Father’s Day Sermon for CATM – June 21, 2009
A Father to the Fatherless is God - Luke 15:11-24; Psalm 68:4-6
I love being a father. I’ve loved it since day one when Jared was born. I loved it from the moment I got use to the idea that we were going to have a child, 4 years in to the 7 year plan Barb and I had.
Some of you know that I had a jolting entry into fatherhood. It’s really more of Barb’s story of a 30 hour labour followed by a caesarian section that went horribly wrong because an anesthesiologist wasn’t paying attention.
I was told Barb was in crisis and I was wisked away to a waiting room. I was told Barb and the baby were in grave danger. A while later a nurse told me Jared was born by caesarian and was ok but they couldn’t vouch yet for Barb’s survival. I told them I didn’t want to see Jared yet.
Honestly, I was afraid that if she died, I might resent him, as crazy as that sounds. A while later I was told Barb was stable. Those were the worst hours of my life up to that point. Bill Ryan, known to many of us, talked me through that whole experience. He will forever be a dearly loved friend because of it.
Fatherhood. Honestly, it seems weird to talk about as though it can be separated from motherhood. In my experience it can’t be. If I’ve been a good father (my kids will let you know in 20 years) it’s only been because they’ve had an amazing mother.
So in my mind I can’t really see fatherhood as a distinct thing. I’m not sure it’s suppose to be. It’s suppose to be, I believe, part of that bigger thing called parenthood.
And parenthood is something I can talk about as relates to children and family life, but also as relates to the way that God parents you and me.
Let’s look at our first passage for today. Hear the Word of the Lord.
Psalm 68: 4 Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds -- his name is the LORD-- and rejoice before him. 5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. 6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
Our first passage today speaks of God as Father, a strong Father who is deserving of praise for being such a great father. God, our passage says, is a father to the fatherless. God has the care and concern and compassion of an adoptive parent. He treats those who have been mistreated, those who have had no dads, as His own children.
He compensates for those who lack and becomes, Himself, the One who steps in and finds a way to make up for that which human fathers fail in. That is hugely important because all dads fall short.
No matter how great a human father, he will fail. No matter how attentive a man is toward his children, there will be some lack that will be felt by his child. And that lack CAN, and is INTENDED to point people to God, the Father of all.
God is not only a father to the fatherless, but He is One who defends widows. A widow especially in ancient times was powerless. The law of God in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, had all kinds of provisions for widows:
Deuteronomy 10: 17-18 For the LORD your God …defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.
Deuteronomy 24: 19-21 When you are harvesting in your field…when you beat the olives from your trees…when you harvest the grapes in your vineyard…leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow.
Deuteronomy 26: 12 When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied.
Deuteronomy 27: 19 "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow." Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"
God made provisions so that widows and other who needed to be defended WOULD be cared for. Even the tithe…even the tithe was intended to be given to, among others, the fatherless and the widows.
So God defends the cause of the fatherless through His law…and His law conveys what He values, what He protects. What he expects to be honoured among His people. The law of God represents God’s concern for you and for I.
And God sets the lonely in families. He cares for those who are on their own, He empathizes with the isolated and those who are cut off from others. Hmm.
This is an aside, but for years it’s been my desire to see us as a church learn to embrace those who are isolated and alone. You know, we do that in many ways.
Pastor Jan is on vacation today but a lot of what she does with her time is to connect with people in prison. She visits inmates at the women’s prisons and she connects with those who are getting out of jail and helps them to reconnect with healthy supports, perhaps new ‘families’.
Ruth Grimes visits people and helps them. There are others, I’m sure, of you who spend your energies in such ways…I perhaps just don’t hear about it. And if you do, I applaud you.
Whether you know it or not, you are acting as God’s hands and feet, God’s listening ear as you befriend and care for the lonely. You are letting God love others through you.
And because you are doing this, you know that you are richer for it, your faith is stronger for it, your joy is more complete because you enter into the lives of others in order to be a blessing.
One other profound passage about God as Father is found in the story we know as that of the Prodigal Son. I’ve always said that, no matter how much we can easily relate to the son in that story, see ourselves in his actions, the teaching point of this passage is about God, who in the story is the prodigal’s father.
Luke 15:11-24 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ’Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. "When he came to his senses, he said, ’How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. "The son said to him, ’Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ "But the father said to his servants, ’Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Firstly, the father in this story does not control or micromanage the son. When the son asks for his inheritance, arguably a great insult to the father, the father gives it to him.
The father allows his son to do what he wants to do. Some folks have a really hard time with what is called the “freewill” defense of God, that allowing humans to make choices and not be restricted in their actions like robots in order to contain human evil was a flaw in God’s creation of humanity.
I really wish those who object to God having done this would grasp that they are asking to have been created as robots without wills of their own. I digress. The point here is that God dignifies human choice by letting humans choose. In the Scripture today the father let’s the son go with his full inheritance.
If we choose to walk away from God, He will not force us but will woo us with the force of His love.
Now for most of the rest of the story, the father doesn’t seem to be there. That’s what the son wants so that he can do what he wants to do without feeling guilty, so he can party with impunity.
But of course the father is still living and is still loving and, though seemingly distant, that sense of absence is nothing more than a fiction created by the son, because we see when the son returns to the father that the father is overjoyed.
The human father in story had thought the worst…thought the son was dead…can you imagine the pain and worry and the grief that the father lived with for those years. There are volumes that could be written about the suffering the father in this parable endured. But now the father rejoices in his return.
The point here is that we may walk away from God, not perhaps by leaving the faith, but by living as though we did not have faith, as though we had no fear of God; we may walk away from God in our conduct, OR in what we say we believe, but this does not change the love of the Father for us. God loves. God is love. God never ceases loving. This is not an excuse to sin or neglect our relationship with God. This is encouragement to know, accurately, just how profoundly we are loved.
In my 29 years as a Christian I’ve done my share of straying from where I should be spiritually. Is the pastor allowed to say that? Well it’s true of course. And when I‘ve allowed some distance to grow between myself and God, I’ve often felt that getting back to right relationship with God would be really tough.
Have you ever felt that? Well, I have…but I’m honestly surprised by how easy it is to return to God once I’ve decided that’s what I want to do.
God doesn’t hold out. In a human relationship when something goes awry, there can be a process of things getting put back together right.
Understandably, trust needs to be rebuilt sometimes. Sometimes we require penance of one who has wronged us. I’m not saying that’s good or right, I’m just saying, it happens.
But God is different. The same way God requires of us only a mustard seed of faith to begin with in order to grow something faithful and beautiful in our lives, God requires very little of us in order to begin restoring our relationship with Him.
If we’ve never come to God through Christ, what does God require of us to become a Christian? Does He make us jump through hoops to come to him? Some in the early church thought so.
They argued that in order for a person to become a Christian they had to first go through the Jewish ritual of circumcision. These folks wanted to make the process of coming to faith something difficult. Thank God that the Apostle Paul and others identified that this was wrong. If you decide that you want to follow Jesus, to become a Christian, what do you need to do? Very little.
God asks us to repent. To identify that we have sinned and that we are sinners and to choose to follow Him. He then asks us to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and to receive Him as our Lord and Saviour. God requires very little of us in order to begin restoring our relationship with Him.
If you are a believer and something, some sin, has come between you and God, what does God require?
1 John 1: 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Seems simple, I know, but God’s Word is true. God doesn’t hold out. He is eager to restore us. He wants to be in relationship with us. Why is it so simple? Why don’t we have to labour and jump through hoops to find favour with God?
I remember a character in the movie: “The Mission” played by Robert Deniro who carried a literal heavy burden on his back for days and weeks, trying to suffer for his sins in order to earn the forgiveness of God. But you know, it’s not possible to earn the forgiveness of God. Let me say that again: It is not possible to earn the forgiveness of God. IF it were, the price would be impossible to pay.
Coming to God is simple only because of the enormous price Christ paid for our sins…your forgiveness and my forgiveness cost Jesus His life. He bore the burden, the weight, the suffering for sin.
So we learn much about God as father from the father in the prodigal son story.
So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. "The son said to him, ’Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ "But the father said to his servants, ’Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
This is a picture of God as Father. The Father who sees us when we are still a long way off. The Father who is filled with compassion for you and for me. We might be filled with regret. We might be filled with sorrow.
We might be filled with all kinds of dark things. God is filled with compassion. God runs to us, as it were, when we begin to take tentative steps toward Him.
And when we cry out our confession, when we take stock of how we’ve behaved and what we’ve done…you know, that’s important for us to do, and God wants to hear it.
But you know, he knows it already. And by the time we get around to giving words to our repentance, God is already celebrating our return.
As a father, this speaks volumes and volumes to me. When children are young they follow your lead and they want to please you and they’re figuring out their place in the world.
When they get to be teenagers, they begin to carve out their own understanding of things. They need to be given the space to grow beyond where they were when they were young.
So here’s what the father in the story of the prodigal son teaches me: He teaches me what loving my children means.
I think parents can really take personally their children’s behaviour. We see what they do as a reflection of us, and so when they go off the rails, we can take it very hard.
Do you think the son’s actions and behaviour in this parable are a reflection of the father? Does his riotous and immoral behaviour seem a commentary on the father or on the son? To me it’s clear that the son’s behaviour is atypical and pretty deviant from the norm in the family.
But we can take it hard when our kids’ mess up, and then we can come down hard, very hard on them. Scripture contains a warning for us though.
Ephesians 6: 4 says: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord”.
I like the Message paraphrase: “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master”.
Or again in Colossians 3:21 from the Message: “Parents, don’t come down too hard on your children or you’ll crush their spirits”.
So the father in this story…he seems free of all the vanity and ego that might trip me up. He does what a loving parent should do. He mourns when the son has gone off the tracks and he rejoices exceedingly when the son comes home.
Today is father’s day, and we honour those here today who are fathers, and who take their fatherhood seriously.
May each of us be open to allowing God’s fatherhood in, that God might heal us of the wounds left by our own fathers, and that God may strengthen us to be and become the fathers we should be.
May we always rely on the fatherhood of God to guide us. May we parent well with hearts of love and a ceaseless commitment to the well-being of our children.
Let’s pray. God, would you touch and bless each father here today, and by extension would you touch and bless each person here today who has a father. Would you help us to embrace afresh Your perfect Fatherhood, allowing all the healing you want to come to us in.
And would you help us to look forward. God, many of us are parents. Would you help us walk a corrective path? Where we were failed, would you heal the effects of those wounds through the way, the better way we choose, by Your grace, to parent our children.
And may we stand before on that last day having been found faithful in all You have called us to. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
