The Loving Heart Of God

[Father’s Day 2003]

 

“ Which of you, if his son or daughter asks for bread, will give him or her a stone? Or asks for fish, will give him / her a snake. 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 good gifts to those who ask him”

(Matt.9-10).

Prayer:

Today we celebrate Fathers' Day and pay tribute to our fathers, while some of us also ponder our own role as fathers. Like its more famous sibling, Mothers' Day, this is a day of ambiguous feelings.

Amid the celebrations, there are those whose experiences or memories of their fathers are less than good, there are those for whom father is a "missing person"; there are those who would love to have been fathers but are not, there are those who are fathers but feel defeated in that role.

So as we give thanks for fatherhood, we want to ask what it would mean to be a good father, a good man, in Canadian culture, and to ask how Christian faith and biblical teaching might inform or strengthen us in this journey of fatherhood.

Consider first what roles the father has to play. Thousands of years of culture, reinforced by religious teaching and by biology, have taught us that the first role of the father is to be the provider and protector for his family.

For most of recorded history, since agriculture was invented, father worked around the family home or property, providing shelter, raising food, and together with his wife and extended family, training the children to carry on the same work.

Then came the industrial revolution, and work became something father left home to do for most of the day, for most of the week, for most of the year. Father's role in the family began to mean something quite different.

That process has accelerated as work has become more specialized. Now it takes years of education and training to be able to do most jobs, so that father's investment in his work becomes huge, both financially and emotionally. Work becomes the source of identity for most men.

Work is where men achieve at the highest level, where men are "themselves" to the greatest degree. For most men today identify themselves, internally, with their work, with what they do. That's one of the reasons retirement can at first be difficult for many men.

Work also provides income on which fathers and their families live, and that is no small part of the reward. To be able to afford a good home, transportation, clothes; for the children to be able to enjoy opportunities that parents never dreamed of at their age. Therefore work is a source of pride and satisfaction for most men. It is to me, I love to work, I must admit.

But as we all know, the ground has been moving under our feet for a generation, and we are beginning to lose our balance. Work has lost much of its security:  the days are gone when we used to feel settled in our job, we are now most vulnerable. Multiple jobs, multiple careers are now common. Work has expanded; our economy now runs on the 24/7 schedule.

This means that at any hour of the week, any day of the year, people may now be forced to work. If you are in retail, in health care, in security, in finance, in manufacturing, in science, the work never stops, and you may have to be there as part of it.

Sunday is now the busiest shopping day of the week. Production lines, big science machines, hospitals, run day and night with almost no reference at all to the clock, and countless people must now work evenings, nights, weekends. There are also many jobs that are by definition never done, and which you can therefore never truly leave and "go home."

One is scientific research, where experiments or machines never stopped. The other is pastoral ministry, where you always represent the church, there is always someone else to visit, and the phone can and will summon you at any time, for any reason.

Please don't get wrong! I love my work! I am simply illustrating why for so many men, work becomes who they are, work becomes almost everything. That is, of course, a big problem, because our faith and our conscience tell us we have another major role in life: as father and by implication, husband, in the role of teacher, model, and father.

How can a good worker also be a good husband and father? Some jobs make it almost impossible: One famous lab was known as a "marriage killer," because the culture there demanded you work all night and all weekend. Does anyone have any energy left to be as good at home as they are at work.

As many wives would testify, their husbands sometimes don't have much left to offer when they come home. Although they know they should be taking their share in house care and child-rearing, they don't because they are too tired. One of the sad results of all this is that not only are wives and mothers overburdened at home, but children rarely get to see their fathers at their best.

When everyone worked on the family farm, they all saw each other at work; now the children never see Dad that way (and very few wives do either). What they get is "what's left over."

And too often, fathers see home as a place where there is another list of jobs waiting to be done. And then there are the children! Being with them is great when they are young and enjoy being played with, or when they're teens and can be taught and then accompanied to sports, or music or dance or whatever they're into.

How many good days there are "following the team," especially when they win!

How then can a father be the teacher and model for his children, and the lover and care for his wife - Something his children dearly need to see and learn from?

Here again, our faith tells us we have to set some priorities, to find some balance. One teacher in his congregation told me of a quiz question in which children had to choose the "odd man out" from the following four: "mother, grandmother, teacher, father." The majority chose "father," because "all the others are women."

When did teaching become so identified in children's minds as "women's work"? Where have all the male role models gone? Where are the male teachers, in the elementary schools, in Sunday Schools? Men, we need you teaching our children, by example, at home and in the church, that moral living is for men as well as women, that Christianity is not just for women and old geezers!

Where are all the men? I know, you know: they are working, and if not, they are at sports - either grabbing their own bit of relaxation. Or taking their children to the increasing number of sports events, now scheduled even on Sundays.

Do we, as fathers, have any time or energy left for family, church or community? I suspect we need to work on our schedules - all of us. But I also know we don't all need more guilt either, because we are already well aware of our short-comings, often feel like failures; and at times that just makes us defensive and irritable. Where do we get help?

One place is from our wives: just as the "Good Woman" of Proverbs 31 had a good, trusting husband behind her; so for a father today to succeed, he needs the support of a wife who loves him come what may, whether he is a great success as a father and husband, or barely making it!

But he also needs God's strength, wisdom, and guidance, as well as his forgiveness. The promise of Jesus is that if we ask for those things, we will get them; that the best Father of all knows us, understands us, and gladly receives our asking, seeking, knocking as we search for answers.

Persistent prayer  (declaration of dependence on God) is still the best weapon any father has in his battle to do the right thing in a time when it seems so easy to get it all wrong. When you feel you can do nothing else as a father, pray; for your children, for your wife, for yourself.

Some doors, to the present and the future, seem to be locked and we cannot see how to get where we need to go from here. These are the doors that only open with persistent prayer.

In addition to prayer, says Jesus, try to do for your children what you would like your parents to have done to you. You are trying to do your best for your children, fallible as we are and very conscious of it; your Father in heaven knows all about our efforts, and if we ask him for help, he will give us what he has - the best for us and your family.

So, fathers, don't despair or throw in the towel with the difficulty being a good father today; pray, and see what your Father will give you!

Amen.