BACK...
|
|
| I TOLD the girls at work that, without
cockroaches, humanity wouldn’t exist. Women may get shudders down their
spines even thinking about cockroaches, but be thankful we have them! It all came about when a cockroach emerged from a pile of files on one of their tables. The girl who owned the table and a couple of others who had no cockroaches of their own huddled at the opposite end of the office while I slew the savage beast. Maybe you are like them. They had never stopped to think about it before. So I told them, “Husbands exist to kill things for their wives. If there were no cockroaches, women probably wouldn’t get married,” It’s true, isn’t it? I know that women are remarkably adaptable, and some acquire such male skills as cockroach killing. But they never do it with the skill a man brings to the task. Of course, as women love household efficiency, they generally find other uses for men while they are around. For example, it’s more efficient, if there is a man in the house, to get him to lift things down from high shelves than to go and get the kitchen steps, or it’s more efficient to get him to pop down to the shops. Maybe they find other uses for us as well. I can’t remember. It’s a joke, but sometimes we men can start feeling like that, that our usefulness is limited to running errands and keeping vermin away. At that rally against war in Iraq, a young woman came to talk to me straight after I spoke. She was upset because I spoke of God as “He”. How could I say such things with children present? What damage will it do for children to hear God called, “He”? But there is an interesting thought here. Its almost as though men have no reason to exist at all, as far as she was concerned. And I’m sure she is not the only one who thinks that way. But I can’t blame people like her. I’m as much to blame myself. I almost didn't do a Fathers’ Day sermon today. I just didn’t think it important enough to remember it. Then I decided I must not forget this day. However many or few dads make it today, it still matters. Everyone here had a dad. Everyone knows a dad. We fathers might be a dying species, but we aren’t extinct yet! Isn’t it typical, though? You’d never forget Mother’s Day — you’d never dare forget Mothers’ Day — but it’s not such a worry if you forget Father’s Day. It’s not so important. Karma at work asked me what date Fathers’ Day was this year. I wasn’t really sure. After all, we’ve run a bit low on fathers in our family lately. So this is also a sad day for me and for Chris, our first Fathers’ Day without our fathers. But we need more than sentimental memories of fathers long gone. This isn’t going to be a pity party. I mostly do pretty well out of Father’s Day. My worry is that our society does not value fathers very highly. We have come a long way with women, but we need to look harder at men and our roles. We are not all violent child molesters! Fathers’ Day is just not such a big deal. There are no Fathers’ Day flowers — not that too many fathers are interested in flowers anyway; there might or there might not be a special sermon on the Sunday; the slippers and pipe image on Fathers’ Day cards has been replaced by the Fathers’ Day joke. One of this Faather’s Day’s popular cards in England showed a photo of an orang utan with hair sticking out everywhere. The caption said, “It all started with one nostril hair...” I like a joke, and I liked that card. I wanted my own. But too often Mothers’ Day emphasises the value of mothers, and Fathers’ Day emphasises the jokes. I want to begin today by challenging us to beef up our Fathers’ Day celebrations. If families are important, then fathers are important, too. We need to make that point. We must not downgrade Mothers’ Day, but we must improve Fathers’ Day. That young woman who complained about calling God “He” revealed something. I don’t know anything about her. But if she had so much trouble with using male terms for God, then she probably had a really bad relationship with her own father. Fathers do fail. They run away. They abuse. They retreat. Those of us who are fathers have probably been tempted to do all of those things. It’s easy to slip over the edge, to go too far and then regret it. So there are many in our society who dislike fathers, who disapprove of fathers, who wish fathers would go away. This weekend I was talking to a woman who said, “I can never forgive my father for what he did to me.” She has spent most of her forty years hating and wishing to be rid of her father. We need to rescue the role of fathers. We don’t want to get rid of fathers. We don’t want them to disappear. But for fifty years, the incompetent father, the absent father, they henpecked father, the dangerous father — those have been the images of fatherhood projected in our society. I’m not telling you anything new here. Just watch the movies and the TV news. I was thinking about fathers in relation to what happens to people at work. You get two people in similar jobs in different firms. In one firm, they say, “Mate, you're doing a great job. You take a lot of load off the rest of us. We really value what you do.” What does that person do? He does even better next time. He knows he is valuable to the rest of the team, and he takes a lot of responsibility for doing his job well. In the other firm they say, “Well, we could do this job without you, but it’s convenient for us right now to keep you. Only don’t get too settled, because we aren't committed to having you around, you know.” This person will struggle even to be bothered to do his job, and will probably leave as soon as someone offers something better. If we treat fathers like the first worker gets treated, we will have more successful fathers; if our attitude is that of the other business, we will get fathers who fail and who run away. We've all known the middle-aged man who suddenly runs away with the 22–year–old receptionist, and you can’t lay all the blame at the door of a family or a society which undervalued him. These were his choices. But it is easier to make choices like this if you don’t feel it will matter to anyone else. We need to encourage fathers to know that they matter in their own families. Look at Jesus. He must have had a great relationship with Joseph. He had no problems at all in thinking of God as “he”. He had no difficulty with God’s being a father. In fact, more than anyone, Jesus invented the idea of God as our own heavenly father, and not just as the father of the Israelite nation. If only we had all learned a bit more about fatherhood from the Josephs of this world! Jesus had a very positive concept of fatherhood. He said, Which of you
fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or
if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you
are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more
will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
Here he is not talking about minimum standards. He is
exaggerating for effect. It would be an unbelieveably bad father who
gave such bad things to a child. Jesus expects that everyone who hears
that illustration of God’s abundent goodness would say to himself, “If
my son asked for a fish, I would give him a plate of fish! If he asked
for an egg, I would cook him a dozen on the spot!”Jesus expects that everyone who hears him will think, “If I give generously and without any hesitation to my very own son, surely God would give me ever possible thing that I need or even desire, as long as it does me good and not harm.” We need to recapture some of the attitude that Jesus had. Psychologists and sociologists say that kids need fathers if they are to grow up properly. Boys won’t grow up to value themselves if they don’t see fathers and grandfathers and uncles who value themselves. In our society, women work, and are often appreciated as workers more than men are. Don’t let simplistic notions about glass ceilings fool you! Yes, women still often receive less pay than men for the same job. Yes, women often find it harder to get to the really top jobs. But it’s at the lower or middle levels, where the majority of people are found, that we see men in trouble. Women take part–time or casual work because it works out for them and their families. Men take part–time or casual because nothing else is on offer. Women get the promotions because they are cheaper and more efficient. Think about how this kind of thing affects men. At one time we had all the strings in our hands, now it sometimes seems that we don’t have any strings at all — apart from the lucky few who get to the top of their trees. Most of us are workers who will never get to the top. So little boys observe their world and say, “Women are important. Women have communities. Women get on in life. But men are unimportant, isolated and often absent.” It’s enough to turn a lad gay! Again, I’m joking; but it may help explain the large influence homosexuals have in the hetero world. And little girls also observe their world and see what women have, the strengths they have, and they begin thinking that their fathers might be like a cuddly favourite teddy bear, nice to have around; and they might be useful for killing things and reaching high shelves, but they are not all that important. Already there seems to be a strand in our society which lives by these observations. Men who don’t value themselves enough to sustain a long–term relationship, and women who view men as kitchen appliances, useful for what they do, but replaceable with a new model when they stop working or get lost. And this creates a new generation which will live by the same principles and hate the results, but won’t know how to change. Women already complain that men won’t make commitments. And men think that toasters don’t make commitments, they get owned, and they aren’t sure they want to be owned. So we need to take this situation seriously. Humanity needs a renewed vision of the family. It needs a vision but based on putting men and women into complementary roles whch enhance their sense of worth and their sense of purpose within the family. And at present, men need the greater amount of help. I’m not prescribing roles. Chris and I don’t have strongly defined roles. Chris might be fixing something mechanical while I wash up, or she might do the washing while I mow. It depends on what needs to be done and who is free to do it. Other families have other patterns. So I’m not saying that we need fathers to be bosses in families. But there are a few principles in the Lord’s prayer, which I want to look at as we finish off. First, we pray to God as “Our father.” Let’s acknowledge our fathers, heavenly and earthly. That principle applies no matter how good or how bad they have been. God is always good, and we should acknowledge him; but the pattern is for all fathers. In fact, we fathers need to learn to reflect God. Second, we pray, “Hallowed be your name.” There’s a principle of respect here. My father had a lot of good in him, but he was sometimes very difficult, and in those times he hurt himself and others, too. But I do not dismiss him or minimise his importance to me. When we respect others, we learn to respect ourselves. As we give respect, we get respect. It’s important to give our fathers respect. Third, we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We don’t encourage fathers to be empire builders! But we need to encourage fathers to express their wills and we need to do what fathers want where possible. This is specially true of spiritual leadership, something many fathers have given up on altogether. In the past, fathers just made a decision and didn’t see any need to negotiate. That wasn’t helpful Men are not God, we are not omniscient. We miss an awful lot of what is going on around us, just as women do. Chris and I were getting a service carried out where there were many options. I was on the phone to the office, and Chris was listening. I started to explain to her what was going on, and she said, “You decide what you want,” and she walked away. So I did. Then when I had finished, she told me all the things I should have thought of. I made my decision based on quality of service, ongoing costs and ease of installation. She thought about special offers, start–up discounts and things like that. We might have chosen two different things. But she was probably right in another sense to let me make the choice and bear any criticisms. We men need those opportunities in our families. They don’t come in too many other places. Fourth, we pray, “Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is about relationship. People who have bad relationships with God refuse to ask him for anything, just as they tell themselves, “I can get on with my life without asking my father for anything.” By making yourself vulnerable to your father, you will often gain, not lose. A father who gives feels good about himself. Give fathers that chance once in a while! And, if you arent getting on with your father, break into the cycle and talk to him about it. You’d talk to your mother, why not your father? It makes for relationships, and relationships make for self–worth and a sense of belonging. You will get back far more than you have to pay out! Finally we pray, “Do not put us to the test, but deliver us from the evil one.” This isn’t back to killing cockroaches again! But Fathers can sometimes test their children — to the limit. We need to establish boundaries. We can say, “I’m not happy to go there. That’s not for me.” We have a right to expect protection nor abandonment. Fathers need to learn these things sometimes. So let’s honour and respect our fathers today. Let’s remember those who have gone, and remember the good in the worst of them and the bad in the best, because they were all human. And lets commit ourselves to strengthening those who struggle with fatherhood today. AMEN |
|
| © Peter R. Green 2003. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. | |
| Return to main index | |
| All design and
contents (c) Peter R Green 2002 |