Trouble with Red Hats
Jim
by Jim Sutton (http://www.goodwordusa.org)
In a village not too far away, the people are all divided. The community
that once thrived is now broken, divided and poor, because the people no
longer work together.
All the men, and women, and even the little children in this village wear
hats. The hats are made of hide and fur, and so all the hats are brown. Or
at least they used to be.
One day a few years ago, a man had traveled away from the village and had
entered a city where red dye was very popular and available everywhere. A
shopkeeper there had offered to dye the man's hat bright red for a certain
price. It sounded like a lot of money to the man, but the desire to have a
bright red hat soon overtook him, and he could not refuse. He paid the price
and in a few days he had his new red hat.
When he returned home, all the people were amazed and mostly delighted to
see the red hat. Everyone complimented him on it. People would stop him on
the street, or come over to his house, and ask to touch and handle the hat.
They all agreed that it was much softer and warmer now that it was red.
The village people were so busy talking about the red hat that the water
seemed to boil faster, the bread seemed to rise faster, and even the work
went quickly. Life suddenly seemed easier and better. Soon it was decided
that the goats were giving more milk. And were the chickens not laying more
eggs?
Several of the more influential women declared a holiday, to celebrate the
arrival of the red hat. The man had become a village hero. And many even
wanted to make him the chief man in the village. No one could stop talking
about how the red hat had changed everything for the better in the village.
But not everyone was pleased at all the attention the man with the red hat
was getting. A couple of the wives began to complain to their husbands, "Oh,
if only you had brought home a red hat."
Others said, "I think that hat is ugly. Blue is a much nicer color for a
hat." And then one man, the oldest man in the village, had an old hog that
died. It was, after all, very old. But the man blamed the red hat.
In the months that followed, several others began to come home with red
hats. And then a few men who traveled to other cities began wearing blue
hats. And some of the women also began wearing hats of different colors. All
of this caused more celebrity at first, but then things began to slide back
to normal. It was no longer an amazing thing for people to wear hats that
had been dyed.
So the water took longer to boil again, since no one was talking as much.
And the chickens and goats seemed ordinary again. Hardly anyone felt like
keeping the holiday that had been established for the first red hat.
And in time, some of the people (who never traveled to cities where dye was
common) began to complain about all the artificial colors that villagers
were wearing. It all seemed indecent to them.
"Whoever saw a bright red rabbit?" said one man.
"Or when has there ever been a blue deer or elk?" said another.
"Brown was good enough for my grandfather, and it's good enough for me,"
said the loudest of them all.
The group of Uncolored Hat Wearers began to get together just to talk about
how unnatural and harmful all those colors were. And the more they reasoned
among themselves, the more they were convinced that it was not only
unnatural, but it was very and deeply wrong to wear a hat that had been
dyed. And so they began to talk more and more to the others in the village.
Several young men of the village were converted over to this way of
thinking. They took their red and blue and yellow hats and burned them in a
big public fire. And then some of the more influential women also went back
to wearing natural browns and grays, as before.
In fact, the grayer the hat, the better these new converts felt about
themselves. And so, within the group of "Natural Colors Only" there grew up
a smaller, more elite group of "Gray Is Better Than Brown, Because It's
Plain And Unpretentious." Gray just seemed to be more purely natural, more
honest.
"After all," one of them exclaimed, "Why should any man or woman want to
stand out from the others, or to draw attention to themselves?"
At first these changes went along without much real bother to anyone. People
just wore whatever they wanted. But then the "Gray Is Better Than Brown,
Because It's Plain And Unpretentious" group became more and more vocal, and
more insistent. They stopped doing business with the people who wore hats of
various unnatural colors. And they even stopped talking with them. Whole
families were soon being divided over the issue of hat color.
When any stranger came to town they were nearly pulled apart by the warring
groups, as each group tried to persuade the newcomer of their own point of
view. And all groups would often claim new-born babies until the child had
reached an age of decision. It was heartbreaking for many of the children to
have to choose sides and lose good friends, or lose the closeness of family.
Now, I know what you're thinking. What foolish people! Why would they
sacrifice their own love and their peace of mind over such silly things as
the color of a hat?
Sad, isn't it? So why do we do such things?
Only in Jesus Christ, and in fellowship with Him do we begin to discover the
life and light and love of God -- a love that reaches out to all human
beings everywhere. In Jesus we all become one family, whoever trusts in Him.
God has broken down the walls that divide, making all who know Him into one
group.
So then what God has made into one, let no man try to divide up again.