Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Advice From A Father "
Date: June 18, 2006
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

A month ago on a Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from a religious publishing house in the South.  As the salesman launched into his pitch—we had ordered from them before, he knew I’d be interested in this, etc.—I had to interrupt and tell him that was not a good day for me to talk.  I had just returned from London, a church member had died suddenly the day before, and I was working on my sermon.  He asked when he could call back, and I told him on a Thursday one or two weeks down the calendar.  Which, of course, he did.

When he called back, he started to tell me about the book his father had written after the death of his grandfather.  It involved starting a men’s study group and having them write two letters to their children, one for now and one to be opened after the father’s death.  He went on for some twenty minutes (my desk phone has a clock that times each call), telling how this book has swept through the South and how he wanted me to make a phone call and join an online discussion with some man pushing this particular study.

By now, since he was talking so constantly, I had turned to my computer and was writing something when he stopped me short with this question:  “Tell me, Rev. Charles, do you have a letter from your father?”  I told him no, I did not.  And in the days after that call, I wondered what my father possibly could have written that I did not already know, either at the time of his death or now, some 28 years later.  I knew he loved me, and my sisters and my mother.  He was a good father.  He had given me unconditional love and support and thoughtful advice.

Some of it was helpful, others not, at the time.  I remember coming home just after breaking up with my first girlfriend in college.  I felt emotionally drained, crestfallen, hurting.  Dad said, “Oh, there’s lots of other girls out there.”  Not exactly the most comforting advice at the time.

There was another piece of advice he gave me.  I was in high school, or just started college.  I was struggling to decide what I wanted to do with my life.  I can remember the setting very clearly.  We often ate breakfast together, sitting at the kitchen counter at our home in Rossmoor.  My dad said, “I don’t care what you do with your life, Son.  Just make sure when you get up in the morning, you’re happy to go to work, like I am.”

Six or eight years later, I used that in my last sermon after serving as a summer seminary intern in a church in upstate New York.  A certain schoolteacher in the choir wrote to me back at the seminary to say that my dad had good advice, and that she was happy every day going to her new job as an elementary teacher.  The next summer we got engaged, and she still sings in the church choir, albeit a different church!  I guess my dad’s first advice—‘there’s other girls out there’—was right after all!

Fathers serve as a source of advice and counsel.  On one of the auto web-sites I read, a mechanic last week wrote some advice to young drivers from a father’s point of view.  One teenage girl had a front-end collision, but continued to drive for 35 miles until the leaking radiator finally gave out.  Didn’t she notice the steam, he wondered?  His advice to her would have been to stop the car immediately and call AAA or his mechanic’s shop.  Another teenager jumped the curb and ran his mother’s Windstar minivan off the road into a ditch.  The mother wondered why there was so much oil at the site of the accident.  Because he had torn the oil-pan off from underneath the engine.  That van didn’t drive too much farther either.  His advice, once again, was not to drive the vehicle after an accident but to call the AAA.

I know this is a broad generalization, but we often look to mothers for nurture, love, even order in our daily lives.  Who most often gets the kids up, cooks for them, washes their clothes and gets them off to school?  Frequently—not always, mind you—it is the mother.  We expect fathers to be present, to have wise counsel, provide a substantial portion of the family income (again, not always), frequently shell out the dollars to teenagers who need them, take care of the cars, and do what my daughters call the “dad jobs.”

While it is not believed that the Apostle Paul was ever married or had children, he realized that even back in Biblical times fathers had an important role to play.  Speaking of the foundational role played by him and the team who had founded the church at Thessalonica, he wrote, “…we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God…”  A few verses earlier, he said of this team:  “…we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.”  Another translation substitutes “mother” for “nurse.”  The point is clear though—they as coworkers had a role in continuing to shape the development of the Thessalonian church, just as parents have a continuing role in shaping, influencing and molding the lives of their children.

I am compelled, at this point to make a disclaimer, one I always offer when I speak of influences by mothers or fathers:  I realize that every person here may not have had an entirely positive upbringing, or a necessarily good and close relationship with one parent or another.  There are lots of scenarios I could paint, but I will just acknowledge that there are some children, some teens, some adults, who grew up with too much pain to salute the Mother’s Day or Father’s Day flags when they’re run up the flagpole every year.

Believe it or not, there are some people who struggle to begin the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Father…”  They come to church.  They believe in God.  But saying the word “Father” conjures up all those hurtful images of fathers who were not fully present, nor a loving presence in their lives.

Others, though, look back with affection and tenderness at their father’s role in their lives.  Do you know what women say is their favorite men’s cologne fragrance?  Old Spice, for it reminds them of their father.  Studies have shown that many women look for the same qualities in a future husband that they saw in their father.  Similarly, men who become fathers most commonly look to the example of their own father to help them in developing their parental skills.

Which only says, all the more, that we who are blessed to be fathers must take seriously our role in the raising of our children, our role in encouraging them in their education, our role in their religious upbringing, and our responsibility to serve as a positive role model for them in everything we do, no matter how minor the act may seem.

Dr. Frank Minirth, in The Father Book, declares:  “But it is not only the child who benefits from a father’s increased

involvement.  The father who steps beyond the stereotype of yesterday invests more of himself in the family.  Because his family is so much a part of him, he is actually investing in his own life both directly and indirectly.  Certainly, he invests materially with his paycheck.  But when he makes a heavy relationship investment in addition, the chances of his marriage succeeding will go way up.  The chances of his children succeeding will skyrocket.  And as he leads his children spiritually, he grows spiritually himself.  The father himself benefits, in every dimension.”  (Warren, Paul, Minirth, Frank, Newman, Brian, The Father Book.  Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 1992, p. 12.)

For all the times Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned in the Bible, the references to his earthly father Joseph are found only in a few places in the Gospels:  in the birth narratives in the first and second chapter of Matthew, the second chapter of Luke, and in Jesus’ visit to the temple with his parents when he was twelve.  While Mary continues in Jesus’ life until his crucifixion, Joseph is never heard from again after Jesus was twelve.

Joseph is presumed to have been a carpenter, although the Bible never says this.  It was the custom of that time and culture that the son would take up the same trade as the father, so we can only imagine that Jesus might have worked side-by-side with Joseph in his shop, first as a helper, then perhaps as an apprentice before taking up the trade himself as he became more skilled.

Matthew tells us at the time of Jesus’ conception that Joseph was “a righteous man and unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace.”  We know Joseph was obedient, for each time an angel came to him in dream, he followed the advice given him.  These qualities must surely have been an integral part of his daily life.

A Presbyterian minister long ago wrote:  “We see in [Jesus] the qualities we covet at our best—courage, gentleness, chivalry, purity, humility, beauty, naturalness, and sacrifice.”  Looking at each of those traits, and in reflecting about what little we know of Joseph standing by Mary and of his mark upon Jesus’ early boyhood, I cannot help but wonder how many qualities demonstrated in Jesus’ life came as a direct consequence of Joseph’s presence and influence upon his life.

Did Jesus need a letter from his father?  Did I?  Do you?  I cannot answer for you whether that would be something valuable, something you would cherish or not.  What of the father who is just not good at putting things into words, but by the way he lives his life and cares for his children, his love and devotion are obvious?

Better that any of us who have the privilege, the blessing, the responsibilities of being a father ask ourselves if we are doing the right things with and for our children now.  That doesn’t mean giving them absolutely everything they might demand from us, but making sure they have the example and role model that will influence their notion of fatherhood for the rest of their lives.  Remember the words of Paul:  “…we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God…”