HUSBANDS AND FATHERS
--Ephesians 5:21-6:4; Genesis 2:18-24
I still deeply love and respect my Dad even though next month he will have been with Jesus for nineteen years. Dad was forty-three when I was born and Mom was forty-one, they had lost their only other child and son at birth sixteen years and two days before I was born; therefore, I was raised as an only child. If he were living today my Dad would be 101 years old.
Dad and I had little that we shared in common. He was a hard worker and served the Central Illinois Public Service Company in Marion for forty years most of the time as the Supervisor for the gas construction crews. Dad was a handy man who could do anything around the house. My interests were always in academics and music. While I always did well in math, social sciences, and English; I never inherited Dad’s mechanical abilities. My idea of a good time is an evening spent solving algebraic equations, diagramming English sentences, writing an essay or a sermon, but I have no idea how to repair a car, and I certainly can not rewire a house. These were Dad’s passions.
Dad only finished the eighth grade. His Mother never attended school and was never able to read nor write her name. Yet there was never a kinder, more caring, loving, Christian Gentleman than Corum Reynolds. He was loved and respected by everyone in our home Church Marion Aldersgate United Methodist, and Ida Bell Reynolds was the ideal grandmother. From earliest childhood my Dad, and Mom too, instilled in me that I would go to College, and they sacrificed to see that I finished Asbury College and Asbury Theological Seminary without owing any debt.
Growing up in Southern Illinois in the 1950s and 60s we seldom had a good snow, one deep enough to go sledding or make a snowman. I remember one year that we did I was home sick with the flu and unable to go outside. I can still see Dad making the snowman for me, as I watched from our living room window.
He was the best when it came to being a Christian father and husband. I sill have the love letters he wrote to my Mom when they were dating before their marriage in 1926. My Uncle Ralph, Dad’s younger brother, was nine years his junior. I have deep appreciation for our Pentecostal brothers and sisters in Christ and the renewal the Charismatic Movement has brought to the Universal Church including United Methodism, but around 1926 the infant Pentecostal Movement was a new Christian phenomenon. So Dad closed one of his love letters to Mom by writing, “Ralph is making fun of the Pentecostals,” something one of my cousins later told me was a common practice among mainline denomination Christians during the 1920s and 30s in Williamson County’s Carterville, Illinois.
Dad lived the sermon I am preaching today to the fullest. Throughout God’s Word the Holy Spirit gives us explicit commandments in being Christian husbands and fathers , but our passages in Genesis and Ephesians have always been personal favorites for me.
As Christian husbands and fathers God calls us to be the spiritual leaders in our home, but this never implies that the male is in any way superior to the female nor that God ever intended that we men ever treat any woman as a second class citizen. God’s words in Genesis 2:18 are proof of that fact: “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” The old King James Version says, “I will make him an help meet for him.” “An help meet” is simply a helper, a partner.
The same word, fellows, that Scripture used to describe our wives as our helpers is also used to express that our greatest helper of all is the Lord our God. God’s plan from the beginning has been equality of the sexes; Christian marriage we have the union of two equals both who have been created in the image of God.
We do have different functions. Only women can bear children, but not without a male contributor. That’s not the only distinction. As I discovered on the recent Walk to Emmaus when Liz served as the Lay Director, Sue was one of our pilgrims, and I was privileged to serve as the Spiritual Director. This was my eleventh time to be either the Spiritual Director or an Assistant Spiritual Director on a Walk to Emmaus, but the very first time to do so for a Women’s Walk. I found out on this weekend that even though we share the same format for a Men’s and Women’s Walk, women just act, think, and react differently than we men do; there is a completely different dynamic between a Women’s Weekend and a Men’s. We fellows have a lot of fun on our weekends, but these Women on Central Illinois Walk #193 were “totally crazy.”
God our loving Heavenly Father created us male and female to complement one another, to bring out the best in one another, to respect each other, to support each other, and to be committed to each other as mutual helpers and partners in the Christian home.
So, what does the Scripture mean in Ephesians when Paul says, “ wives, be subject to your husbands” and “the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church?” The Ephesians passage does not begin at that point, but in verse twenty-one which precedes those words when Paul exhorts us, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Paul begins by reminding us that in the Church, and we can extend Church to include the Church in our homes as well, that Christians are called upon to mutually submit to one another. I know from my own home experience that if I make a major decision on my own without conferring with Liz for her wisdom, guidance, counsel, and discernment that more often than not I am in for a big fall; I’ll make a major mistake and really botch things up big time. There is no place for a spirit of dominance or dictatorship neither in Christian homes nor in the total Family of God.
Recently I preached another sermon explaining that the word submit is a Greek military term which pictures military unites, consisting of various officers and enlisted men, submitting to the leadership of their commanding officer. In a non-military setting such as we find in our passage in Ephesians it speaks of a voluntary attitude and spirit of cooperating. As we have said, only a wife can bear children, and that requires a spirit of cooperation and voluntary submission to her husband.
Fellows, Paul makes the point in our passage that we are to be “the head of the home as Christ is the head of the church.” Again that does not mean dictatorship or abusive authority on our part, for Jesus sets our standard high. “We are to love our wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.” We are to love our wives with the same agape love that Christ loves the Church. Agape is the highest form of love.
Agape love is unconditional love, love with no strings attached. Agape is self-sacrificial love, it is non-discriminating love, active love, thoughtful love. As Christ sacrificed His life for the Church on the cross so that we might be “holy and without blemish,” so we husbands must be willing to lay down our own lives for our wives and families. We are to follow “In His Steps” and love our wives unconditionally, self-sacrificially, actively, and thoughtfully.
James S. Hewett tells this story. “A tyrannical husband demanded that his wife conform to rigid standards of his choosing. She was to do certain things for him as a wife, mother, and homemaker. In time she came to hate her husband as much as she hated his list of rules and regulations. Then, one day de died—mercifully as far as she was concerned.
“Some time later, she fell in love with another man and married him. She and her new husband lived on a perpetual honeymoon. Joyfully, she devoted herself to his happiness and welfare. One day she ran across one of the sheets of dos and don’ts her first husband had written for her. To her amazement she found that she was doing for her second husband all the things her first husband had demanded of her, even though her new husband had never once suggested them. She did them as an expression of her love for him and her desire to please him.” [--James S. Hewett,
Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988), p. 501].
This is the spirit of submission Paul envisions in the Christian home.
In the September/October 1998 edition of the Christian Reader Clare Null from Oklahoma City writes: “It was Father’s Day and my Sunday school class of five-year-old boys was working on homemade cards. I suggested they draw a picture of something their father liked—maybe golf balls, a fishing pole, a pet.
“One youngster raised his hand. ‘May I draw a picture of my Mom? My Dad sure likes her a lot!’” That’s what Paul had in mind when he wrote that “The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church.” This is the type of husband and father God calls all of us men to be before our wives and children.
Paul concludes our passage this morning by exhorting us as fathers to “bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Again the King James Version puts it this way: “but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Paul is saying that we as Fathers have the responsibility and privilege of molding the Christian character of the children God has entrusted to our care and keeping. We instruct them by precept and example through our actions. Christian character is “more caught than taught.”
Admonition or instruction refers to “training by word.” In building Christian character we are called upon to speak words of encouragement. Sometimes our words may need to be words of reprimand in order to correct some sin, fault, error, but may they be spoken in earnest, gentle reproving advice, so we avoid “provoking our children to anger.”
In his book Sons: a Father’s Love Bob Carlisle shares this incident that happened with his Father. “When I was 12, a surprising thing happened. Dad asked me to go fishing with him. He was a busy executive, rarely around on weekends. We got along but never had a serious conversation unless I was in trouble at school. I was flattered.
“On Saturday we headed for the marina, rented a boat and found a promising spot. Once we were settled, Dad said, ‘Son, I can see that you’re changing from a boy to a man and that’s a good thing. But I think you may also find this to be a confusing time.’
“Dad proceeded with the coming-of-age-talk. At times he groped for words, but he didn’t miss a thing. When he’d finished, I sat there, feeling the movement of the boat and the wind in my hair, wondering if I was dreaming. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘having you talk to me like this is what I’ve always wanted, but I didn’t think you’d want to.’
“He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’ve always had a hard time talking to you kids. But I want you to know I care about you, that I’m here if you need to talk to me about anything.’ I don’t remember if we caught any fish that day. I do remember finding out for the first time that my dad really was my friend” [--Carlisle, Bob. Sons: A Father’s Love (Word, 1999), quoted in Men of Integrity, Vol. 3 No. 3 p. 47.].
Keep your radio dial set at Olivet Nazarene University’s 89.7 ShineFM and you’ll soon hear Phillips, Craig, and Dean’s song “Just Like You.” There is no better prayer for us as Christian Fathers to pray on Fathers’ Day 2006 than this compelling, contemporary, Christian song:
He climbs in my lap for a goodnight hug
He calls me Dad and I call him Bub
With his faded old pillow and a bear named Pooh
He snuggles up close and says, "I want to be like you"
I tuck him in bed and I kiss him goodnight
Trippin’ over the toys as I turn out the light
And I whisper a prayer that someday he’ll see
He’s got a father in God ’cause he’s seen Jesus in me
Lord, I want to be just like You
’Cause he wants to be just like me
I want to be a holy example
For his innocent eyes to see
Help me be a living Bible, Lord
That my little boy can read
I want to be just like You
’Cause he wants to be like me
Got to admit I’ve got so far to go
Make so many mistakes and I’m sure that You know
Sometimes it seems no matter how hard I try
With all the pressures in life I just can’t get it all right
But I’m trying so hard to learn from the best
Being patient and kind, filled with Your tenderness
’Cause I know that he’ll learn from the things that he sees
And the Jesus he finds will be the Jesus in me
Right now from where he stands I may seem mighty tall
But it’s only ’cause I’m learning from the best Father of them all.
[--http://www.lyricsdownload.com/phillips-craig-dean-i-want-to-be-just-like-you-lyrics.html]
May we daily learn “from the best Father of them all” how to be the Christian husbands and fathers Jesus calls us all to be.
