Granny’s Bra

Heads turned when my grandmother walked in the room for breakfast. Or so I was told. Decades would pass before I was born. My father and his brother were young teenage punks at this particular time. And being young teenage punks, they kept needling their parents. Smart alecks, sneaky, and scantily clad for breakfast. Their breakfast attire consisted of boxer shorts and undershirts.

Showing up for breakfast without being fully dressed and ready for the day grated on their parents. It was their father who pleasantly asked the boys to not come into the kitchen in their underwear. They continued showing up in their underwear.

Their father strongly urged the boys to get ready first, then come down for breakfast. They continued showing up in their underwear.

Their father passionately implored the boys to let their underwear live up to its name. They continued showing up with their underwear as their outerwear.

Nothing worked. Nothing, at least, until my grandmother arrived late for breakfast that morning. She strode into the room and went about her normal routine. Yet, instead of hearing the usual clinking silverware, rustling newspapers and discussions about the day ahead, she moved around in thick silence.

The boys and her husband stared at her. I’m sure one of them froze with a fork halfway up to an open mouth.

She eventually came to the head of the table and faced them all …

… in her bra.

My grandfather reportedly erupted like Vesuvius, chasing the boys and my grandmother out of the kitchen with a high volume, red-faced berating. Everyone showed up for breakfast fully clothed forever more.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 4, Paul vents about the arrogance of some of the church members, and the trouble it is causing. He challenges them, and warns them that he is coming to find out if they are all just talk, or whether they have some real God-given power.

And he offers them a choice for this confrontation: “What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?” (1 Cor. 4:21). There will still be confrontation. The results will probably be the same. But the discussion can either be harsh or mild.

When confronting their boys about their choice of breakfast attire, both of my grandparents chose their own way to confront their boys. Although he tried to be gentle at first, my grandfather used words of escalating harshness. My grandmother never said a word, which could have been misinterpreted as being complacent, but delicately used her delicates to deliver her point.

And which method got results, the rod or the gentle spirit?

Which method will get us results next time we need to confront someone?

Which method would we want someone to confront us with?