Sermon Title: "Our Father"
Author's Name: Rev. Alex Knight
Some years ago, a man wrote a book in which he said, "I learned all that I needed to know in kindergarten." It was a national best seller. All he did was humorously look back at the lessons of life he had learned in kindergarten, . . . how to get along with other people and to respect other people. One of the things he pointed to was the truth that most of what we have learned about life we learned by the time we were of the age to go to kindergarten. The sad part of this reality is we were not aware we were learning our lessons for life. But the truth is, we learn most about who we are and how we're going to relate in the various roles we play in life by the time we are in kindergarten or age 6 or 7. Today, all of us are playing various roles. We are sons or daughters, we are mothers or we are fathers, we are husbands or we're wives. Much, if not most, of how we relate in these various roles, we learned by the time we were 6 or 7. As people would relate to us when we were children, they would give us messages about ourselves and those messages told us who we were. The sad reality is they may not have given us the accurate message. They may not have told us that we were a child of God, esteemed by God, as holy and precious and beautiful and worthy. They may have given us another message, such as "we did not measure up" or that "we were never good enough." But, we believed the message they gave us by the way they treated us.
We learned who we were, through the eyes of other people. We also learned how to be parents by the way that our parents related to us. My idea of what a father ought to be is based on how my father related to me. My idea of what a mother ought to be is based on how my mother related to me. My idea of what a husband should be is based on how I saw my father relate to my mother. My idea of what a wife ought to be is how I saw my mother relate to my father. Now I wasn't taking notes all that time, I just had my eyes open, I had my ears open.
I remember one time a few years ago, I was meeting with a young couple for premarital counseling and I was sharing this truth. I told them that when they begin their life together, they would relate to each other, and to their children, based on the way their parents modeled married life and parenthood to them. I told the young woman, "Your expectation of what a husband is going to be like is how you saw your father relate to your mother. And your expectations of yourself and how you will relate to your husband is based on how you have observed your mother relating to your father over the years. And when you have children, you will relate to your children as your mother relate to you." She started crying. Tears were flowing down her face and she said, "Please tell me that that's not true." I said, "Oh, but it is"
She was devastated. As we talked she shared that she grew up in an environment where her mother was very, very critical of her, very demanding of her, and very much a perfectionist. Her mother had a critical eye for everything. She grew up in an atmosphere where her mother belittled her father and the closeness was not there between her mother and father. She was horrified to think that in time, she would become like her mother. It's not a matter that it's in her genes, it's a matter of what had been modeled for her. What else would she know to do? But, I was able to give her the good news.
The good news is that we are transformed in the image of Christ by the renewing of our mind. The Christ life within us, the love of God for us, enables us to become like Christ to one another. To love one another as we have been loved by God. We can change. It's a painful process but we can change and become like Christ to one another.
As I look back to my relationship with my father, I have a lot to be thankful for, in the way that he modeled life for me. My sense of love for this country and patriotism comes from my dad. He was a W.W.II veteran, a pilot in W.W.II. He stayed on in the Air Force after the war. My appreciation for the greatness of this country I owe to him. My sense of the love of the outdoors, for fishing and for hunting, I owe to my father. My father was the consummate outdoorsman. When he went on survival training with the Air Force and was dropped by parachute to the everglades or to the mountainous regions in the west, he was the only one that would come back from being in the wilderness for a couple of weeks who hadn't lost weight. He could provide for himself. He was going to catch a fish, or a rattlesnake or whatever. He taught me a lot about the appreciation of the outdoors, and some of my fondest memories are of fishing with him, or hunting with him . He also provided the ideal of hard work, and of providing for your family. The way I hold the sanctity of marriage in such high esteem comes from what I saw my parents model before me. I never saw them to have a cross word with one another. And for the 46 or so years that they were married before he died, to me their marriage was just like one of those love affairs they write novels or make movies about. That's the kind of relationship they had with each other all the time.
There is another side to that as well. My dad was gone a lot. He was gone a lot because of the demands of the work that he did. And when he was gone a lot, it wasn't just for a day or two, sometimes it was for a month, or two months, or three months. The absenteeism hurt when he was not there for things that were important. My father was a native to this state and my mother is a native of Georgia. They raised us in the traditions of the South. "Yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am." Children are to be seen and not heard and you respect your elders. There is a lot to be said for that, but the reality is that when you are instilling all that discipline, you are diminishing the worth of children. I was also raised in the tradition of the Old South, so that I could grow up to be a bigot and a racist. God has really had to work in my life to over come my prejudice. Although I know the truth, that all people are created in the image of God regardless of race, the old residual ways of seeing some people as different, are still there.
I learned other lessons as well. I can remember sitting in my father's house, thinking, if I ever have kids, I am not going to make them endure lectures the way I have to endure his lectures. However, when my three kids are together and start reminiscing about growing up in my house, they will tell you about my long lectures.
In our house the dining table was a place that you understood that your left hand was in your lap, elbows were not on the table and you were very respectful of manners. I grew up thinking when I get my kids, it's just going to be everybody sit around the table and tell stories and talk about what they did during the day, and be relaxed. However, when my three kids are together they will tell you about old dad thumping them when their elbows hit the table.
We received the good with bad lessons of life. Sometimes we find ourselves as adults living out the reality of what Paul talks about in the 7th chapter of Romans when he says, "I know the things that I want to do, and I can't seem to do them." I wanted to tell my kids often when they were growing up, that I love them and to put my arms around them and hug them and show them affection. But I didn't receive that, so I've had to learn to do that and it wasn't something that came naturally to me. There are things that I did not want to do and yet those are the things that I did.
However, knowing Christ as my life, I have been able to not only appreciate and to hold with a dear reverence those good things that came from my father, I've been able to let my heavenly Father enable me to grow past those things that weren't so good. My father did the best he could, and I have done the best that I could. I have tried to add to 'my best' and to grow out of some of the things that were not so good, by letting the love of Christ become real for me. The love of Christ teaches us that Jesus calls all of us to have a servant's heart. Sometimes as parents we do not think of ourselves as servants for our children, but that's whom we are called to be. There have been times I have had to go to all of my children and ask them to forgive me. I have been able to talk with them and to share with them about the struggle I have in learning to be a Godly father. I have an opportunity to witness to them that it was Christ and Christ's love in me that wanted the best in the relationship that I have with them. I was able to share that truth of the reality of God with them as I asked them for their forgiveness . My sharing with them helped me go beyond what I learned as a little kid and become a responsible adult in the image of Christ as I related in love to my children. Hopefully they've learned these lessons and they'll pass them on to their children. One of the ways that we can understand how important this truth is for all of us, is to think about the parable, the prodigal son. You are all familiar with that story in Luke 15, about the young son who is just full of himself and decides he's going to go off in the world and earn his fame and fortune. He loses it all and ends us as a street person. He finally wants to come home and when he comes home, his father lovingly receives him and wraps his arms around him. His father has a big party and celebration because the young son has come home. You also remember that there is an older brother who is not too happy the young son has come home. He cannot understand why dad wants to throw this big party for this brother who has come home a failure. After all, he stayed home all this time and worked hard and tried to do all the right things. We have recognized that the focus for that story for us has to be either the younger brother or the older brother. We are trying to learn about who we are in our relationship to God and one another by whom do we identify with, the younger brother or the older brother. The one that went away and has now come home repentant, or the one that stayed home and obeyed all the rules, but is not showing much mercy to the younger one who has come home.
Why pay so much attention to the sons when it is the father who is in the center and when it is the father with whom I am to identify? Why talk so much about being like the sons when the real question is: Are you interested in being like the father? How does it feel to say""The father is like me?" Do I want to be like the father? Do I want to be not just the one who is being forgiven, but also the one who forgives; not just the one who is being welcomed home, but the one who welcomes home; not just the one who receives compassion, but the one who offers it as well?"
Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: "Be compassionate as your father is compassionate." God's compassion is described by Jesus not simply to show me how willing God is to feel for me, or to forgive me my sins and offer me new life and happiness, but to invite me to become like God and to show the same compassion to others as he is showing to me. If the only meaning of the story were that people sin but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sins as a fine occasion for God to show me his forgiveness. There would be no real challenge in such an interpretation. I would resign myself to my weaknesses and keep hoping that eventually God would close his eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such sentimental romanticism is not the message of the Gospels. What I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate father. I am an heir.
"(16) It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, {17} and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him" (Romans 8:16-17 NRSV)
Indeed, as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father's place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered to me. The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the father.
I know how much I long to return and be held safe, but do I really want to be son and heir with all that implies? Being in the Father's house requires that I make the Father's life my own and become transformed in his image".
I think you can see we are called to be successors to our heavenly Father, not just our earthly father or mother. There is a higher calling we all have. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were telling me their goal in life was to teach their children a vocation. To teach their children how to take care of themselves and to provide for themselves in this world. I would like to suggest to you there is a higher calling for all of us as we relate to children and that is to point them to the way of the heavenly Father. Nobody says this better than Gayle Erwin in his personal testimony. "When I was six years old, my father was severely injured in an airplane accident and was left partially paralyzed and brain damaged. My mother then became the breadwinner of the house. Since my mother was often 'not there' as she attempted to make a living and my dad was 'not there' physically or mentally, the stage was set for family failure. But our family did not fail! Through difficult times, both parents stayed faithful to God and to us. Prayer, belief, steadfastness and love surrounded us -- money and fine homes didn't. When my father died, my two brothers and I stood in front of his casket and made the following statement to the friends who had gathered for the funeral service: "Our father did not leave a financial empire for us to carry on. Many things that a dad normally does with his sons, our was unable to do. He was unable to teach us many things that a dad normally teaches. But he did leave us something that he had. He left us with a love of God, a love for the Bible, a love for people, an understanding of worship and an inability to hate. We feel that he has left us only those things that will last. So we stand here before you as his sons and declare publicly that we will follow his God."
My prayer in my life is that one day my kids will stand up and say that about me. I know if I relied on only those things that I learned in kindergarten, that won't happen. But, if I rely on the truth that I am the successor, an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ, . . . if I rely on God to teach me to be a loving and compassionate father, I think they'll say that about me.