Sermon for Pentecost 14, 03.09.2023
Fathers' Day
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
'Pay close attention, son, and let my life be your example' (Proverbs 23:26 TEV). This is the text:
Let us pray: Lord, sanctify us in the truth; Your Word is Truth. Amen.
Happy Father's Day! That's the customary greeting today, isn't it! But it could also be for some considered a little presumptuous! Those who have not had a good and positive role model in their father, or those who have just buried their father and are in deep grief today may think the greeting, "Happy Father's Day" doesn't apply and may even conjure up nothing but heartache and disappointment. And if you are not a father, you may feel left out all together. But we must remember that all males can conduct themselves in a fatherly manner and influence multiple generations of developing boys and girls.
Fathers, is it a happy day for you? Or does the celebration of Father's Day bring with it mixed feelings? Fathers, how is your relationship with your children? By what you say and what you do, are you setting them a good example? Number 17 of "The 30 Wise Sayings" in chapters 22, 23 and 24 of the Old Testament book of Proverbs, reminds fathers that their children will watch them closely and follow closely in their footsteps. Father's are incredibly important to us. A good father is an absolute treasure! They are critical in the makeup of what makes a family, a family. When they are taken away from us, we lose something very precious and dear. When they let us down, we are deeply hurt and disappointed. And if they are absent altogether, well then, that can potentially set a pattern that gets passed on from generation to generation.
Many of you fathers will still be able to remember the times when your children followed you around like a shadow, copying and mimicking everything you did. Children will copy everything! It seems at times that children will copy every single little thing, like your habits and your mannerisms and most embarrassingly, your verbal slip-ups when you stub your toe or smack your thumb with a hammer. Any of your behaviours, good or bad, may just make an appearance one day in your child's behaviour. In that way, a child carries around with them a big mirror that they will hold up to you, usually when you least expect it. It's fine if they are doing something cute and admirable, but remember that they can also copy the things you don't want anybody outside the family knowing that you do or say! Many of you who have had children or are right now in the process of trying to rear them the best you can, will easily relate to the teaching contained in Proverbs 23:26, 'Pay close attention, son, and let my life be your example.' So, the question for us fathers today is, "What example are we setting?"
Douglas MacArthur once said, "The fathers plant the tree; the children live in its shade."' It's a quaint saying, but it's true. Fathers do establish an environment in which their children will develop and grow. Fathers have to daily ask to themselves the questions, "How healthy and vital is the tree I have planted?" "Does it have a canopy that is protecting and nurturing, or one that is harmful because it has become bare?"
I will read a couple of paragraphs from page 118 of "To all eternity" which states matter-of-factly God's will for a harmonious family life. The author of the devotion writes,
Truly blessed are those families in which the father is regularly present to provide his share of the shade from the heat of everyday life, in which the mother adds faithful love and nurture, in which the children live in the shadow of a loving relationship between husband and wife. Such children enjoy a special shade throughout their lives that is likely to extend its benefits into future generations.
[How different is the landscape when a tree falls in the forest, leaving a gaping whole in the canopy. When one spouse is missing from the picture, through their willful desertion of their parental responsibilities,] how the shade dissipates when the arms of father and mother work at cross-purposes... The absence of strong and loving arms can result in more heat than young minds and hearts can bare, a failure that too often ends up being repeated in succeeding generations, mirrored in adult lives and passed along to others.
Fathers are graced by the gift of Fatherhood. But what do we do when we fail in this God-given vocation? What consolation do we have when we 'exasperate our children, and fail at raising our children up in the training and instruction of the Lord' (Eph 6:4)? How do we handle our failings, and without becoming bitter and passing on the blame, how do we handle our own father's failings that we may be repeating?
Turning to Psalm 121:5 we read: The Psalmist says, 'The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand'
The Psalmist reminds us fathers that we too have a Heavenly Father who protects us with his evergreen canopy of loving protection. We live and breathe beneath his shade...protected by his care. The Lord, who as a man hung on a Roman cross and died for the forgiveness of all your fatherly failings, is the One who covers you with a protective blanket of shade. He, through the Holy Spirit, is also the One who empowers you through the forgiveness of sins to strive to imitate the true Fatherly care and concern that God the Father has for all his dear children.
On Good Friday, when you consider the wrath of God and man beating down upon Jesus - that point of fatherly abandonment and desolation - there was no shade for the true Son of God to shelter under as he hung on the cross. There Jesus, the Son of God, bore his Father's full fury over the sins of the world. There was no shade for Christ on the cross, for he had to suffer his Father's full judgment and condemnation for the sins of the world. But it was there from the cross that we hear sweet words of forgiveness when Jesus interceded for us. He said, 'Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing' (Luke 23:34).
Good Friday is Good News for fathers who know that they have failed their children, in big ways or small. We know that fathers fail us at times. And through the lens of the cross we know that they are just like us. We are all in need of the forgiveness that Christ brings. Therefore the best example that fathers can set for the next generations is confessing our fatherly failures and asking our children to forgive us. That would be a most powerful demonstration of God's power, and therefore the best example to set, so that it may be imitated by our children to their hearts content!
The "Tree of Fatherhood" was given by God to provide branches for shade for all children. On this tree all our parental failings have been paid for, because, "On the tree of the cross he gave salvation to all, so that, where death began, there life might be restored, and that the enemy, [the Father of lies], who by a tree once overcame, might by a tree be overcome." Under this shade of forgiveness and restoration, we as fathers are privileged a new start at Fatherhood. By God's power, we can embark on providing the protecting and nurturing shade that our children need from us as fathers and from those fatherly figures in their lives.
And the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.