Out Our Way: A cowboy hat or a cowboy's hat? - Jeremiah 32: 1-15

Out our way, we know a cowboy hat is something anyone can buy at the store, and they come in different colors and styles. We see folks wearing them all the time because they like the look. Nothing wrong with that. But we also see the difference between a “cowboy hat” and a “cowboy’s hat.” For a cowboy’s hat is unique having endured the trails and tribulations of cowboying. Rain, snow, heat, sun, dirt, being stomped, and such, make the cowboy’s hat his or her signature. It bears the signs of use and wear and tear that goes with being a working cowboy.

Now that I am retired and hauling carts at the mall to make ends meet, I still wear that old hat that has served me so many years. It kept the sun off my face and neck and was my “Montana Umbrella” when the monsoon season hit back in the day, and still does the same even here in the city, and folks have started to notice. There is something unique and different about my hat that the fashionable Stetson does not share. For it is not just a cowboy hat, but has become a cowboy’s hat. I grant I was never much of a hand, but Charlie and I did work cattle together for a number of years and the signs of those days are written plain to see in my hat.

Now, it seemed the Lord wanted me to share this insight for a more important reason than to brag on my worn, twisted, stained and glorious hat. So I hope to use it to illustrate two things about the Christian faith by using my hat as a parable.

First, like the cowboy’s hat demonstrates that it is not all the fun and games of those TV westerns of the 50s. Roy Rogers’ hat never got dirty, nor did his fancy shirts and beautiful neck scarfs. But Roy Rogers was a movie star and not a cowboy. You can’t cowboy in a fancy dress shirt and with a silver-encrusted fancy saddle. Real cowboys get dirty, sweaty, cold, and their hats show the wear and tear of the trade. In the same way, those who follow Christ and really become disciples find the Way is fraught with hardships as well as joys — and their lives, like the cowboy’s hat, show the signs of wear and tear. The false prophets of our time who preach a so-called “prosperity gospel” in which “real Christians have no trials or tribulations” clearly like the Sadducees of Jesus day, “neither know the scriptures nor God” [Mark 12: 24].

Christians who think and act like sitting in a pew and being entertained is all there is to the faith are like the dime store cowboys who buy the fancy Stetson and think they are now cowboys. Anyone who tells you the Way is an easy trail has never ridden it. Remember, the Church service is the “chuck wagon” and not the roundup. 

Now, to the second thing I think God wants me to share, is that the cowboy’s hat, despite the hardships, is also tough and durable. As you read the Jeremiah passage, recall the terrible hardships that were coming to Judah. The pagan Babylonians, who would destroy Jerusalem, burn the Temple to the ground, and take the Jews into exile for 70 years, were at the gate. Yet Jeremiah reminded them that God was still God. The trail was hard, but the faithful would endure. And so they did.

Jesus once referred to Satan as “the ruler or prince of this world” [John 14:30]. God has allowed him to challenge, pester and persecute the faithful. Read the scriptures and you discover that no generation of the faithful have ever had an easy time of it. We have an Enemy who stalks us like a pack of coyotes stalk a newborn calf. Even so, the faithful keep going, for, as Jeremiah reminds us, though the Enemy may be the present “prince of the world” to the gullible, he is not the King. His time is limited, as is his power. The faithful who resist his power will always bear the marks of the wear and tear of the long trail.

The Way is, and always has been, a hard trail to ride. The “dime store cowboy” is content with a “cowboy hat” religion, but the disciple seeks the “cowboy’s hat” faith. Look not to the pristine “cowboy hat” Christian, but look instead to the “cowboy’s hat” disciple whose well worn faith has been molded by the hardships as well as the joys of the Trail. Look to one whose life reflects that she or he has “ridden the river with Christ.”

Be blessed and be a blessing.

Brother John 

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The Rev. John Bruington is the retired pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre. He now lives in Colorado, but continues to write “Out Our Way.” He can be reached for comment or dialogue at [email protected].