Fatherhood
Luke 15:11-32
By Rev. John R. Hannem,
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There are many monumental statements we associate with fathers. Statements that reverberate down through the corridors of time. Statements like: Ask your mother......I was watching that!......It’s only blood, wipe it off..... This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you..... Quiet. I’m watching the game...... Bring back the change...... How should I know? Ask your mother...... I’m not made of money you know! ..... You are going, and you will have fun! ..... Who’s paying the bills around here, anyway? ..... Why? Because I said so! ..... I was not asleep. I was just resting my eyes .... and ...... I’m not lost. I’m taking a short cut.
You heard about the dad who one day shortly after the birth of their new baby, the mother had to go out to do some errands. So the proud daddy stayed home to watch his wonderful new son.
Soon after the mom left, the baby started to cry. The father did everything he could think of to do but the baby wouldn’t stop crying. Finally, the dad got so worried he decided to take the baby to the doctor.
After the doctor listened to the father and all that he had done to get the baby to stop crying, the doctor began to examine the baby’s ears, chest and then down to the diaper area. When he undid the diaper, he found that the diaper is indeed very full.
"Here’s the problem", the Dr. said, "His diaper needs to be changed." The father was very perplexed, "But the diaper package says it is good for up to 10 lbs.!"
I read something a while back entitled 50 Reasons Why It’s Good To Be a
10 You know lots of neat stuff about tanks and blowing up things.
9 You can go to the bathroom without a support group.
8 If someone forgets to invite you to something he can still be your friend.
7 You can drop by to see a friend without bringing a little gift.
6 If another guy shows up at the same party in the same outfit, you might become lifelong buddies.
5 One wallet, one pair of shoes, one color for all seasons.
4 There is always a game on somewhere.
3 Your pals can be trusted never to trap you with, “So…notice anything different?”
2 If something mechanical doesn’t work, you can bash it with a hammer and throw it across the room.
1 You can do your nails with a pocketknife
There are some obvious advantages to being a man, aren’t there?
I want to start this morning with some encouraging news about dads. The
In the past 25 years, the number of dads present at their children’s births has risen from 27% to more than 90 percent today. More than 75% of men say they would trade rapid career advancement for more time with their families. And yet, even with this good news, Time magazine, in an issue called, “The Hottest Jobs of the Future,” lists fatherhood as one of the occupations that will disappear in the next century. This is what the article says: “Between in-vitro fertilization and cloning, dads could become dinosaurs.” (
We need to come back to a biblical theology of fatherhood. God very clearly says that dads are to be difference-makers by leading and loving in the family relationship. Dad’s are important.
So in our time together this morning I want to focus on a familiar portion of scripture that we know as the story of the Prodigal Son. And from these verse of scripture we will glean insight that will encourage and help us as fathers, parents and families in general.
READ Luke 15:11-32
You know, there are some today who would like to make the Bible gender neutral. They would like to remove all the references to God as Father. God, in their edited version, would become our divine parent instead of our heavenly Father.
Do you think that it is by accident that God has been revealed to us as Father? Is it because of the patriarchal society that existed in the times in which the Bible was written that male imagery was used? ..... or could it be that God actually wants to be known as Father?
There is no doubt in my mind that He does. To think that God would deny the truth of who He is to accommodate the thinking of a culture is to accuse God of being a liar. To assign the reason God is known as Father to the mistaken assumptions of the biblical writers is to deny the inspiration of Scripture. No, God intentionally revealed Himself as Father because He is Father. Father reveals something of His nature and his character, something He wants us to understand.
We live in an age where fatherhood has been depreciated. There is no doubt that the traditional understanding of the family is under constant attack. From the homosexuals and lesbians who advocate same sex marriages, to the widespread acceptance of common law relationships as normal, we have seen the traditional family take severe and heavy shelling. Some would have us believe that the real problem with society is men. Robert Griswold, associate professor of history and women’s studies at the
Into this culture God as Father still speaks. He declares the vital importance of being a father and honoring fatherhood.
The Influence of Fathers
One of my greatest regrets in life is that my own father died before I really got to know him well as an adult. I was three weeks short of my fifteenth birthday when he died. As I was only in the process of becoming an adult myself, I was really just beginning to be able to appreciate who he was as my dad. And while I wish I had known him better and longer, I am thankful to have known him as long as I did. You see, having a father is better than having none at all.
And today we are seeing the disappearing dad. Time magazine featured a cover story on fatherhood in an issue a while back. In that story it documented the changing shape of what we call family life. It reported that fathers used to occupy a greater place in the home and that "well into the 18th century, childrearing manuals in
You see, fathers have tremendous power over the lives of their children. I’m not talking here about the physical power which they exert in the home, but about the emotional and psychological power that comes from the position of father. Like it or not, we are shaped by our fathers more than we think. I am far more like my father than I ever thought I would be. My father made an impact on my life. Your father probably did as well. There is something within us that makes us want to please our father. And we need to feel his approval on our lives. Fathers provide certain needed characteristics in the home without which children do not receive the balance and emotional strength needed for future years.
The television show "60 Minutes" ran a segment a while back that revealed some disturbing news. Park rangers at a South African wildlife preserve were concerned about the slaughter of 39 rare white rhinos. It turned out that the rhinos were killed not by poachers but rather by juvenile delinquents.
You see the story began a decade ago when the park could no longer sustain the increasing population of its elephants. They decided to control the herds by killing many of the dominate males whose young were old enough to survive without them. As a result many of the young elephants grew up fatherless and without the presence of male leadership.
As time went on, researchers observed that many of these young elephants began roaming together in packs and began to do things elephants do not normally do in nature. They threw sticks and water at the rhinos and began acting like neighborhood bullies - knocking down trees, threatening the females and basically raising the noise level and anxiety in the park. Without dominant males in the tribe, the young bulls became overly aggressive in their behavior. A few young males grew especially violent attacking the rhinos and stepping or kneeling on them, crushing the life out of them.
To swell the destruction park rangers eventually had to kill the gang leaders leaving the young elephants disoriented and confused. Park rangers theorized that these young teen-aged elephants were acting badly because they lacked a dominant male role model. They eventually devised a solution and brought in a large dominant male to lead them and to counteract the abnormal behavior. After a few years of the new male leadership the young bulls returned to their natural role in the tribe. The killings stopped and the wildlife preserve was saved.
God certainly knew what He was doing when He created fatherhood.
A Biblical Example
We see in our text a biblical example of our heavenly father and what we earthly fathers should be like. At first glance you will recognize the Parable of the Prodigal Son is indeed a story about a son’s backsliding and repentance, but it is also a story about a father’s compassion.
What I want us to do is to look at this story, not through the eyes of the backsliding son, but through the eyes of the father. Perhaps we will see ourselves, or at least experience some of the emotions common to parents, and fathers especially. And perhaps we will learn something, not only about the role of fathers, but about our heavenly father as well.
You see, all of us can identify with the prodigal son who went his merry way without regard for the responsibilities of life or the feelings of others. We have all done that a time or two. But think of how this father felt. He had brought this son into the world, nurtured him, taught him to work, shared his life with him, and now the boy was ready to throw it all away for the sake of a good time.
One thing that is true, or should be true about all parents is that they do care about the future of their children. We all want our children to succeed and make something of themselves. Mothers tend to place more emphasis on the “be happy” and fathers on the “be successful”, but both want the best for their children. So how do we feel when they exhibit a careless disregard for what is right and good?
Bill Cosby, in his book Fatherhood says, "Poets have said the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality; and I must admit I did ask God to give me a son because I wanted someone to carry on the family name. Well, God did just that and I now confess that there have been times when I’ve told my son not to reveal who He is. ‘You make us a name,’ I’ve said. ‘ Just don’t tell anybody who you are.’"
The truth is that when our children go wrong it hurts. It makes us fill up with all kinds of feelings. Feelings of hurt, frustration, disappointment, sadness, confusion, worry, and anger. Indeed, it just makes us plain mad! What’s the matter with them? Why did they do that? What were they thinking? How could they show such blatant disregard for all we have taught them? Who do they think they are? And on and on the litany goes.
So we conclude that we need to show them who is boss and that there are consequences for their actions. And at the risk of appearing politically incorrect let me say that this is entirely appropriate, indeed it is essential at a certain stage of life. When children are young and in the formative stages of life, we must help them to connect negative and hurtful consequences with inappropriate and wrong actions. Children need that. I cannot tell you the times I have witnessed the method of childrearing which says that all you need to do is just reason with little "Johnny." The result is that little Johnny becomes a holy terror — a child totally out of control with little or no respect for the authority of his parents or any other authority for that matter.......... There goes little Johnny running around the church throwing hymn books as he goes, and his mom or dad say, "Now little Johnny, that’s not nice, we don’t do that." Little Johnny pauses for only a moment and resumes his destructive behavior. After several more attempts by the parents to reason with little Johnny, they either give up or try to give him a "time out" to which he responds by a temper tantrum. What he’s really learning there is rebellion, and at some point he is going to have to come face to face with punishment or else he will never learn that actions have consequences.
Proverbs says, "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." (NIV) Why? Because disciple teaches consequences. It is best to learn consequences through those who love you most than to learn it when you are out in the world through those who couldn’t care less about you.
Our heavenly Father disciplines us, as well. But there is another aspect of His character revealed in this passage which is often neglected by many fathers. I’m sure the father in this story felt all of the emotions we feel when his son took his share of the inheritance and squandered it on wild living. There is no doubt that he was hurt and angry and sad. How would you feel? That is probably just how he felt.
And what did he do? Well, the first thing he did was to let his son go his own way. After all, he wasn’t a child anymore. He was grown-up in years if not in wisdom. And there are times when we must do the same.
Another thing he did was not to reach out to his son and bail him out of the jam he got himself into. If more parents would let the consequences of wrong decisions come home to their children, more children would come home to what is right. That is what happened to the prodigal. The Bible says, that after he had hit bottom, "he came to his senses." He probably never would have if his dad had kept wiring him money via Near Eastern Union. Often we have to hit bottom before we realize the error of our ways.
When he realized how stupid he had been, he repented of his actions and decided to go home. He was willing to pay the price for his foolishness and become like a hired servant in his father’s house. After all, they were doing better than he was. So he headed home.
A Challenge to Fathers
What kind of reception did he receive? Well, let me tell the story of his return as Jesus didn’t tell it.
"And when the son was a long way off, his father’s house came into view, but he didn’t see his father anywhere. Actually, his father saw him coming through an upstairs window and thought to himself, ‘I wonder what he thinks he is doing coming back here?’ When the son arrived his father called down from the second story window and said, ‘So you’ve spent all your money and you think we are going to take you back?’ The son replied, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ The father replied, ‘Don’t you know that you have done a stupid thing. You have embarrassed me and your mother. People are talking about what you have done and saying that we are not good parents. You have made us look bad to our friends. ..... But, I’ve considered the fact that you are my son and I’ve decided to give you a second chance. I’m going to accept you back into the family on a six month probation. If you don’t mess up in any way in the next six months, then we’ll forget about this episode. Of course, during that time I will be reminding you of your stupidity and of how much you have hurt us by doing what you did. But come on in. You’ve got six months to prove yourself."
That, tragically sounds like what happens in many families today. But that is not what happened here. Instead, the father saw him coming and ran to meet him, throwing his arms around him and forgiving him. Instead of throwing everything up in his face, the father threw a celebration because his son was lost, and has been found.
The challenge for us as fathers is to be there for our children, with discipline and with mercy. By our love we must show our children the love of God. We must model the compassion of our Father in heaven while we live as fathers on earth. We must not abdicate our role as the spiritual leader of the home, but rather stand tall in integrity and bend low in extending our experienced hand to one who is seeking to find his or her way in this world.
Fatherhood is a unique calling which cannot be replaced in our culture. Let us never apologize for it. Let us never allow it to be scoffed at, made fun of, belittled, or depreciated. May we reflect the eternal Father’s nature and pass that image on to those lives God has entrusted to our care.