1 HEADLINES: FATHERS AND FAMILIES LUKE 15:11-32 JUNE 21, 2015 FATHER S DAY Happy Father s Day, dads! My dad provided an interesting mix of discipline and warmth. He was a West Point graduate, went through Army Ranger school, and ran the house that way. There was no room for disobedience or back talk. Misbehavior and disobedience were met with swift repercussions, often in the form of what my parents called the Golden Rule, a gold-colored metal ruler. Ah, the good old days. He watched us even more than I realized at the time. When I went out on my first date, he got in his car and followed me. Oh, my mom tried to stop him, but he was having none of it. He says he was just making sure I didn t get lost. Right. My dad watched everything I did. Homework, report cards, cleaning our rooms, everything was up for inspection. And any shortcomings were duly noted and quickly corrected. At the same time, my dad never shied away from expressing his love for us. One of my earliest memories is of Saturday mornings lying on the couch watching cartoons, with my dad lying there, too. Now I suspect he was sleeping, but then all I knew was that he was there with me. every Saturday. Another early memory was when we lived in Austin. I was about 3-4 years old. He was working on a master s degree at UT and working at a job, and so was quite busy. I can see him in our little apartment, sitting at the typewriter in khakis and a white t-shirt next to the window unit air conditioner, working on a paper for school. And, as busy as he was, he took a break to show me how to make a paper airplane. Later there would be very early mornings at the ranch when I learned to drink coffee, while getting ready to go out into the cold, to quietly watch and wait for a deer to come by. My dad taught me two of the most important things in life: coffee and deer hunting!
2 Hugs and kisses and, I love you, were always the order of the day. And he attended every band concert with enthusiasm. Hard discipline and warm love. That was my dad when I was growing up. But not all dads live up to their calling. And not all biological dads even stick around to be fathers. But the presence and involvement of a father in the home makes a huge difference. As important as moms are, the presence or absence of a child s father actually makes a bigger difference in life outcomes. Let me give you some study results. Today 43% of children in the US live without their father. [US Department of Census] Having no father in the home is strongly associated with runaways, pregnant teens, teen suicide, lower academic achievement, dropping out of high school, not going on to college, teen drug and alcohol abuse, getting in trouble with the law, and having emotional or behavioral problems. (http://fatherhoodfactor.com/us-fatherless-statistics/) I m certainly not saying anything against single moms. Single moms have one of the toughest jobs of all, I know some real heroes that are doing everything humanly possible for their children. But there s nothing for a child s welfare that beats having a father in the home and actively involved in their lives. Once upon a time, divorce was a rarity, out-of-wedlock births were a rarity, and so fatherless homes were a rarity. In 1965 only 3.1% of Anglo babies were born to single moms, and 24% of Black babies were born to single moms. The most recent figures I could find are for 2012. 40.7% of all births were outside of marriage. For Anglos it has gone from 3.1% to 29%. It s about 53% for Hispanics. For Blacks it has risen from 24% to 72% of babies being born to single moms. What happened? Between 1965 and now we ve had a sexual revolution. Fueled largely by the growing availability of contraception and abortion, recreational sex outside of marriage exploded across our nation. With that explosion came the loss of shame and guilt regarding sex outside of marriage. And once that shame and guilt was out of the picture, having a child outside of marriage became more socially acceptable. Today there are increasing numbers of men and women living together without marrying, Though it, too, is socially acceptable to many, cohabitation has its own bad statistics, including higher rates of domestic violence and abuse, higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, sexual infidelity, and abortion. And for children whose parents cohabit, they experience lower academic achievement, higher rates of sexual abuse, and they re more likely to live in poverty.
3 (Dr. Patricia Lee June, physician and board member of the American College of Pediatricians) Today we re redefining marriage and, with that, we re redefining the meaning of family and parents. Add to that the advent of no-fault divorce, quickly followed by rising divorce rates (and there s a whole other sermon needed to address that, starting with God bluntly saying, I hate divorce ) (Mal.2:16) and you ve got a perfect storm for the breakdown of the family and a huge number of children growing up without a father at home and involved in their lives. It all goes together to say the nuclear family as an institution in trouble. And when the family is in trouble, society itself suffers. All of this points to the importance of men, particularly fathers, living life the way God intended from the beginning. Women and moms, too, of course. But let s be honest. If we could get men on board with God s plan, most of this mess would be remedied. The Bible, Old Testament and New alike, says the same thing, starting from the creation story and going through every page after it. God s design for husbands and fathers is clearly laid out, with the foundation laid in marriage. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. (Ge.2:21) Jesus quoted this verse numerous times when talking about marriage and divorce. He holds it up as God s intention for marriage from creation. (Mt.19:5) Notice that man s relationship with his wife, his marriage, is to now be the most important human relationship. Not his family of origin, not his kids, not his buddies, not his work. His marriage. And upon the foundation of marriage, the family is built. In that setting children find belonging, stability and security. One thing we see in some of those families is the pain caused by a father and/or mother who show favoritism toward one child over the others. In the stories of Abraham and Sarah wrangling over two sons, Isaac and Rebekah and their boys, and Jacob favoring Joseph over his brothers, it s nothing but pain, division, and heartbreak. There are no winners. So favoritism is not a good strategy for dads or for moms, for that matter. And with King David we see a father who is totally disengaged from family. He s so wrapped up in his work, so busy being king, his children have no real sense of connection with him, no sense of loyalty to him. And one of them ends up leading an armed rebellion against him. The moral of the story is, of course, dads stay connected with and engaged in your children s lives. Don t let work or anything else become more important. I can testify as to how hard that is sometimes. There was an time where I gave too much of myself to the work of the church and not enough to my family.
4 And besides having a workaholic streak, I had the extra rationalization that, It s for God. It took a few rough bumps in the road for God to teach me better. With all of that going on in these messed up families in the Bible, we still see God working in and through each one of those families. Which is a good thing because. (Now this is a secret just between you and me.) Dads are not perfect. No dad is perfect. I wasn t; your dad wasn t; and those of you who are dads are not perfect. But God can still work in and through us fallible dads. Toward that end, the New Testament provides us with guidance and instruction. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul wrote, Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. (Ep.6:4) How do we bring up our children in the training and instruction of the Lord? It s not a classroom thing. And it s not something you just delegate to church staff and volunteers. It s about how we live our lives, how we speak to those around us, how we treat our wives and kids, how we engage in worship, Bible study, and prayer, how we talk with our children about matters of faith, how we live every moment of every day. It means, when our children are out of line we bring discipline to bear. The letter to the Hebrew Christians says, Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? We have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! (He.12:7, 9) We can help our children understand and respond well to discipline from God if they ve learned to respond do discipline from Dad. But we ve got to do it in a way that s not motivated by anger, but by concern for the well-being of our children. That s the hard part. Bringing appropriate discipline to bear BEFORE you re angry. And on the other hand, our children can learn about God s grace if we display some grace toward them ourselves. We have to offer forgiveness, freely express our love to them, and Discipline and grace. Sort of like what I experienced from my dad. My favorite Dad story in the Bible is in Luke 15. You may know it as the story of the prodigal son, but I think it should be called the story of the loving father. LUKE 15:11-12
He just treated his dad like he was dead. Give me my inheritance. Do you know how my dad would have responded to a demand like that? Let s just say I would not be here today. Bu tthe father in the story. gave him what he asked for. LUKE 15:13-16 He got out from Daddy s watchful eye, kicked up his heels, doing all the things he couldn t do while he was at home with Dad, blew all his money, and found out who his friends really were. And that s when he began to realize how good he d had it back home how good his father was, and how little he deserved to be welcomed back home. But he went anyway, in hopes. LUKE 15:17-20 While he was a long way off, his father saw him. Because he was watching for him. While his father had not gone searching for him, he had been hoping, praying, and watching for him. There are two stories about lost things just before this in Luke 15. There s a lost sheep, and the shepherd goes on an all out search to find it. There s a lost coin, and a woman wears out a $10 broom to find that dime. But it wouldn t have done any good for this father to go looking for that boy. The sheep had nibbled itself into lostness, just a matter of careless neglect. And the coin had been lost through circumstances beyond its control. But his son had left as an act of willful rebellion, And searching him out and trying to force him back home would not have been well received. But he had never quit loving his son or hoping for the day he d return home. Every morning when he went out to pick up the newspaper, every time he took the dog for a walk, he was looking, watching, waiting for his son. Which, of course, is how God deals with any of us when we re in willful rebellion against him. And when his son finally returned home, Dad met him with open arms, then hugs and kisses. LUKE 15:21-24 It was a grand celebration, a huge barbecue to celebrate this homecoming. Everyone was having a great time. Everyone but the fatted calf. And, of course, the first born son, the older brother. He was still out at work. So Daddy sent him a special invitation to join in the fun. LUKE 15:25-30 Envy, jealousy, and resentment kept him outside the party. Not because his father played favorites, 5
6 but because the older son did not understand grace, grace that keeps on loving when wronged, grace that forgives. He thought only in terms of rules, black and white, right and wrong, and wrong must be punished and forever held against the wrongdoer. Though he had stayed home, kept his nose clean, and worked in the family business all that time, he was no closer to his father than his younger brother had been. He didn t really know his dad at all. So he stayed away from the party. But his dad kept the invitation open and the door unlocked. LUKE 15:31-32 That is a loving father. Of course, it s a picture of God the Father. But it is also be a picture of some earthly fathers who take seriously what Jesus said to his followers, Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Lk.6:36) While today is not officially a church holy day, I think we can find grounds for Father s Day and Mother s Day right there in the Ten Commandments: Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land. (Ex.20:12) Honor your parents. Paul points out it s the only commandment with a promise attached. (Ep.6:2) That you may live long in the land. Which could mean honor your father and mother so they let you live. But it really has to do with God blessing that sort of parent-child relationship. When we dads live out our role after the example of God the Father, it is so much easier for our children to honor us. Scriptures cited: Ma.2:16; Ge.2:21; Mt.19:5; Ep.6:4; He.12:7, 9; Lk.15:11-32