Sermon Title: "Who's Your Father?"
Date: June 21, 2009
Ministers: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Romans 8:12-17

In a short, informal activity to prepare second graders for the celebration of Father’s Day, they were asked to respond to the question “What do you love about your dad?”  Their answers were sometimes poignant and often reflective of the fact that nontraditional roles of fatherhood are fast becoming accepted as the norm.

• “I love my father, Bob, because we have fun together on weekends, and I love my new father, Al, because he plays with me and fixes me breakfast every morning.”
•   “I love my dad but I don’t know where he is.  I know he’s somewhere because he sends us money all the time, but I don’t ever see him.”
•   “I love my dad because he loves me and my brother and my mom and he hugs and kisses us a lot.”
•   “I love my dad because he always brings us things when he visits us on weekends.” 

(from Papa, My Father, by Leo F. Buscaglia, Slack, Inc., Thorofare, New Jersey, 1989, p. 23)

Fatherhood has been through several transitions in history, not all like the fathers portrayed in 1950s and ‘60s television on Life with Father, Father Knows Best, and Bachelor Father.  The compilers of the lectionary do not provide resources for this secular holiday, and even the Bible is hard put to provide some good examples.  We have Abraham, who first fathered a son through Hagar, his wife’s slave-girl, long before his wife was ever able to bear Isaac.  Then we have the later story of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac to the Lord, not because Abraham wanted to kill his son, but because he truly trusted that the Lord would provide, and the Lord did.

Polygamous marriage was very common in Old Testament times, so we have persons who fathered many children with multiple wives and were responsible for lengthy genealogies, but as far as examples of sterling father-figures, they are few.

Perhaps one of the most famous fathers, about whom virtually nothing is known, is Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.  We believe he was a carpenter; we believe he was older than Mary, though we have no facts to support that.  After the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, and the story of Jesus at age twelve leaving his family’s Passover trip to return to the Temple in Jerusalem, Joseph is never mentioned again.  We speculate that he died at some point, and Mary was thus widowed, for she continues in the Gospels through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  

Yet Joseph must have had some influence on Jesus’ life in at least those first twelve years that we knew he was around.  It was common at the time for boys to follow in the same profession as their father—be it carpenter, shepherd, rabbi or high priest.  Martin Luther mused that Joseph must have been a wonderful father for Jesus to have chosen to address God as Father.  (Luther also said that his relationship with his own father was so difficult that he couldn’t address God as Father without shuddering.)  But the term Jesus actually used is even more remarkable—the Aramaic word “Abba,” which is an intimate form of endearment, more like “Papa” or “Daddy” than the more formal translation “Father” we heard in today’s passage.

The word “Abba” traces its origins back to the gurgling sound that an infant makes before he or she has learned to talk.  Typical of us fathers, we of course think our child is saying, “Da-da.”  But when Jesus addressed God as Abba, it reflects the intimacy of his relationship with God, like an infant’s close and trusting relationship with a nurturing parent.  When Jesus calls God Abba, it also makes clear that even before we have the right words—or any words at all—we have enough with which to approach God.

That someone could have such a close relationship with God is remarkable.  But the Apostle Paul goes on to affirm in today’s lesson a still more remarkable truth:  through Jesus, we are invited to have that kind of relationship with God as well.  Not only is Jesus the Son of God but, through him, we are God’s daughters and sons, and God is our Abba, too.  (portions excerpted from Martin B. Copenhaver’s Our Papa in Heaven;  Stillspeaking Devotional for 6/11/09, daily devotional@ucc.org.)

The late Dr. Leo Buscaglia, professor of special education at USC, related a story of when he was supervising an educational program for disabled children.  He was observing in a classroom for mildly retarded fourth graders, and sat in a reading group with six children while the teacher read a children’s book about a little duck that had no father.  As children’s books often do, it had a repetitive phrase.  The refrain was always, “But the little duck had no father.”

The teacher completed the story, then turned to a question and answer period with the children.  “Martha,” she asked a lovely little girl in the group, “tell us.  Did the little duck have a father?”

The child answered, without a moment’s hesitation, “Yes.”

The teacher was naturally taken aback by the little girl’s response, but she smiled and said, “Martha, let me read to you again from the story, and listen very carefully this time.”  She then repeated several parts of the story, including the repeated refrain, “The little duck had no father.”

Again, she asked Martha if the little duck had a father, to which Martha replied matter-of-factly, “Yes.”  Dr. Buscaglia reported that these back-and-forth questions and answers when on several times, Martha’s eyes beginning to fill with tears of fear and frustration.  The rest of the class watched on in stunned silence.

Finally, “the teacher totally lost control.  ‘Martha, you disappoint me.  You’re simply not paying attention!  It says again and again in the story that the little duck had no father.’”

“Now the tears in Martha’s eyes overflowed and ran in streams down her cheeks. ‘But, teacher,’ she said, ‘everybody gots a father.’

“The teacher was taken aback completely.  She hugged Martha in apology, smiled, and indicated that now she understood.  The entire reading group grinned with relief.”  (Buscaglia, pp. 17-19)

Martha was right.  “Everybody gots a father.”  Whether your father is living or deceased, younger and able or older and more infirm, whether your father was an active influence upon your life or, due to circumstances beyond your control, was unknown or unavailable to you, all of us had a father somewhere sometime someplace.  Maybe the father figure who had the most influence in your life was your biological father, or adoptive father, or stepfather, or grandfather, or uncle, or some family friend who took a nurturing interest in you.  But most of us are molded in some way by the father-figure in our lives.  We either seek to emulate them because it seemed good and right, or we choose to do things differently because we have become aware of their failings and we do not wish to repeat them.

I’m not really sure of what little Martha meant many years ago when she boldly declared through tearful eyes, “But, teacher, everybody gots a father.”  Was the little fourth grader admitting that which we know—all of us had to have a father or we wouldn’t be here?

Or does the minister in me, on this Sunday morning when we observe Father’s Day, think is it possible that she was acknowledging that which Jesus knew:  while he had Joseph as an earthly father, he also had another Father, the Father from whom he had come, the Almighty God?  That is a father everyone of us has, no matter how warm or how cold our relationship with our own father is or was.  And I have had experience with people who, like Martin Luther in the 16th century, had such a poor relationship with their father that God as a Father image is hard for them to accept.  Yet even in this day of inclusive language, hymnals are still filled with hymns that acknowledge God’s role as Creator and Father:  This Is My Father’s World, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, Children of the Heavenly Father, Glory Be to the Father, which we sing nearly every Sunday.  And how do we begin the prayer we pray every Sunday?  “Our Father…”

No matter your last name, no matter your heritage, we all have a Father who loves us, who cares about us, is available to us no matter the hour of day or night.  In the words of my favorite hymn:

“Father-like, he tends and spares us; Well our feeble frame he knows;

In his hands he gently bears us, Rescues us from all our foes…”

(Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven, Henry F. Lyte, 1834)