Summary: Father's Day is a call for us to renew our commitment to responsible parenthood and the imparting of God's law in such a way that it becomes integrally woven into the fabric of our spirituality.
The late-President John F. Kennedy had a wonderful way of turning a phrase that made something commonplace stand out. Remember his spirited statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!"
Jesus also turned a phrase to set apart his lesson - "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them."
That fulfillment turned the religious world upside-down, or should I say, rightside-up? His claim to fulfill the law rather than set it aside helps us on Father's day understand how Jesus came not to do away with "old time religion" or "old time fatherhood," but to do away with the way we do "old time religion" and "old time fatherhood."
Do you remember earlier this year, in January, we saw Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in the Gospel according to St. Mark, 1:21-22, "And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes."
The scribes were accustomed to quoting authorities to bolster argument and explanations of law which had been written on tablets of stone; Jesus spoke from the Law written on the tablets of his heart. Those who saw Jesus teach could easily understand an expert when they heard one. They knew this was a person who had learned the Law, who knew the Law, who had the Law woven into the very fabric of his moral character. He could teach easily because he loved the Law and he lived the Law.
Further, when he was questioned by the lawyer about the greatest commandment, he had no difficulty understanding that the Law that he loved was the Law of Love. He pointed out to the lawyer that all devout persons were to " ...love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). And we show that love of God by showing that love to God's children: " ...but you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18b).
And finally, Jesus loved all of us, because "... though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." (cf. Philippians 2:5-9)
I get great delight in counseling persons wishing to be married. During the marriage service there is a place to give a lesson from scripture that is good advice in the marriage relationship. The prospective grooms jump at the chance to use Ephesians 5:21 + as their scripture.
Ephesians 5:21 starts out: "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord ... " (Ephesians 5:21-22). At about this point, the men are cheering me on, because it certainly seems to fit their idea of who's to be "boss" around the household.
I quickly jump to the man's responsibility: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ... " (Ephesians 5:25). I point out that if the husband is really to be the head of the wife, he must do so by adopting the same role as Christ, that is, as SERVANT of the wife, as least before the wife, as humble helpmate and not "boss."
What has been said of the man's responsibility to his wife goes equally as the responsibility of a man for his children. The two-parent family has become less and less common, and the two-parent birth certificate has done so, also. More than twenty-five percent of our country's babies are born to single mothers; only about a third of those children have a father acknowledge his fatherhood.
Men need to express their Christian manhood by recasting our mindset to being a loving father, not a leaving father, because Jesus came not to do away with "old time fatherhood," but to do away with the way we do "old time fatherhood."
In Cumberland Center, Maine, Stephen Harris does what few other fathers do. He's a "full-time father," and at 8:30 a.m. he begins a daily schedule that may be the model for the 90's -- his five- year-old son Ben leaves for Kindergarten; his wife, Alison, leaves for her job; he begins one-on-one care of their 2 1/2 year old. Furthermore, his commitment to firsthand experience of the relationship of a father includes publishing a bi-monthly journal, Full-Time Dads.
Talk about a return to "old-time fatherhood" and James Levine, a director at the Families and Work Institute in New York, says, "It's actually a return to something that was more prevalent in the 18th century."
Jesus called his followers to return to something prevalent in an age long gone, when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, unencumbered by institutional structure and synagogue staffing patterns, worshiped God and heard God call them to radical obedience, not to what men thought they heard God say, but to what in their heart of hearts they heard God say. What they heard God say was to honor close and loving family relationships.
The dads today seem to be hearing that. The number of men involved in one-on-one caring of their children is up. James Levine points to this as "the beginning of a new stage of awareness about fathers as critical forces and contributors to family life."
Stephen Harris acknowledges the father's contribution to family life. "Mothers and fathers bring very difficult things to the family. A man can't be a mother."
But a man can be a caring, nurturing, peaceful, gentle role model, and that role model is of lifelong value. It is the model of Christ, as he was the fulfillment of the Law, and the Law was Love.
What was God's great hope? In Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 31 we read:
"Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
God's great hope was to have the commandments written upon our hearts, woven into the very fabric of our nature. Jesus came to bring that to pass, not to abolish God's Law, but to bring it to fulfillment.
When we act as fathers -- as persons of authority -- then we need to ask ourselves whether or not God's precepts are written upon our heart, are woven into the very fabric of our spirituality.