| Sermon for Sunday, Father's Day, June 19, 2005 ARE YOU TAKING TIME TO FEED YOUR SPIRIT??By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: Acts 2:41-47 41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. I had the privilege of sitting in on the Tuesday night dress rehearsal of “Fiddler on the Roof” this week. I met with the cast for ten minutes of discussion before they started the rehearsal. We talked about what a rich and meaningful play “Fiddler” is. I asked for help from the cast and said I was working on my sermon for Father’s Day and asked them to tell me what kind of father Tevye is. If you have seen the play, how would you answer that? Our kids were very insightful as usual (!) and said he is trying to be responsible and he is torn between honoring his upbringing, his tradition, and trying to adapt to new realities particularly with his daughters choices of husbands. He loves his family and is pulled several ways. And he loves God enough to be honest with God about his questions and frustrations with life! This is a rich play and I commend it to you tonight if you have not yet had a chance to see our youth in action in an excellent production. Is Tevye anything like your father? That might be a good discussion question on this Father’s Day. Just as our celebration of Mother’s Day, this holiday can evoke mixed feelings for some people. Some of us have had and still may have conflicted relationships with fathers, and those painful feelings can affect us for a long time. I remember one of our church members who is a psychotherapist tell me that he very rarely sees anyone in his practice who has had a healthy relationship with their father, that most of the clients he sees have grown up with a father who was emotionally or physically distant or remote, or they grew up with fathers who were abusive physically, emotionally or sexually. In many cases it is not too late to work on building a relationship with a parent. Dr. Harold Bloomfield in his excellent book “Making Peace With Your Parents” tells about the last few months of his father’s life. Bloomfield took time to visit regularly with his father over his father’s last few months of life. He told his dad how he had benefited from growing up with his dad, and when he would leave from the visit, he would hug his dad—something they had never done before. It was awkward at first, he said, but then became very important in their relationship before his dad died. About twenty years ago when poet Robert Bly’s book on the men’s movement was selling so strongly, Bly told about a fellow in his thirties who was trying to reestablish a relationship with his father and to express his appreciation for his father. He called his dad who like many fathers of his era was fairly uncomfortable in talking about feelings. When his dad, who lived in another city, answered the phone and learned it was his son, the dad said—“Oh it’s you. Here let me get your mom.” The son stopped him and said, “Wait, dad, I don’t need to talk to mom. I called to talk with you. I have been doing some thinking and some reading and I just wanted to call you and let you know how I appreciate all the things you did for me as I was growing up and to tell you I realize more fully how important you are now that I am a father myself. I just called to tell you that and to tell you that I love you. “ There was a long silence at the end of the line and finally the dad said, “Son, have you been drinking?” We find it difficult sometimes to talk with our fathers about our appreciation for them. Professor Tom Long who teaches preaching at one of our United Methodist seminaries tells the story about a high school English class reading the script of the Frank Gilroy play, “The Subject Was Roses.” They were reading the play aloud and it was a warm spring day and the students seemed restless and bored, some looking out the window. The reading was moving toward the final scene where a young man named Timmy is leaving home and attempting to say good-bye to John, his unfeeling and stubborn father. Timmy’s lines called for him to say to his father that he has had a dream the night before, a dream that he has had often before. He is told in the dream that his father is dead and when he hears this news, he runs into the street crying. Someone asks him what has happened and he says he is crying because his father has died and his father had never told Timmy that he loved him. The boy who was reading Timmy’s part was faltering on this lines and his voice was breaking. He stopped and looked up from the script and looked at the teacher. He whispered to her, “My father has never told me that either.” Suddenly the class was attentive. There was an electric silence in the room. Everyone was looking at the teacher who motioned for the boy to continue reading. He looked at the page and hoarsely read the next line. Timmy: It’s true, Dad, you never said you love me. But it’s also true that I’ve never said those words to you. John: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Timmy: I say them now…. John: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Timmy: I love you Pop. I love you. The teacher was now standing beside the student, her hand gently on the student’s shoulder. As they stood together, first one member of the class, and then another spoke about the healing power of loving other persons even when that love cannot be returned. And when the students left the class that day, they had been changed. Our fathers have an enormous influence on us for good or ill and it is humbling if we are parents and a little scary to think about that. A few months ago I spoke to the parents of our Children’s Learning Center children before one of the children’s programs. I talked about the research that has been done on the most important influence in a child’s spiritual development. We know now that the single most important influence in whether a child is active in a faith community after they grow up and leave home is whether that child’s father has been active also and has a mature spiritual life. If the father thinks that faith is just something for women and children that is the attitude that will most likely prevail in the young person’s attitude after they leave home. If the father has been involved in church and has shown by example the value of spiritual growth and of practicing a life of compassion and faith, that man’s sons and daughters will develop a mature spiritual life as well. Two weeks ago we graduated another 85 people from our Disciple Bible study classes and we have been signing people up for next September’s classes also and already have over 140 people who have indicated an interest in doing what we heard in the reading from the book of Acts—studying together and learning about our faith and being able to pass on that faith to our family. We cannot pass on faith if we do not have an active and vital faith. That is the purpose of these groups that meet together for nine months—to ground us more fully in our faith because most of us still have a third grade theological education. Most of us are spiritually uninformed and are vulnerable to being misled by anyone who has just a little more familiarity about the Bible than we do. We mainstream Christians are dealing with this problem especially in this church through programs like Disciple study. Over 1200 people have been in Disciple classes in the past 11 years in this church and it is so important that I am about to ask that we require it for every person who is a leader in our church. We cannot lead other people unless we have some foundational knowledge about the faith that we are leading them in. And when we have that foundation, our lives are changed, like the lives of the students who left the literature class after applying what they were reading in a play to their own situation and finding guidance and help. That’s what happens when Christians read and apply our book together. It does not happen if we are ignorant about our book and leave it unopened. The images and stories in our book can change our lives for the better. What is in our book can keep us on the right path and can prevent us from getting sidetracked or even lost. It can do this if we take time to study. Dr. Fred Craddock, retired professor of Preaching at our Methodist seminary in Atlanta, tells about the influence of his Sunday School teacher for three years, Miss Emma Sloan. Miss Sloan had given him one of his first Bibles. Craddock calls Miss Sloan one of the most influential persons in his life besides his parents. She had written in the Bible she had given him: “May this book be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.” And most importantly, over those three years she had taught Fred and his classmates to memorize the great Bible verses and passages. She told them, “Just put these words in your heart. Just put them in your heart and they will serve you well all your life.” She used the alphabet to teach the memory passages:
We contacted Fred Craddock a couple of years ago when I first used this story and asked him for the rest of the list. He declined and told us, “Create your own rest of the list and it will be more helpful to you.” Fred Craddock said in honoring his Sunday School teacher, I can’t think of anything in my life and has made such a radical difference as those verses. The spirit of God brings them to my mind appropriately, time and time and time again. Do you have some favorite passages and stories and verses that have made a radical difference in your life? What would we do if we did not have these verses? What is on your list? Would you like to add to your list of stories and verses that can sustain you and guide you and keep you on the right path? Stop by the Disciple sign up table and take the time to nurture and feed your soul. It is a very important thing to do and it will be worth your time. Let me end with one of the most life changing stories in the Bible that is very appropriate on this day. Jesus tells some parable about what God is like. He tells about a woman who had ten coins and lost one and searched high and low for it until she found it and then called her friends to celebrate with her because what was lost had been found. Then Jesus tells about a shepherd who had 100 sheep and one got lost. It wasn’t a bad sheep; it just wandered away from where it was supposed to be. Have you ever done that? So the shepherd left the other 99 and went and looked for the one that went astray until he found him and called his friends to celebrate with him because the one that was lost had been brought back safely into the group. Then… Jesus tells a story about a father. There once was a father who had two sons. The youngest came and asked for his share of the inheritance and went to Las Vegas and gambled it away. When he no longer had money he found he no longer had friends also. He found himself doing the worst thing a Jewish boy could do—feeding the pigs—and not just feeding them, but eating some of their food. He realized how stupid and selfish and greedy he had been and decided to see if his father would accept him back into the household—not as a son, because he felt he did not even deserved to come back as a son, he had so disgraced himself and his father—but as a slave. He practiced his speech all the way home—Father I have sinned against God and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son, but can I just please come back and work here as a slave? He was approaching his family home and still practicing what he was going to say when his father saw him along way off. Why do you think his father saw him first? Could it be because his father had been looking for him and praying for him and hoping he would some day come to his senses and come back from being lost? His father ran to meet him and before his son could get out his repentant words his father ordered new clothes and a ring and a party with filet mignon because his son who had been lost had come back and they were a family again. Except for one thing—the older brother who had been faithful and obedient and loyal and hardworking came in from the fields and saw that there was feasting and dancing and filet mignon and found out that this no good, selfish scum of a brother that had betrayed and shamed the family name had returned and had been welcomed back!! He confronted the father and said what you and I would say: how come you are throwing a party for this lazy, wastrel son of yours when I have worked my fingers to the bone for you and you never even gave me a party with a scrawny goat! What does the father say? Son, you have been with me all this time and everything that is mine is also yours. But we had to celebrate. We just had to celebrate because your brother who was lost has now been found; he was dead and now he is alive. Jesus says in this story this is what God is like. And this is what being in the family of God is like. And whatever your father was like, is like, and whatever you and I are like as imperfect, often failing parents, this is the family that God is calling us into. Thanks be to God. |
