to address doing chores. Under “Using Words Wisely,” she includes “Mercury and the Woodsman” by Aesop, a tale about telling the truth. And to teach proper use of utensils, she includes a poem titled “Never Poke Your Uncle with a Fork.” Each poem and story is followed by questions for discussion.

When William Wilberforce set out to “reform manners” in eighteenth-century England, he sought “to eliminate public corruption and promote religion in the hearts of the people,” in order “to resist the spread of open immorality,” writes Kevin Belmonte in HERO FOR HUMANITY. Well, “manners” in a lesser sense than the vision Wilberforce pursued is the beginning of such a reformation in our society.

It fits into the “broken windows” theory — the idea that if “small” problems, like loitering and turnstile-jumping at the subway, are eliminated, then larger crimes will, in turn, diminish. And this has proven to be true. In the same way, teaching manners prevents the “windows” from being broken in the first place, thus creating safer communities. Mrs. Santorum's book is an invaluable resource in reaching this worthy goal.

Creating a civil society begins with the words PLEASE and THANK YOU — simple terms any two-year-old can learn, words usually taught to us first by our mothers. God bless every mother this weekend for your role in civilizing our communities and reforming our culture.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Karen Santorum, ed., Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners (ISI Books, 2003). To order, call 1-877-322-5527.

• Judith Martin, “Act Your Age, and Vice Versa,” Washington Post, 9 November 2003, D02.

• Judith Martin, “The Enemies of Etiquette,” Washington Post, 2 May 2004, D02.

• James Wilson and George Kelling, “Broken Windows,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1982.

• Jenell Williams Paris, “When Mother's Day Is Hard,” Christianity Today, 6 May 2004.

• Maggie Gallagher, “What do mothers want?“ Townhall.com, 4 May 2004.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 000515, “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.” (Free registration required.)

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 90507, “'The Problem.'“ (Free registration required.)

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030916, “My Own Private Neverland.”

• Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “'I'm Not My Child's Friend,'“ Beliefnet.com, 1 October 2003.

• Terrence Moore, “The Twenty-First Century Could Easily Learn from the Eighteenth a Few Lessons in Manners,” Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, March 2004.

• Gabriel McManus, “Manners can be sticky,” Christian Science Monitor, 5 May 2004.

• William Bennett, The Book of Virtues (Simon & Schuster, 1993).

• Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue (Oxford University Press, 1998).

• Kevin Belmonte, Hero for Humanity (NavPress, 2002).

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

When one of my sons responded recently to a grown woman with a “yeah,” he received discipline from his father. It was a lesson passed down through the generations, because I received the same discipline. One responded to a grown man with a “yes sir” and to a grown woman with a “yes ma'am.” I grew up in an intentionally undignified Sandy Creek tradition Baptist church. We sang “Count Your Many Blessings,” not “The Lord Is in His Holy Temple.” Still, our pastor was “Brother Naron.” If we had called him by his first name, we would have walked a familiar path to the switch tree.

This may be chalked up to Southern culture, and indeed it is rooted in old patterns of Southern manners. But what if Southern sensibilities about terms of address were rooted in something older yet?

Steve Hutchens, my fellow editor at Touchstone magazine, has raised on the magazine's website the issue of manners and terms of address. He rightly contrasts the modern egalitarian ideal with a Christian view that goes far beyond manners.

“As Christians we are bound to give honor to those to whom honor is due, which includes the honor due everyone as made in the image of God (it is why we should both execute murderers and treat them humanely; it is why we treat unborn children as whole people), and then also of the 'office' he or she bears, beginning with 'Father' and 'Mother,'“ Hutchens writes. “This is why, I suspect, the various leveling movements in the history of the church have attracted only minorities, and have been very susceptible to heresy. Refusal to recognize the hierarchies placed in the world by its Maker, after his own image, is a recipe for not only theological but cultural disaster.”

Could such words sound any more alien to contemporary American culture, even conservative evangelical culture?

I sometimes still feel strange and rude calling my mentor, teacher and president Albert Mohler by his first name, even though I'm now his vice president rather than his research assistant and student. And yet, I'm amazed at how many Gen Y Southern Baptists speak about “Al” or “Paige” (although, remarkably, should any of the men referenced actually be present, such familiarity predictably reverts back to “Dr. Mohler” or “Dr. Patterson” or what have you).

Terms of address can be overdone, of course. Jesus counsels against those who insist on elaborate recognitions in public places (Matt 23:1-7). He insists we recognize that our ultimate “father” and “Rabbi” (Matt 23:8-11) is not human but divine in the same way no one is anything but relatively good (Matt 19:17). But Jesus also recognized authority and even hierarchy in the choosing of the foundation stones of his temple, apostles whose authority was recognized by the church, and is still recognized as we listen to the Spirit through the Holy Scriptures they were inspired to write.

The problem with teaching honor through terms of address comes down to the fact that many people believe the issue is personal. When I tell my boys to say hello to “Mr. Smith,” Smith will often respond by saying, “Oh, it is fine for him to call me John.” Well, no, it really is not fine, because the issue is not what they call Smith.

The issue is instead that I want them to understand respect for elders and honor for authority. I want them to understand this not so John Smith will feel honored or respected or anything else. I want them to do so for the same reason they call me “Dad” and not “Russell D.” I want them to do so that ultimately they will understand and follow a Lord and a King.

Yes, I realize I'm probably a bit hyper-scrupulous about this. Mississippi mores are not easily overcome. But I want to raise three young men who are able to look King Jesus in the eye, and then bow before him on the Day of Judgment. I want them to understand the goodness of hierarchy when hierarchy is good. I want to see our Lord Christ ask them if they wish to enter into a new creation which is not an egalitarian democracy but a glorious monarchy.

And I want to hear them say “Yes sir.”

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Cord Ivanyi, a Latin teacher at a Phoenix high school, was tired seeing the boys in his class subject the girls to vulgar words and behavior. The behavior was disrespectful, and disrupting to his classes. So Ivanyi decided to give the boys an example in chivalry. When a girl got up to go to the restroom, Ivanyi stood as a sign of respect. When she came back to class, Ivanyi held the door for her.

As he told AOL News writer David Knowles, “She had this funny look on her face, and the other kids giggled a little.” But it wasn’t long before Ivanyi was teaching the boys to do things like pull out the girls’ chairs when they sat down. Now, he says, “Ninety-eight percent of the boys stand now when a girl enters the room, and the girls love it.”

This now-routine show of respect has led to a difference in the way the boys behave around the girls. Being taught to show respect for them leads them to feel more respectful toward them.

It doesn’t please the feminists, of course. One recently told me that she’d kick me if I held a door open for her. But that’s ok — they need to learn as well.

Ivanyi is not the only one who understands the link between etiquette, attitudes, and behavior. In a recent Wall Street Journal piece, journalist Meghan Cox Gurdon notes that while proms retain old traditions like corsages and chaperones, student behavior is often vulgar. Gurdon quotes etiquette expert Emily Post, who wrote in the 1920s that, at public dances, couples were expected to demonstrate modesty and decorum because they were in public.

And Mrs. Post had no illusions about how teenagers would behave if chaperones were absent: Young men would try to paw their dates, or worse, she wrote. Today, it’s not unusual for girls to plan to lose their virginity on prom night.

Modern girls get no help from Peggy Post, a descendent of Emily Post. In her new book, Prom and Party Etiquette, Post says that when it comes to sex on prom night, she “made a conscience decision not to try to lecture teens or tell them what to do.”

This is sheer insanity. Eve Grimaldi, dean of students at a girls’ high school in Washington, D.C., understands that you cannot deal with moral issues without moral instruction. Moral neutrality is not neutral in a fallen world. Refusing to take a stand just allows kids to pander to their worst instincts.

This is why, on prom night, Grimaldi brings an armload of sweatshirts with her. Girls wearing immodest gowns are forced to put one on. Grimaldi also keeps a sharp eye on the way dancers behave. Good for her.

In an article in Christianity Today, I once quoted the great historian Arnold Toynbee. He contended that one clear sign of a civilization’s decline is when the elites — people he describes as the “dominant minority” — begin mimicking the vulgarity and promiscuity exhibited by society’s bottom-dwellers. The result: The entire culture is vulgarized.

Christians need to resist the slide into vulgarity by creating strong countercultural influences. We can start by elevating our own standards in speech and dress, if we need to.

And we should applaud teachers who are teaching good manners and decorous behavior to the young — manners and behavior that teach kids to view one another and treat one another with the respect they deserve.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.