My purpose in preaching this sermon is that we should dress ourselves for public worship in honour of our head. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you. But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God. I don’t see any women wearing hats. From what I understand, women used to wear hats to church as a matter of course; that’s just what every self-respecting woman did. Why did women wear hats to church? The practice started, I believe, because of the passage that we just read. Women, Paul writes, must always have their heads covered when praying or prophesying. Somehow that got translated – not necessarily wrongly so – into a dress code for women attending church: Women must wear hats to church. But clearly, that dress code doesn’t apply here. None of you women are wearing hats. The mention of a dress code in church is bound to raise some hackles. How can there really be such a thing? Isn’t it only people that judge by outward appearance? And God looks at a person’s heart instead? So, what does it matter how a person dresses when she comes to church? Besides, didn’t the practice of wearing hats to church become just another way for women to engage in fashion competition? And how is that in any way helpful in a worship gathering? I remember reading something some time ago – I forget where – to the effect that some women thought of prayer during a church service as not much more than the appropriate time for them to fix their hats while everyone else had their eyes closed. Surely the practice of wearing fashionable hats to church can’t be what Paul had in mind when he wrote this passage. What Paul did mean is that there certainly is a dress code for church – for public worship: and that dress code can be summed up in three words (in English, anyway): Honour your head. Honour your head. The key to understanding this passage in the very first thing that Paul says about the Corinthians and their heads: “I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and of woman is man, and of Christ is God” (11:3). One thing to take of right away is that Paul has not written this in any kind of order. He has not arranged these things from greatest to least or least to greatest. Paul is not writing of some

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My purpose in preaching this sermon is that we should dress ourselves for public worship in honour of our head. kind of hierarchy or chain of command. Foremost in Paul’s mind is the issue of honour and shame. Paul’s concern is that the Corinthians’ manner of dress in public worship should always honour their head. Let’s be careful, however, to remember the key to understanding the passage: that Christ is the head of man, that man is the head of woman, and that God is the head of Christ. When I say that this is the key to understanding the passage, I mean “key” in a very simple sense. A bushing pressed onto a shaft often requires a key to make sure that the bushing and the shaft remain in proper alignment. The key ensures that the shaft and the bushing always turn together. Without the key – which is usually no more complex than a square-profile piece of metal – the shaft and bushing will turn independently of one another and the machine will fail. And we use the key like this: every time Paul writes something about a man or a woman honouring their head, we remember that Christ is the head of man and man is the head of woman and God is the head of Christ. Making use of this key, the bushing turns with the shaft, thus causing the pulley to rotate which runs the chain that drives the gears of our minds and now our minds begin to work in sync with Paul’s. When Paul writes that “every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonours his head” (11:4), the man dishonours Christ, not his own physical head. And “every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head” (11:5), meaning that she dishonours her husband, not her own physical head. If a woman dishonours man and not her own physical head by praying or prophesying with her head uncovered, why does Paul comment next that she may as well have head shaved? A little knowledge of Corinthian culture – and ancient Greek and Roman culture in general – will actually confirm that the key works. In the Greek and Roman culture, there were three reasons that a woman might shave her head (or have it shaved for her). One reason, and probably the reason that Paul has in mind here, is that a husband who found out that his wife had been unfaithful to him was justified in shaving her head, stripping her bare, and beating her through the streets as punishment for her unfaithfulness. Another reason that a woman might have her head shaved was if she was bought or taken captive as a slave. Sometimes slave women were used as prostitutes, though certainly not all prostitutes had shaved heads. A third reason why a woman might shave her head or cut her hair short would be to assert her independence from her husband. For a woman to have a shaved head, then, would mean that she is either an unfaithful wife, a slave (and possibly used as a prostitute), or one who asserts her independence and freedom from her husband. A woman with a shaved head could be only one of three things: either one who had been deliberately unfaithful to her husband, one who was a slave and had no husband, or one who was married but wanted to be independent from her husband. In ancient Greek and Roman culture, these same statements were made by any woman who went out in public without a covering on her head. From the moment that a respectable woman was married, she would never again let anyone other than very close relatives see her head uncovered. Any woman who showed herself in public with her head uncovered openly advertised herself as available, unmarried. Therefore, any woman who appeared in public with an uncovered head dishonoured her head – that is, her husband. There are two points that need clarification before we can go on: 1) Why are we talking about husbands and wives when Paul wrote only “men” and “women”? and 2) Why are we talking about women going out in public when Paul wrote about women “praying and prophesying”? The first one is relatively simple. In the Greek language that Paul used, there are no words directly equivalent to the English words “husband” and “wife” (I believe a similar situation exists in German). The word Paul uses here for “man” 2

My purpose in preaching this sermon is that we should dress ourselves for public worship in honour of our head. is ἄδρος (andros), which means a human male. And, remembering our key – that man is the head of woman – we can understand that Paul here doesn’t mean that every man is the head of every woman. He writes that when a woman prays or prophesies with her head uncovered she dishonours her man, she dishonours her human male: her husband. That’s why we are talking about wives honouring or dishonouring their husbands. The second issue is why we have gone from a discussion about praying and prophesying to one about public worship. This question can only be addressed by studying the context of the passage. First, notice ho9w from 11:2-14:40 the conversation is focused on the behaviour of the church when it gathers. Note the similar phrases in 11:2 and 11:17: “I praise you,” and, “I have no praise for you.” See how Paul writes that the purpose of prophecy is to edify those who hear it (14:3-4), clearly not a private endeavour. And don’t let 14:15-17 escape your attention either: “So what shall I do? I will pry with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind …. If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one … say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying” While praying is certainly not confined to public worship settings, we can reasonably conclude that Paul is addressing a public worship gathering in 11:2-14:40. Since Paul is dealing with the issue of appropriate dress in public worship, the only real command or direct instruction that he comes to is that “the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (11:10). There are several different ways that this verse has been translated, but in the context of what has been written here, it is clear that Paul means that a woman must have something on her head when she gathers with others for worship. The reason why she must do so is so that she does not dishonour her husband, who is her head. Paul isn’t saying that women must go through a man to get to God (except that man be Jesus Christ), for both men and women are dependent on one another; but man and woman are different creatures, not in value, but in glory. Next, Paul says some things about hair that may at first seem to confound the issue. “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him; but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering” (11:14-15). Now if we get to the end of things here and forget about the beginning, we may well conclude that if a woman has long hair she fulfills the command to wear a covering on her head and is therefore appropriately dressed to honour her head – her husband – in public worship. This conclusion, however, would turn Paul’s argument in verses five and six into nonsense. His statement that “If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off” would then mean that if a woman has short hair, then she should have her hair cut. There is no reason to believe that for a woman to have her hair either cut or shaved was substantially different in ancient Greek culture. It wasn’t’ as if a woman who chose to cut her hair short was still honourable to her husband, but once her hair was shaved she was then a disgrace. Short hair and shaved hair were, for the purposes of honour and shame, indistinguishable from one another on a woman. How then can we understand verse fifteen in a helpful way? I believe one helpful way of reading it is like this: “for long hair has been given to her against (or opposite to) a covering.” The key to this understanding is the word ἀντί (anti) which Paul places between “hair” and “covering”: “a woman has been given long hair anti a covering.” To translate anti as “in place of” is certainly not an irresponsible translation if the context suits. But the word can also mean “opposite” or “against.” This is the meaning we understand when Scripture speaks of the antichrist: the one who is against Christ. Yes, the antichrist may well set himself up in place 3

My purpose in preaching this sermon is that we should dress ourselves for public worship in honour of our head. of Christ, but we are not to understand that the antichrist is a fitting replacement for Christ. It is just the opposite; they are against one another, and do opposite things. So, it is also that a woman who prays or prophesies in public worship with her long hair – that is, with her hair done up and visible for all to see – is the opposite of a woman who prays or prophesises in public worship with a covering on her head. A woman who goes about in public with her head uncovered glorifies herself and dishonours her husband, who is her head. And in the same way, a man who attends public worship with a covering on his head glorifies himself and dishonours Christ, who is his head. We have spent most of our time talking about what Paul says to the women, and that’s because Paul is most concerned about women covering their heads and addresses the only imperative to them. But the principle applies to men as well: honour your head, Christ. The very brief explanation for how a man dishonours Christ by praying or prophesying with his head covered is this: in ancient Greek worship, men would pull the backs of their togas up over their heads in honour of the gods to whom they offered their sacrifices; therefore, a man who covered his head in worship would appear to be maintaining the customs of culturally-respectable idol worship. To worship Christ as one worships an idol may have given a man greater honour among his idolworshipping neighbours, but dishonoured Christ. This is the point to which we come: do we – men and women both – dress ourselves in such a way as to honour our head when we gather for public worship? Dress yourselves for public worship in honour of your head. Dress yourself for public worship in honour of your head. Does this mean that women must wear head coverings as our Mennonite friends do? I don’t believe so. If we lived in a society that recognized unmarried and available women as those who went about with their heads uncovered, then the answer would be different. And should men – or boys – always be required to remove our caps when we pray? I don’t believe so – at least, not because of this scripture, though we may do so because several centuries of very strict hat etiquette among men have left behind certain customs that are considered polite and respectable. So, then what does it mean for women to dress themselves for public worship in honour of their head? As a man, I feel both well-positioned and ill-fitted to speak much on the subject, but I’m going to make an attempt at it anyway. I understand that most women desire to be attractive; the question is, “To whom?” Do you desire to be attractive your husband? Or do you desire to be attractive your everyone who lays eyes on you? There was a novel written by a Roman author in the second century AD in which the main character, Lucius, claims of himself, “It has always been the prime concern of my life to observe in public the heads and tresses of beautiful women, and then to conjure up the image at home for leisurely enjoyment.” I that culture, Paul instructed that women should wear head coverings. They were to do so for the honour of their husbands. Does it seem too much that we should consider our clothing to honour others instead of bringing glory to ourselves? If I were boil this down to one sentence, I would say this: “To dress yourself in such a way that nobody notices your clothes, whether in their abundance or lack, is to dress appropriately for public worship.” And to the men I say the same thing. To dress ourselves in such a way that nobody notices our clothes – or hats – is to dress appropriately for public worship. In the same way that women may wish to be attractive, men often desire to be comfortable. But what does my comfort have to do with honouring Christ, my head? Or we use clothing as an attempt to appear powerful. But how would my powerfulness 4

My purpose in preaching this sermon is that we should dress ourselves for public worship in honour of our head. in any way honour Christ? Or perhaps we use clothes with various forms of advertising on them in order to borrow the glory of others and apply it to ourselves (think of sports jerseys and hats). But how does that in any way honour Christ? Is there a dress code for public worship? Yes, there is, and this is it: Honour your head. Wives, honour your husbands; men, honour Christ. This isn’t about the necessity of “dressing up.” It may mean dressing down. Or it may simply mean that we begin to take our clothing at public worship seriously. Our clothing says much about what we intend to do. What does your clothing say about what you came here to do this morning? To draw attention to yourself? Or to give honour to another?

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