Sometimes my father makes me so mad. Some of the things he says and does just really get me going. It isn’t as bad as it used to be. I guess because we aren’t around each other as much it isn’t as big of a problem. Still, he is very capable of making me very angry. And, he can do it faster than just about anyone else on the planet.
As I said when I was a kid it was much worse than it is today. One of the times I got the angriest I ever got with my father was at Boy Scout summer camp one year. I want you to keep in mind, my father was the scoutmaster. He also said, to most anyone who would listen, he treated me just like all the other boys. It was something I knew to be untrue, but he didn’t see it that way. When we got to camp that year our troop was given a large can, about the size of a three pound can of coffee, full of peanut butter. It was there so we could make sandwiches and that kind of thing. One morning my dad looked into the can of peanut butter and found a spoon with my initials on it. That set him off. He searched me out. I was with my patrol, where I was supposed to be. He dressed me down real good right there in front of all the other kids. Actually, closer to the truth is, he went beseric. That was something I knew he would never do to all the other boys. What my father didn’t know, didn’t bother to ask, and wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain was, while the spoon was mine, I had two sets of eating utensils with me. One of the other boys had forgotten his and I let him borrow my extra set. If he would have asked or listened, I could have shown him that I still had the other set.
It really made me mad that he wouldn’t listen to me. It also made me angry that I had to constantly listen to his song and dance about treating me just like all the other boys. I knew he would have corrected them, but it would have been handled much differently. It wasn’t fair and I knew it. It just wasn’t right.
I know that as I stand here this morning I know that I am the only one in this room whose dad ever did anything to make them mad. I know that has to be the case because today we are celebrating Father’s Day. Would we do that if we were all angry with our dads? I know that isn’t the case. In fact I would be quite willing to say that if we are honest with ourselves and each other, at some point in time almost every gets angry with one of their parents, especially our dads.
As I have reflected on my life I have come to realize that one of the biggest problems that I have had is that I tend to hang onto these kinds of things. That is no where more true than in my relationship with my dad. For years, this incident in particular but others too, arguments over grades, curfews, and one over drugs he thought I was using and wasn’t stick out in my mind as something that framed my relationship with my father for more than twenty years.
What he did made me angry. Sometimes it made me so angry that I didn’t want to be in the same room with him. The more time went along the more quickly he would set me off because I was still angry about something he had done, or that I perceived he had done five, ten, fifteen years or more before.
I joked when I said that I alone had problems with my dad. I know that many people have those same kinds of problems not only with moms and dads, but friends and others. I don’t know what it is about us. I think that we realize that we are far from perfect and yet at the same time we expect more from those around us than we ourselves can give. Then when they fall short of our expectations we react with pain, disappointment, and even anger of our own.
As I have looked at my own situations and listened to that of others I have come to the conclusion that all too many of us hang on to this anger and frustration. In one of his comedy albums Bill Cosby talks about problems with his wife where he said not only was she mad about what he did, she recalled a few things he did in 1965 that weren’t too cool. When we hang on to that old anger we dig it back up and at least at times rather freely dispense it back out once again.
This anger that we carry around inside us medical science tells us is bad for our health. I understand that there is research that shows that unresolved anger can considerably shorten our life span. Further, I think that it is beyond question that the continual resurfacing of this anger cannot possibly do our relationships much good either.
What that says to me is, we have to find a way to let it go. For the good of our own health, we have to let it go. For the good of the relationships we cherish, we have to let it go. For the good of those we care about we have to let it go. Even for those who frustrate us most and we find it difficult to love yet Jesus calls our neighbors, we have to let it go. For me, the message is loud and clear. Let it go.
It is only when we find a way to let go of our stored up anger and frustration that we can find happiness. It is only when we let go of what upsets us that we can find a way to move toward loving relationships with our families, with our friends and acquaintances and others that God calls on us to pour out our love on. Remember the words to Jesus’ prayer we recited together as a group a few minutes ago, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"? To forgive is to let it go. Remember the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, "If you forgive people their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive people their offenses, your Father will not forgive your sins?" We have to let it go.
In our lesson this morning we see just such a situation. Jacob without question loved Joseph more than his other sons. He poured out that love on Joseph in very tangible ways. Is there anything wrong with a father showing love to his son? Obviously the answer is no. Is there something wrong with a father showing more love to one child than to the others? That answer must be yes.
It seems clear from reading the story about the relationship that Jacob had with Joseph and his other brothers that there were several problems that were evident. Jacob had a problem. The way I read the story Joseph had a problem too. He was a spoiled little brat at this point of the story.
But, the problems don’t end there. I think that every time Jacob did something for Joseph the brothers got a little angrier. Getting a special coat, a little anger. Staying home with dad while they were out working, a little more anger. As the stored up anger grew and grew it got out of control. Eventually it reached the boiling point and the brothers sold Joseph into slavery.
I won’t stand here and tell you that the brothers shouldn’t have been upset. I think that if most any of us were in the position they were in we would probably find ourselves with more than just a little bit of anger rising up inside us. Their biggest problem, however, was not in the way their father or even Joseph treated them, it was in how they responded to the situation. They responded in anger and hatred. Their response to their frustration brought more pain and more broken relationships. It brought pain not only to Joseph, but to their father whom the story also shows they cared deeply about.
Some may question why I would preach a sermon like this on Father’s Day. I see the relationship between Jacob and his sons repeated so many times today between fathers and their children. It was repeated in my life. First, it was in the relationship between my father and me. Then, I think it also showed up in the relationship between my boys and me. As I see it this great story of the Old Testament holds as much truth today as it did in the day of Jacob and Joseph and any time in between. I preach this sermon today as a way to say to parents, but particularly to we who are fathers, it is time to let it go. At the same time I say to all of us, because we are all someone’s children, it is time to let it go. The anger and frustration that is a stored up part of many of our lives does us no good, it does the people we care about no good, and it does our relationships with them even less good. Let it go.
How do we do that? First I think we realize that our parents, again particularly our fathers, are far from perfect. God made all of us, but we aren’t perfect. Jacob wasn’t perfect. Joseph wasn’t perfect. We are not perfect. What I think is most important about our fathers isn’t that they are perfect, it is that they try. They try to do what is best out of their love for us.
When I look back on that day at summer camp I realize now that what my father did was wrong, but he was doing it for what to him was a very right reason in his mind. He was trying to teach me responsibility. He was trying to teach me to keep up with my things. He made a mistake in the way he went about it, but not in his purpose. I learned some time ago that I had to let it go.
One day this past week I had lunch with our new district superintendent, Charles Millikan. As I have told many of you before, as a young boy Charles was a part of this church and community when his dad, Herman served this church as the pastor. Some of you may even remember that Herman had a corn patch in the backyard at the parsonage. Charles certainly does. He shared this story with me and then told me it was OK for me to share it with you.
He said that often Herman would make him come out and hoe and weed in that little garden. Charles didn’t like it at all. As it is with most young kids, Charles would have much rather been out playing ball or running up and down the street or most anything than working at weeding the garden.
One day Herman made Charles come outside to weed. Herman gave him a whole row to weed. That made Charles a pretty angry little boy. Mad though he may have been, he went to work. He said that when he was about a quarter to a third of the way down the row, he heard something and looking up, he saw his father coming from the other end to meet him. His father didn’t expect him to do it all, he did expect him to try.
As we reflect on our relationships with our fathers and others, I don’t think that God expects us to do it all, but God does expect us to try. All too many relationships between parents and children and relationships between friends and others close to us have been destroyed because we won’t try to get rid of our anger. It isn’t always easy to do so, but we have to try. And, we try when, we let it go.
