Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
June 15, 2008
Copyright © 2008. John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

"But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found! And they began to celebrate." (Luke 15:22-24)

The progressive reformer, Jane Addams, in 1911 wrote, "Poor Father has been left out in the cold. He doesn't get much recognition. It would be a good thing if he had a day that would mean recognition of him."

Sixty-one years later, in 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a bill into law making Father's Day a national holiday.

Although this is not part of the liturgical calendar, I'm happy that we recognize this day.

After all, the first four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God. The remaining six instruct us about our relationship with our fellow human beings. The first of these human relationship commands reads, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you" (Exodus 20:12). It is a command with promise. Give honor to your parents, and you will be a person whose life will be a quality existence. Although the person who lives respectful of parents has a much better chance for long life, the primary theme is quality living.

So, it is fitting that we celebrate both Mother's Day and Father's Day.

The reason God includes this in His commands is that it runs against our natural human nature. Our tendency is to fight authority, whether it be the authority of God or the authority of our parents. We want to be free. We want to do our thing. I love this piece titled "Father."

4 Years: My daddy can do anything.

7 Years: My dad knows a lot, a whole lot.

8 Years: My father doesn't quite know everything.

12 Years: Oh well, naturally Father doesn't know everything.

14 Years: Father? Hopelessly old-fashioned.

21 Years: Oh, that man is out of date. What did you expect?

25 Years: He knows a little bit about it but not much.

30 Years: Must find out what Dad thinks about it.

35 Years: A little patience, let's get Dad's meaning first.

50 Years: What would Dad have thought about it?

60 Years: My dad knew literally everything.

65 Years: I wish I could talk it over with Dad once more.

The very institution of fatherhood is in crisis in our society. Sociologists talk about "the invisible dad." Many American men are disconnecting from family life, and society is paying the price. Many fathers now divorced are not only failing to keep up their financial responsibilities but are also abdicating their opportunities to stay in touch with their children. A recent statistic declares that 70 percent of all imprisoned U.S. minors have spent at least part of their lives without their fathers. A large percentage of America's children will go to bed tonight without their biological father in the next room. And most of them won't see their father the next day either. One recent statistic declares that 40 percent of the children who live in fatherless households haven't seen their fathers in at least a year, and for many others, the contact is sporadic. It's a minority of absent fathers who have at least once-a-week contact.

I.

We are a society searching for a model father.

At the same time fatherhood is increasingly imperiled, there is far more focus being given on the notion of fatherhood and how important it is. Many books are being written about the joys of co-parenting, with father having a more important role in family life than in recent previous generations. We are hearing of more and more men who are becoming house-husbands, freeing up their wives to work in the marketplace. And joint custody is very important where there's a divorce.

Even celebrities write books on this topic.

I remember, some years ago, Bill Cosby wrote a best-selling book titled, Fatherhood, in which he cast one jaundiced eye at the trials and tribulations of fatherhood while winking impishly with the other. Even Cosby was somewhat ambivalent about what is involved. On the one hand, he writes about the essence of good fatherhood being the total acceptance of the child, for better or for worse, urging parents to keep trying and keep having patience. On the other hand, there is a contradictory undercurrent in which he portrays children as selfish, expensive, and contrary liars--"young adversaries." He expresses Cosby's First Law of Intergenerational Perversity, in which "No matter what you tell a child to do, he will always do the opposite." Cosby's own relationship with his father remained unresolved. His references to him are few and unpleasant, referring to the days when "My own father used me for batting practice." He went on referring to his father, never by name, as a strict and stingy tyrant, a throwback to the absolute monarchist.

Harvard University psychologist Samuel Osherson takes his own troubled relationship with his father as the springboard to his search for the meaning of fatherhood in his book titled Finding Our Fathers: The Unfinished Business of Manhood. He based it on his own autobiographical explorations and his clinical experience, as well as a longitudinal study of 370 Harvard graduates over a 20-year period. He concluded that, if you don't come to terms with past relationships, especially with your parents, you may be condemned to reproduce them, to become in essence the parents that we swore we would never be. He goes on, then, to describe a "remote sadness" in his relationship with his own father and broadens that to conclude that very few men report a close and secure relationship with their fathers. Most men feel that their fathers lack the emotional strength to tolerate openness with their sons. It's a man's world. It's a world of work, solitary pursuits and isolation. As a researcher, he explains how a man's early and ongoing relationships with his father shapes the intimacy and work dilemmas facing men coming of age today. As a therapist, he's impelled by a psychological urgency to "heal the wounded father" that men carry around inside themselves, so that these men can become more loving and nurturing in relationships with their own children.

Frankly, nothing catches our attention more quickly this weekend than the untimely death of 58-year-old Tim Russert, the longest standing moderator of "Meet the Press" and head of the NBC Washington News Bureau. Whatever our politics, most of us are stunned and saddened when someone this prominent in American life suddenly dies, as he did. He had a cardiac arrest while at work at the news bureau Friday afternoon.

Tim Russert's death impacts us in two ways, doesn't it?

First, it confronts us with the fragile nature of life. Most of us are lulled into a complacency that comes from realizing many more of us are living into our eighties and nineties than ever before in American history. Then we're confronted with the death of a 58-year-old who we see constantly on television news who, in the very middle of a workday, suddenly dies. I'm reminded of those final words from the poem, "Thanatopsis," written by William Cullen Bryant.

So live that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

We never know when our summons will come, do we? How important it is to be prepared for that moment, taking seriously spiritual matters, living daily in right relationship with the Lord and with each other. How important to heed the words of the Psalmist, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart."

Second, Tim Russert's death reminds us of the importance of family. Tim wrote two best-selling books. One, published in 2004, was titled Big Russ and Me, an admiring story of his relationship with his dad, a sanitation worker and newspaper delivery man from Buffalo, New York, who faithfully did his jobs year in, year out, decade after decade, providing the very best he could for his family. The second is titled Wisdom of Our Fathers, addressing the importance of fatherhood. Tim's son, Luke, had just graduated from Boston College. His wife Maureen, his son Luke, and Tim had just returned from a trip to Italy celebrating that graduation. In the last few days, Tim had made a trip to Buffalo to find new living accommodations for his aging father, Russ. How encouraging it is to read the stories of this man's Roman Catholic faith and attention to family matters.

So, today, for Father's Day, with all the swirling dynamics surrounding this topic, is there any model for healthful fatherhood?

I'd have to conclude that the answer is yes and the answer is no. There is no such thing as a perfect human father. Some do it better than others and, as a result, this comes easier for them. Again, basically the whole theological presuppositions undergirding everything we teach and preach here at St. Andrew's is the biblical truth that none of us is perfect. I try hard to be a good father, and I fail. But I'm not giving up. As a Christian, I know I can't do it perfectly. As Kent Nerburn, in his book titled Letters to My Son: Reflections on Becoming a Man, writes, "It is much easier to become a father than to be one."

But, you and I do have a model. It's the example of this biblical model at which I encourage you to take a look. It's a biblical profile of a model father.

One day, Jesus told a story that is probably the most appreciated story in the entire Bible. It has come to be known as the "Parable of the Prodigal Son." We find it recorded in Luke 15:11-32.

I have, on various occasions, used this story as a preaching text, coming at it from various perspectives. I've talked about the Prodigal Son, noting the tendency in some of us to rebel and run away from God's love, entering into a far country, wasting the tremendous inheritance the Lord has given us in disregard of the price we are paying and the heart of God, which is breaking on our behalf. This story, viewed in this perspective, tells us about how we can come back to the Lord, our resources exhausted, finding Him loving and waiting for us. It is never too late to come home. And it's never too late to come home to be a good father.

I've preached on this text from the perspective of the Elder Brother, referring to this as Christ's message for mildewed saints. Isn't it easy to be like this cold, calculating, work ethic, self-righteous character who did things the way they were supposed to be done, scornful of his younger brother's profligacy, living with a "good riddance to bad rubbish" attitude? How stunned he was when the young prodigal returned home, only to get a banquet prepared in his honor. How resentful you and I can be when we discover that God embraces, in even deathbed conversions, persons who have wasted their lives. The elder brother puts a mirror up to me, showing me how maybe my motivation for good works wasn't out of love for God and a desire to be in relationship with Him, but out of pride, arrogance and self-protection.

And I've preached about this parable from the perspective of the "Waiting Father." He stands as a parabolic representation of God. I've tried to probe the divine-human interaction of the way in which God deals with you and me in our wild acts of rebellion and in our cold, cynical, calculated self-righteousness. God has a word for both the prodigal and the elder brother. It is an important word in which He calls us both back to ourselves and what it is to be in relationship with Him.

However, we can come to this parable from an entirely different perspective. I've been looking all over the place for something more than just theory about what it is to be a model father. I've looked for models at the human level. Some I've found. But they, too, have their feet of clay. Suddenly, it dawns upon me that it is possible to revisit this parable and see it in its pristine beauty as the ideal profile of a Model Father. Here we have the father, of whom Jesus tells this story, interacting with his sons in a way that gives insight to you and me of how to be model fathers and, in a broader sense, model parents.

II.

This story told by Jesus gives us at least seven biblical insights into the profile of a model father.

Insight One: The model father teaches the truth from infancy on up.

Jesus did not tell this story in a vacuum. He was telling it to Jews, Jews who knew the Old Testament Scriptures, men and women who were familiar with the Mosaic Law. Basic to this great heritage is the parental responsibility to expose one's children to the teachings of the Scriptures, both in precept and in action. Just before entering the Promised Land, Moses reminds the people of Israel:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

Discipline is essential to this teaching. Moses incorporates these words into his address, "Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you" (Deuteronomy 8:5).

He warns not only fathers but mothers also to live themselves under the authority of God's teaching. As we live under His authority, what we teach our children about the ways of God takes on a more existential relevance to them. If I teach them one mode of conduct and live under a different mode myself, they will see the hypocrisy of it all. I must all of my life live under the teaching and discipline of God, even as I endeavored to faithfully teach and discipline my children in those years when they were Anne's and my responsibility.

Moses adds an additional dimension to this. He knows that the people will be more receptive to God's ways in difficult times as they are coming out of the wilderness experience. He warns them that there will be some days of prosperity ahead. He says:

Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . (Deuteronomy 8:11-14)

This model father Jesus describes is not functioning in a vacuum. He has shared life and all of its struggles, lived with his own successes and failures with his two sons. He has taught them from the Scriptures. He has endeavored to live the life. He has worshiped in the temple. He has brought his tithes and offerings. He has lived his own life under the teaching and disciplines of the Lord, expecting nothing of his sons that he himself is not prepared to give. He has given them something against which they can rebel. He has given them a spiritual home against which they can rebel and to which they can return.

Insight Two: The model father has respect for individual autonomy.

What would be your reaction if one of your children would come to you, thumbing his nose at you, demanding that you give him total freedom and his share to finance his rebellion? That's a tough one, isn't it?

It was not unusual for a Jewish father to distribute his estate before he died, if he wished to retire from the actual management of his business affairs. Under the law, there was a clear delineation of his financial responsibilities. The older son must get two-thirds and the younger son one-third.

There's a certain demanding attitude, is there not, on the part of this younger son? He is saying, "Life is too short for me to wait for you to die or to retire. I'm going to get it anyway. Give it to me now. I'm bored. I'm hemmed in. I want out!"

The father could have said, "No." He could have tried to blackmail him, telling him how much more he would have in the long run if he stayed around home. He could have played the comparison game, saying, "Why aren't you a good son like your older brother? What are you trying to do, break your mother's heart?" You know those little games we play.

No, this father was prepared to stand by the teachings and the humble modeling that he and his wife had shared from the infancy of these two boys. He was willing to evaluate each one of them for who they were as individuals. He knew their strengths and weaknesses. He was prepared to let this young man be an adult. After all, he himself was human. He himself had a father who had raised him. He had his own individual sibling rivalries with his brothers and sisters. He knew the feeling of being compared. He knew what it was to want to be his own person. He knew what it was to rebel. We don't know the nature of his rebellion. We don't know much about his past. Perhaps he, at one time, had been a prodigal himself. Perhaps he, at one time, had been the elder brother or some interesting blend of both of these personality types. He, too, had his secret sins as well as his more obvious shortcomings. He wasn't perfect. He knew that God, in His creative design, had not made human persons to be robots, automatons, who function as mechanical men and women. To be created as human was to have the freedom to obey or to disobey.

This model father had respect for the individual autonomy of each of his sons. So, without preaching a doomsday sermon, he divided his estate. No matter how deeply it broke his heart and how embarrassing it was in front of his friends, he gave his son what he wanted, and he bid him farewell, letting him go. That's not easy to do, is it?

Insight Three: The model father won't stand in the way of consequences.

Apparently, he had money, and he had servants. He could have played a manipulative game. He could have assigned one of his servants to shadow the rebellious kid, carrying various disguises, going wherever he went, making certain that he had no idea that he was there, keeping an eye on him and then reporting back what was going on, letting Dad know if things went well or if things went poorly. He could have kept track of his associations, so that he wouldn't squander the fortune, thinking, "I've worked hard for all this money, and no son of mine is entitled to waste it." He could have had little anonymous reminders put in his way, if he began to get in trouble. "Your father wouldn't like this, would he?" And if things got real bad, he could have had him brought home, thinking, "His mother and I could never live with ourselves if we knew our son was hanging out with prostitutes or becoming an alcoholic, or catching a venereal disease, or marrying outside our faith." At the first sting of homesickness, he could have had him reminded of his mother's hot chicken soup and the fact that there's always plenty of work here at home.

No. The model father won't stand in the way of consequences. He's not in the business of premature rescue. As much as his heart is breaking and he knows that there is trouble ahead, he lets go!

I ask you and I ask myself, "Is this the kind of father, is this the kind of mother we are? Are we willing to faithfully teach and model? Do we respect the autonomy of our children as they come of age? Are we willing to let them walk away from us, no longer nurtured and controlled by us, but free to live in a tough, hard world unprotected?"

The reality is we haven't got much choice. If we don't let them go, they're going to rebel anyway, aren't they? How much better to take the initiative and say, "Alright, this is your life. I've done the best I can. It hasn't been that good at some points. You know my weaknesses and my mistakes. Forgive me for them. It is your life. You know what I believe. I'm willing to cut the strings of control. You are free to be who you choose to be, to do what you choose to do and live with the consequences. You know I love you and always will. I may not always have handled you correctly, and I will make my mistakes in the future. But I am your dad."

With a big hug and perhaps some tears, we prepare to send them off to seek their own fortune, to face whatever may be the consequences--positive, negative or in between.

Insight Four: The model father has a love that refuses to give up.

Most of us have a breaking point. We can put up with just so much nonsense. We are patient up to a point. We have hope up to a point. We are willing to be tolerant up to a point.

The fact is that our children have the God-given freedom to go their own ways and never come back. We cannot force them to show us honor. At the same time, God pity the son or daughter who has a parent who has given up on them. Very few experiences could be more devastating than to be disowned by one's parent. We are called to faithfulness, the same faithfulness that is modeled by the father in this story. Just imagine how the plot would change if the father took this attitude: "Okay, this is the way my son wants to have it. I will go along with it. I think it's dumb. He is making a terrible mistake. He's entitled to do it. That's it. But he better never come back here again. I'm done with that ungrateful kid!"

No, instead we see the father who keeps faithfully carrying out his own ongoing responsibilities. He's not chasing after the prodigal, but he is daily aware of his breaking heart. It is important for us to learn how to live with a broken heart. Jesus said, "'In this world, you will have trouble. Take courage. I have overcome the world.'" There is a realistic candor in the biblical teachings. We are alerted to the reality of life. None of us is free from trouble. We are called to continue doing what God has called us to do while, at the same time, we are privileged to scan the horizon, just hoping for that reunion with the rebel.

We may have caused some of the rebellion. If so, we need to make our own overtures, perhaps a phone call or a letter that says, "I'm sorry. Forgive me for what I've said. I love you. I want a restored relationship with you." I'm talking about an initiative that frees the young person to accept it or not accept it.

Somehow, I am never able to rid myself of the picture of that father who, as he worked his fields, was constantly scanning the horizon. Jesus alerts us of that fact, for He says, "But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20).

Recently, our daughter Janet, now in her early thirties, a wife and a mother, overheard Anne and me talking about the struggle one of our couple friends are having with their teenage child. They were trying so hard to handle this adolescent, disastrous acting out. Janet suddenly broke into our conversation with these knowing words, "Mom, Dad, tell them to love and stand by him no matter what he does! It will pay off in the long haul!!"

Insight Five: The model father is forgiving.

What would your reaction be if your child did what the prodigal did to his father?

Being a preacher, I have a sneaking suspicion that in the prodigal's absence, I probably would have written a sermon titled, "I Told You So!" I would be prepared to deliver this sermon on a moment's notice in a one-on-one situation if he ever returned.

The father in Jesus' story avoids a vindictive attitude. Instead, the love explodes within him. He has compassion. He runs, embraces his son and kisses him.

The son gives the speech he has carefully prepared. "'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son'" (Luke 15:21). The father doesn't linger even a minute over the son's acknowledged sinfulness and unworthiness. He's not interested in saying, "I told you so!" Instead, he is overwhelmed with a joy that floods through his system. He can do nothing but rejoice. He is a forgiving person, who has either experienced forgiveness from others or has yearned so much for it that he is determined that he will break the vindictive family patterns with which he was raised to shower forgiveness upon the returning rebel.

Insight Six: The model father is a celebrative person.

He doesn't even give his son a chance to ask to be a servant. Remember, that was part of the prearranged introductory statement the son was going to make. Instead, he calls for the best robe. In the Hebrew tradition, that robe stands for honor. He calls for a ring. The ring stands for authority. For if a man gave to another his signet ring, it was the same as giving his power of attorney. He calls for shoes. The shoes stand for a son as opposed to a slave. The children of the family wore shoes. Often the slaves' children didn't. The slaves dream in the black spiritual of a time when "all God's children got shoes." Shoes were the sign of freedom.

The father calls for a banquet, a feast to make merry. "'For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate" (Luke 15:24).

Are you a celebrative person? I need to work more at this. I'm inclined to approach things with that Calvinistic work ethic. I'm not certain that I could have been quite as spontaneous and exuberant as was this model father. I think I would have to wait to have the party until I had checked into his recidivism pattern. I would have put him on probation. I would want to know whether or not he had really come clean, or if he would turn right around and break my heart again. I think I would put the party off for a few months. I would give him a job. I would try to measure how good a job he was doing. After all, it wouldn't be fair to his older brother, my son who had been so faithful, to have this big extravaganza. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't like some things I see in myself, when I compare myself to this model father. I have to learn. I have to grow. I have to develop as I take a close look at this biblical example. Fortunately, my own hesitations in this area are complemented by Anne's celebrative nature. She's the one who's ready to throw the party, while I'm still trying to sort out all the implications of past behavior as it relates to hoped-for future performance. We can learn from our partners, can we not?

We certainly can learn from this biblical model.

Insight Seven: The model father is willing to live with ambiguity.

We don't know the end of the story. We do know that the other son got angry. The father had to live with that anger. The other son viewed this as unfair. He wasn't the least bit interested in being part of the celebration.

Jesus had a very interesting way of bringing this story to a conclusion. It ends with the father's response to the elder brother's sneering accusation that there had never been a party for him, that this no-good brother, who had devoured the father's hard-earned money with prostitutes, ends up getting the fatted calf killed in his honor. You know the father's response, don't you?

"Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'" (Luke 15:31-32)

He acknowledges the faithfulness of the older brother. He makes no demands for performance on the younger brother. Life goes on. None of us knows the future, do we? Being a father, being a mother has no sealed and signed guarantees. We are called to live with the ambiguity that is built into relationships.

The model father accepts this as a fact of life and moves on, faithfully doing and being what God has called him to do and be, no matter what the significant others in his life choose to do and be.

Our final reward isn't the privilege of sitting back and saying, "Wasn't I a good father?" Granted, we will have some joys that will come from the hoped-for friendship with our children. But the final reward will be when the real Model Father, God himself, looks us in the eyes and says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into your eternal rest!"

How does this message make you feel? Well, perhaps it is the way it makes me feel--sort of bad about myself, because I am not the model father.

But that's not necessary. Remember that the model is God. You and I are not God. We are not perfect. The key is that I am willing to say, "I am sorry," when I am wrong. The key is that I am willing to stand by the children God has given to me when they are wrong. And how grateful I am to have the strong arms of the Father embracing me with His amazing grace, as I quit trying to play God in the lives of my children, asking them and Him for the forgiveness at those points in which I've failed and the insights to be more of the father He and they dream of me being!

Some of us here at St. Andrew's are familiar with an organization called African Enterprise, founded by the late Bishop Festo Kivengere and Michael Cassidy. The "ambassador-at-large" for African Enterprise was Rev. John Wilson, a man with great diplomatic skills who, in the name of Jesus Christ, brought together persons both in evangelistic and in peacemaking efforts throughout all of Africa and even the Middle East.

In March 1986, in Kampala, Uganda, he and his wife Mary were accosted by gunmen. They were forced to hand over the keys to their car, and John was shot four times. Thirty minutes later, John had bled to death with the shattered Mary looking on. His whole family would feel forever bereft by this, but most especially his beautiful and dynamic daughter, Victoria. She would, in due course, feel a deep, compelling challenge to take far and wide her father's message of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and deep Christian discipleship. Victoria writes these words:

Perhaps no other woman in the world is as greatly indebted to her father as I am. I recognize the great gift God gave me in my father, and how I wish every little girl, every young lady, every woman in the world would experience such a relationship with their fathers. How I wish every man who has a daughter would realize how important it is that they put on, and leave on, the light for them!

Then Victoria adds:

And there is no light brighter than the one that is lit from within. A father's primary function on this earth is to be a reflection of our heavenly Father. He is to love and nurture his family. He must be there for them, provide for them, protect them, and guide them in the ways of righteousness. By being a reflection of God to his children, a man gives his children the greatest gift of all, a love for God that is natural, exciting and revolutionary. He lights a beautiful fire within each child. A light that never burns out. A light that keeps on shining even after he's gone and the world around seems dark and bleak. A light that gives them the courage to stand alone even as the world around them rewards immorality and selfish ambitions.

Few of us, if any, will have children who will write such profound tributes to us, at least while we are still alive. But as we're faithful, through these insights learned and applied from this biblical profile of a model father, we are privileged to bless our children in ways that lights up such a light within them, the light that never burns out, a blessing to them both in this life and the life to come!