Sermon

To Honor My Father

Proverbs 4: 1-12, Genesis 18: 1-15, Luke 15: 11-24

Please read the Scripture below from Luke 15: 11-24. It is a familiar parable, commonly referred to as “the Prodigal Son.” It could perhaps more correctly be called “the Forgiving Father.” You will note in this parable if you read all the way to the end of the story that, in fact, two sons are in need of forgiveness.

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men. So he got up and went to his father.     

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

I want to call your attention for a few moments to words you heard in Proverbs 4, particularly verse 4 where the writer of this book of wise sayings speaks as a father does to his children and says: “When I was a son, with my father, he taught me, and said to me … ‘keep my commands and you will have life.’”

Then think about this scripture just read from Luke where Jesus is telling the story of a son who has squandered his inheritance and lost his sense of worth and is now hungry and homeless. When he realizes his condition and knows that he can go home and at least work as a hired hand, Jesus comments of the son, “Then he came to himself.” He came to his senses.

The book of Proverbs is a compendium of moral and religious instructions as given to a Jewish youth by the sages. It is a book giving the wisdom deemed necessary for the good life. It was quite proper for the elders to say to the young – Keep my commands and you will have life.

The elders are trying to pass on to those who are in the process of discovering what life is all about some of the wisdom of the age. We elders today try to do the same thing with our own children. And the Jewish youth in scripture were to honor what had been given in the way of instruction so that they would find joy and fulfillment – find life – if you will. When the elder sat down with the younger, the elder was passing on the story of who the younger was – because one was telling the other the history of the family and the history of the community. The admonition to the young person was to continue in this history.

“Keep my commands” is another way of saying, “honor what I give you in my wisdom.” You will recall the fifth commandment calls for honoring the elders – Honor your father and your mother. The reason to honor them is not so that their days will be longer. It is “honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” That commandment is consistent with the teachings of the elders: Keep my commands and you will live.

The place of the father was a place of honor. We speak with reverence of the patriarchs of the faith – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We can think in our own families of honored elders. I want to be clear: honored elders include women. Think of honored elders like Sarah and Rebecca and Lydia and Dorcas – to name a few. Had Israel not been a patriarchal society and had they honored the matriarchs in the same way they did the men, I am sure that our Bibles would be fuller and richer for the inclusion and influence of women of faith as well as the men. Indeed, if you read scripture carefully you will find women of great influence and who swayed the future in some instances.

For today I’ll stick more to the patriarchs in keeping with honoring fathers and those who serve as father figures to young people. The story of the patriarchs is a story about faith and vision and about the human frailty of even the respected elders. Abraham – leave the land of comfort and sojourn in a strange land. There God will make you a great nation. Moses – go to the oppressor Pharaoh and demand freedom for God’s people and God will lead you to a land of good things. Jacob, be faithful and I will name you “ Israel” – my nation.

So the children had a great tradition to look to and to draw their wisdom.

To honor one’s father and mother says something about how we are to live. The 5 th commandment is not talking about honoring fathers and mothers for their sake. The commandment is addressed to us. Honor our fathers and mothers so that our days will be long. It is our lives which are affected. It is our joy and our fulfillment that are at stake.

I have a very specific and real father’s day story from on life that I think of every year on this day and also every time I read the story read a few minutes ago in the Gospel of Luke.

When my father was alive we often had our differences, but it was clear that we loved each other and had respect for each other. The specific story of that relationship was made real one time in particular at the height of the Vietnam War. In our family my brother-in-law was serving in Vietnam and I was one of those opposed to the war. So, I was going Washington to take part in a national event opposing our involvement in Vietnam. My parents came to visit us and my father and I had a serious disagreement about my going to Washington. When they left our apartment to go home that day the air between us was tense and anger was real.

For the next couple of days I “stewed” over this severe difference with my father. I wanted us to heal our division even though we had a great difference of opinion. After all, this was the same father who could run with a kite and let out so much string we would lose sight of the kite when I was a child. This was the same father who sat on back steps with my mother shelling peas and butterbeans and shucking corn for us to sell. This was the same father who taught me to love the Grand Ole Opry; with whom I sat many Saturdays listening to football games on the radio or to a major league baseball team, especially his favorite Yankees and Cardinals. I had to get pass my anger. I loved my father and I wanted reconciliation.

I decided that tomorrow when I got in from seminary classes and part-time job, I would go home to see my father and to say I was sorry about our disagreement. But that very evening there was a knock on our door and when I opened it, there stood my father. “How are you going to get to Washington,” he asked? “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to find a ride. I don’t think my old car will make the trip.” “I don’t like what you are doing, Jimmy,” he replied. “But if you don’t have a way, you can take my car.”

To this day when I read the story of the Prodigal Son (or, as I said earlier, The Forgiving Father), and come to the part about the father going out to meet the son, I remember my own father standing in that door and loving me even when he considered me a stubborn and wrong-headed child.

I believe that we honor our fathers and mothers by the way we live our lives. I hope my own life honors my parents. And now, as a parent, I also want my life to honor my children.

Most of us will not have famous buildings and libraries named after us. Nor do we have parents who have their names somewhere above some monument. If we are to honor the elders in our own lives, we will do so through our own acts of charity and kindness; through our own efforts to be loving and just in the way we treat others; in following the wisdom we received from the past so that our present day is more joyful and the pathways are less rocky.

We are called time after time to “come to our senses” and to turn homeward by a loving God who allows us to stray, yet yearns, I believe, for us to come to “come to ourselves,” to come to our senses.

I sometimes think about the family name and realize that I now own the name and bear responsibility for what I will do with the years I am given in this pilgrimage of life. I cannot live on the good deeds of the past or on the promised good deeds of the future. The God of our ancestors now calls me and calls you to be faithful and responsible.

When I was a child I used to be unaware of the effects that my individual actions have on society at large. When my parents scolded me for throwing paper out of the car window I saw nothing wrong. After all, the state hired people who cleaned up the highways. When I neglected to do my share of the household chores it never crossed my mind that I added to the work load of others. But when I became an adult, I began to see and to give up those childish ways. Now I understand that when I do not contribute to the solution of problems, I become a part of that problem.

What have you done about your own stewardship and responsibility with this life you have been given, the name with which you have been blessed, the years granted you to journey with others in life? When I hear people talking about their wonderful ancestors I wonder, “but what about this generation?” What kind of ancestors will we be?

What we do will have consequences. We are reminded that the sins of the parents will be visited upon the children even to the third and fourth and seventh generations. We know that to be true. The sin of slavery in this country which ended in the 19 th century is still being suffered in the separation and destruction of family structures dating back centuries.

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that even though it is true that the fathers eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge, the day will come when each of us will be accountable for our own actions.

The teacher in Proverbs speaks to us with wisdom when he says, “Keep my commands and you will have life.” The parable in Luke points to the need at times in our lives to “come to our senses.”

God has called men and women to come to their senses for many generations. God beckons to us with the words: “Behold, I set before you this day blessing and curse, life and death. Therefore, choose life.”

As we honor our fathers and those who serve as father figures today, we need to look at the wider picture. In truth, each of us is called by name and each of us is unique in the eyes of God and in the eyes of those with whom we relate. We don’t’ know who is looking at and listening to us without our even knowing we may be someone’s model for life. To honor my father and mother is to live in such a way that I honor them not with words but with actions, not with greeting card poetry but by living honorably and justly in my generation. It is an awesome responsibility – to keep the faith and honor our elders.

I have called you by name, you are mine – says the Lord.

Let us lead lives worthy of the callings to which we are called.

Amen.

Jim Bell

6-15-08