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The
statistics abound and the statistics are not good:
One of the chief predictors of
youth crime is the role of the father in the home. Seventy
percent of adolescents charged with murder and seventy
percent of long-term prison inmates are from fatherless
homes.
Children who live absent their
biological father are at least two to three times more
likely to be poor, use drugs, be victims of child abuse and
to engage in criminal behavior.
Twenty-four million children
live absent their biological fathers and forty percent of
those children have not seen their father at all during the
past year. (Poynter Online-Friday Edition, 6/16/2006)
And another statistic: Americans
today know more about the Simpsons than they do the first
amendment. Only 28% of Americans are able to name more than
one of the five freedoms granted by the first amendment, but
almost twice as many…52%....can name at least two members of
the Simpson family. (McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum,
Chicago, March 1, 2006, www.mccormicktribune.org)
It’s
all about Bart and Homer, fathers and sons.
There is a whole cottage
industry of websites, articles and major books on the
philosophy, theology and sociology of the Simpson household.
One of those authors, Mark Conard, says that for all its
excesses, “The Simpsons celebrate the nuclear family as an
institution, which for television is no small
accomplishment.” (The Simpsons and Philosophy, Page
163)
You know the stories. Bart cut
off the head of the statue of the town’s founding father,
Jebediah Springfield. He burned down the family Christmas
tree. He cheated on the IQ test. In his book, Conard writes:
“Bart Simpson isn’t some lovable little scamp who always
seems to find himself in trouble. He’s a wise-cracking
delinquent, a bad boy in bright blue pants, a spoiler, one
of Satan’s minions.” (Mark Conard, The Simpsons
and Philosophy, Page 159)
And
what about Homer?
In The Simpsons, clearly
Father does not always know best. As Marge says, his best
quality is his “in-your-face humanity.” Bart is a brat and
Homer is horrendous, but no one can question the fact that
the Simpson household has become a major icon. And in the
end, there is no question about their commitment to each
other. Together they are family and they are likely to
remain one. They are Bart and Homer, father and son.
And in a strange way, that
brings us to the biblical narrative.
The Bible is very honest about
its dysfunctional families. The very first family in the
Bible, that of Adam and Eve, struggled with spousal betrayal
and the first case of sibling rivalry and family violence in
the biblical narrative and the human story. Noah and his
family survived the flood, but the joy was muted with
alcohol abuse and conflict with his sons. Even good old
Father Abraham argued with his brother, lied about his wife
and had to deal with the jealousy of his sons throughout the
succeeding generations. And certainly one of the most
dramatic father/son relationships is that of King Saul,
Jonathan, and his adopted son, David.
Today’s reading shares a
turning point in the tragic journey.
It’s a story of the deep love
and abiding friendship between Jonathan and David. It’s a
story of seething jealousy and threatening rivalry between
Saul and David, the one who would be king. It’s a story of
loyalty and devotion mixed with hatred and family violence.
It’s a story of the all-too-frequent struggle between Adam
and Abel, Saul and David, Homer and Bart, father and son.
1.
FIRST, KING SAUL, THE FATHER
Let’s be honest. If Homer is the
classic dysfunctional American father, King Saul has him
beat in spades. He is a larger than life, Shakespearian
figure with a kind of Nixonian paranoia which drove him to
deceit, vengeance and violence. Poor King Saul...
so concerned about protecting his own power and authority
so committed to his own career and pride
so centered in himself
that he threatens the life of
David and drives his own son, Jonathan, away. The resulting
tension spirals into a national conflict in which Jonathan
dies. He ends up destroying the people he loved most and his
own life ends in tragedy.
It all comes to the tipping
point in Chapter 18. David has returned from battle with
great success. Saul should have been proud, but instead he
was seething with jealousy. Samuel records: “Saul raved
within his house while David was playing the lyre…and Saul
cast his spear at David, for he thought, ‘I will pin David
to the wall.’” (I Samuel 18:10-11)
And
unfortunately, King Saul is still with us.
Tell me…how long are we going to
tolerate violence against our children in this world? How
long will we put up with handguns in the homes and AK-47s on
the streets? How long will we allow Saul’s bitter spears of
child abuse and child neglect, hunger and homelessness, poor
education and inadequate health care to “pin our children
to the wall”? How long will we tolerate the violence of
King Saul against all of our children?
Just this morning in the Free
Press, our School Superintendent, John Hoffler,
commenting on the death of one of our children, asked the
same question: “One of our children has died and she thought
drugs was the way to go. How could we let a child grow up in
our midst and believe that?” (Detroit Free Press,
June 18, 2006)
King Saul’s story is a sad tale,
sure enough. He is a King Lear who never does understand.
And like Shakespeare’s play, his story ends with the stage
littered with the bodies of those who have suffered and
died.
By
contrast, today, I want to honor fathers…
Not just birth fathers but all
the men, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, Sunday school
teachers, mentors, youth workers, friends — men who become
“fathers in the faith” for our children. I celebrate men who
give of themselves for our children through Sunday School
and VBS (when I was growing up, it was all women), youth
programs, Boy Scouts, co-op nursery school, stay-at-home
dads. I want to celebrate men who are willing to be positive
role models for all of our sons; men who are willing to be
vulnerable, loving and trustworthy; men who are willing to
model the spirit of Christ.
A couple years ago, Mitch Albom
wrote a Father’s Day article in honor of his father, “A
Toast for the World’s Regular Dads.” He says his father was
never on 60 Minutes, never interviewed by Barbara
Walters, but this is what his father did:
He set an example. He was
there. He was involved. He worked hard. He came home at
night. He held us when we cried. He scolded us and molded
us. He always made us feel that if danger came, he would
sacrifice his life for us.
Today is Father’s Day.
Here’s to the dads who teach their children what a father
should be by behaving like one. (Detroit Free Press,
June 17, 2001)
Fathers in the faith. Men who
model the spirit of Christ and who invest themselves in our
children. Fathers….
2.
…AND SONS, JONATHAN AND DAVID.
Part of the tragedy of the King
Saul story is that David and Jonathan had so much to teach
him and King Saul missed it. David and
Jonathan understood friendship. They knew what it meant to
trust and to be trustworthy, to care and to communicate, to
love and to laugh together. If only King Saul could have
learned from his sons, how different their story might have
been. If only we could learn from our sons.Listen to the way
the writer describes the friendship of David and Jonathan.
Quite frankly, it’s passionate enough that in our homophobic
culture where we are so suspicious of male friendships, it
can make us a bit uncomfortable:
18:3-4 — Jonathan made covenant
with David, because he loved him as his own soul.
19:1 — Jonathan took great delight in David.
And near
the end, when they meet for the last time, the book says:
They kissed each other and wept
with each other. David wept the more. Then Jonathan said,
“Go in peace, since both of us have sworn in the name of the
Lord, saying ‘The Lord shall be between me and you
forever.’” (I Samuel 20:41-42)
Several years ago, my brother
wrote a book on male spirituality called Passion, Power
and Praise. In it he quotes Sam Keen’s classic book on
men, Fire in the Belly, where Keen says one of our
most basic problems is not “..our lust for power, our
insatiable hunger for gadgets, or our habit of repressing
women and the poor.” Rather, he said, it is our lack
of joy. He writes: “Most of the men I know are decent,
serious and hard-working, and would like to make the world a
better place. What they are not is juicy, sensual and fun.”
(Fire in the Belly, Page 171)
And I have to say, when I look
back on my up-bringing, and all too often even my own life,
I think he is right. My dad was part of the Greatest
Generation…and they really are the greatest generation the
world has ever seen. He came back from the Second World War
intent on rebuilding the world and birthing twins. His
generation accomplished the first, and he did the second on
his own. With it came a stoic, serious earnestness born out
of what they had seen and experienced around the war-torn
world, combined, I suppose, with our sturdy Pennsylvania
Dutch (German) roots. This week my brother, who evidently is
also including Dad in his sermon this morning, asked me for
one word to describe him, and the word that came to mind was
“dedicated.”
-
dedicated to his work
-
dedicated to his family, his wife, his sons, his father
and even his wayward brother
-
dedicated to his faith and church
What did not come to mind were
Sam Keen’s words: juicy, sensual, fun…passionate,
joy-filled, exuberant.
When I was growing up, I think I
always knew my Dad loved me. But I keenly remember the day
when, as a young adult first-time pastor and first-time
father, we were dealing with the biggest disagreement we had
ever faced. And when it was over, I said “Dad, I love you.”
He responded, “Oh, I know that.” And I answered, “Yes, but I
need to say it.” It wasn’t long after that he was diagnosed
with the cancer that would soon end his life. In those last
years he was able to tell us, more than once, that he loved
us, in a way he never had before.
And I decided then and
there that I would not wait until I was dying to tell my
sons, and now, my grandson, that I loved them.
I want them to know not just
that I love them. I want them to know that I love them
passionately. And I am not going to wait until I am dying
to tell my new grandson, Ethan, that I love him. I want him
to know that I love him with all that I’ve got. And I want
him to know it now.
If only Saul could have learned from David and
Jonathan. If only we could learn from our sons:
In a world that knows more about
Bart and Homer than basic freedoms; in a world where the
spears of violence still “pin our children to the wall;”
in a world where King Saul seems to reign, give thanks for
Jonathan and David. Give thanks for the men who know how to
love.
* * * * *
I ended the sermon by saying it
really has about three endings, but I chose the most
personal one. I stepped out of the pulpit and expressed how
much I love this church, this role, this work; how much I
love this office of ordained ministry. But then, taking off
my pulpit robe, I said that I want the church to know that
no matter how much I love this job, there is one role that
means more to me than this…my love for my sons. And I hope
we will model that kind of love for all of our children, all
of God’s children, all the children of the world.
Note: My brother’s book
mentioned in the sermon is entitled Passion Power and
Praise: A Model for Men’s Spirituality from the Life of
David, published by Abingdon and available through our
“virtual bookstore” on the website www.fumcbirmingham.org.
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