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Some years back Bill Cosby wrote a book called “Fatherhood.” Cosby
is probably the country’s best known father; he based his famous TV show
on his own family of five kids, and Theo, the only son on that show, was
modeled after Cosby’s son who was murdered in California a few years
ago. In his book Cosby had some funny and wise things to say about being a
dad.
For example, he said that when his own father became a grandfather, he
started giving his grandkids money round the clock. “But when I was a
kid and asked him for 50 cents, he started to tell me the story of his
life. How he got up at 4 a.m. when he was seven years old and walked 23
miles to milk 90 cows. And the farmer he worked for had no bucket, so he
had to squirt the milk into his hand and walk eight miles to the nearest
can. All for five cents a week. So I never got my 50 cents.
“But now when he comes over to my house, the first thing he does is
say, ‘Well, let’s see how much money old Granddad has for his
wonderful kids.’ And the minute they take money out of his hand I call
them over and snatch it away from them. Because that’s MY money.”
Cosby also likes to talk about the difference between Mother’s day
and Father’s Day. He says that Mother’s Day is a much bigger deal
because the mothers are better organized. Mothers say to their children,
“Here is a list of what I want. Go get the money from your father and
surprise me on Mother’s Day. You do that for me.”
Cosby said, “For Father’s Fay I give each of my five kids $20 so
they can go buy me a present, a total of $100. They go to the store and
buy two packages of underwear, each of which contains three pairs of
shorts and costs $5. They each wrap up one pair of underwear, and the
sixth pair goes to the Salvation Army. So on Father’s Day I am walking
around with new underwear, and they are walking around with $90 of my
money in change in their pockets.”
Well, I think it’s very appropriate to gather at the communion table
on Father’s Day; not because it’s a religious holiday, strictly
speaking. It’s not. But we don’t want to let the occasion to go by
without some mention of its spiritual importance. And we don’t want to
honor Father’s Day just because we also honored Mother’s Day a month
ago. It’s very important to keep Father’s Day special because there is
a strong message going through society today that says father’s aren’t
needed today.
Many children in America grow up without a father, it’s true. I read
a statistic that stated that 17 million American children live in a home
without a father, and that actually seemed like a low number to me. Some
“modern” women deliberately set out to raise children as single
mothers, or as part of a homosexual couple. The technology, or the
adoption process, to let them do so is commonplace. That’s sad, but even
sadder is the equally common reality that many men think nothing of
fathering children they have no intention of raising.
So it’s up to the church to send a message loud and clear to society
that fathers do matter, that nuclear families, father, mother and
children, are still of vital importance to society, that fathers play a
critical role in the life of the family, they are needed, and God expects
a great deal from them.
Children from broken homes are twice as likely to drop out of high
school than those with two-parent households. Seventy percent of juveniles
in the criminal justice system come from fatherless homes. But studies
show that children who have active, involved fathers have higher IQs, more
self-confidence, more motivation to learn and even a better sense of
humor. Fatherhood is every bit as sacred a calling today as it was for
Abraham or David or Joseph or any of the other great fathers of the Bible.
Fathers have a tremendous impact on their families if they connect in
three crucial areas:
1--First, the role of the father is to connect with God. A child
learns about God from what he sees modeled by his father. Just this week I
was talking to a woman who said that she was only about six years old when
her daddy told her that she had to love God better than she loved him. And
her reaction was pretty much “Yeah, right.” But when she grew up she
understood that her dad was saying something wise. A father who has things
in proper perspective puts God at the center of the family.
The way a father speaks to his child, treats his child, disciplines
his child will mold the way that child thinks about God. If the father is
overly critical, the child learns to see God as judgmental. If the father
is neglectful the child learns that God is uncaring. But if, on the other
hand, the father is supporting, loving and understanding, the child learns
to see God as an intimate and caring Heavenly Father. It’s a huge role,
and takes broad shoulders to stand up under the strain. And that is
absolutely God’s intent.
Erma Bombeck once wrote a column that describes what heaven must have
been like when God created fathers. She wrote that “When the good Lord
was creating fathers he started with a tall frame. And a female angel
nearby said ‘What kind of father is that? Why are you making them so
tall if children are so close to the ground? He won’t be able to
shoot marbles without kneeling, tuck a child in bed without bending
or even kiss a child without a lot of stooping.’ And God smiled and
said, ‘Yes, but if I made a father child-size, who would a child have to
look up to?’
“And when God made a father’s hands, they were large and sinewy.
And the angel shook her head and said ‘Do you know what you’re doing?
Large hands are clumsy. They can’t manage diaper pins, small buttons,
rubber bands on pony tails, or even remove splinters caused by baseball
bats.’ And God smiled and said, ‘Yes, but they’re big enough to hold
everything a little boy empties from his pockets at the end of the day,
yet small enough to cup a child’s face in his hands.”
“And then God made fathers with long slim legs and broad shoulders,
and the angel again carped, ‘Do you realize you just made a father
without a lap? How is he going to pull a child close to him without the
child falling through his knees?’ And God smiled and said ‘A mother
needs a lap. A father needs strong shoulders to pull a sled, balance a
child on a bike and rest a sleepy head on the way home from the circus.’
“God was in the middle of creating two of the biggest feet around
when the angel burst out again. ‘Do you really think that a father is
going to drag those big feet out of bed in the night when a baby cries, or
walk though a small birthday party without crushing three of the little
guests?’ And God said ‘They’ll work, you’ll see. They’ll need to
support a little girl who wants a piggyback ride, or scare off mice at the
summer cabin, or fill shoes that nobody will be able to fill again.’
“God worked through the night, giving the father few words but an
authoritative voice, eyes that saw everything but remained calm and
tolerant. And finally he added tears, With that, God turned to the angel
and said, ‘Now do you believe that a father can love as much as mother
can?’ And lo, the angel shutteth up.”
The differences between Adam and Eve are obvious, but it’s less
obvious that those purposes exist specifically and exclusively for the
task of raising a child. Otherwise God could have made just one kind of
human and saved the expense of all those extra parts. But the need for
fathers and mothers to work together in harmony is why fathers need to be
connected to God. Everything about a father, his eyes, his hands, his
strength, his heart, his mind, his soul, has been given to him for the
well-being of children. And those gifts can only be used properly when men
live in full connection with God.
But the second connection a father needs to make is with his family.
One of the terrible things the Industrial Revolution did to people was
that it took fathers away from their families. In colonial America,
writings that gave advice on raising children were usually addressed to
the father, not the mother. But then dad was taken out of the home to make
his living and feed his family, and gradually it became the norm to think
of dad as the one who was off making a living, and when he got home he was
too tired to connect to his children.
In recent years this imbalance has started to correct itself, but some
fathers take it too much in the opposite direction, like the dads who go
nuts when they coach their kids’ teams and start screaming at them like
they were Vince Lombardi. There has to be a proper balance between the
desire to give your kids things, and the need to give them truth. There
was a great old story about a wealthy father who took his son to the
country to show him how poor people can be. The trip included a visit to a
farm where the boy met a family that was just scraping by.
Later, when they were driving home, the proud man asked his son if he
had learned anything from the trip. “Yeah, I did,” the boy replied.
“Did you learn how poor people can be?” “I sure did, Dad.”
“Well, what did you learn?” “I learned that we have a dog at home,
but they’ve got dogs, and cats, and chickens and cows and even a horse.
We’ve got a swimming pool out to the middle of the garden, but they’ve
got a creek that doesn’t end. We’ve got electric lights in the garden,
but they’ve got a sky full of stars. We’ve got a patio that goes
around the house, but they’ve got the forests and the mountains. Thanks,
dad, for showing me how poor we really are.”
Sometimes a man is so busy filling his pockets he doesn’t realize
how he has emptied his soul. Nobody ever dies wishing he had spent more
time at work. A father has to connect with his family,
Third and finally, a father has to connect with the church. And he has
to see that his children connect with the church, too. Sometimes we are
tempted to think of church as an obligation, a needless, useless activity,
sort of a time-card punch that we make to keep ourselves out of trouble.
With an attitude like that, small wonder people start to drift away. But
the church is actually God’s gift to his people, a community of
faith-filled people who lift up each other and show each other compassion
and love in a world that is painfully short of both commodities. Should
fathers want their children to grow up in such an environment? You bet their
life they should.
Each time we gather at the communion table we are reminded that the
gifts of our heavenly father just keep coming and coming, an endless
stream of blessing. There is an old joke that just children go through
four stages. First they call you Da-Da. Then they call you Daddy. Then
they call you Father. And then they call you collect. As Bill Cosby
discovered, the calls to the Bank of Dad often come late at night, and
then they want the loan officer to cough up interest free loans that
somehow never get repaid. Then the kids wonder why the Bank of Dad can be
the unfriendliest bank in town.
But Jesus told us, “How much more will your father in heaven give
good things to those who ask him!” In those words come the promise of an
ideal father to his children: “I will always be there for you.”
In closing today I want to tell you a true story that comes from the
book “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” In 1989, in the land of Armenia, a
devastating earthquake struck and killed over 30,000 people in four
minutes. One father rushed to his son’s school, and found nothing but a
pile of fractured concrete as flat as a pancake. Gazing in shock at the
ruins, he remembered the promise that he had made to his child: “I will
always be there for you.” Tears filled his eyes. The situation looked
hopeless, but he couldn’t take his mind off his promise.
Remembering that his son’s classroom was in the back corner of the
school, he began to dig frantically at the rubble, and as he was digging
other parents began to arrive, screaming in agony as they saw the
devastation. And in their grief they screamed at the father, also, saying
“It’s too late. They’re all gone. You can’t do anything.” Even a
policeman and a fireman told him it was hopeless, but to everyone the man
said the same thing: “Are you going to help me?”
(Remainder
of sermon to come...)
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