“LAYING CLAIM TO FATHERHOOD”

Rev. James Singleton

6/13/10
1 Corinthians 4:14-21 

After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said to them was: “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Adam replied.

“Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.”

“Forbidden fruit? Really? Where is it?”

“It’s over there,” said God, wondering why he hadn’t stopped after making the elephants.

A few minutes later, God saw the kids having an apple break and God was angry.

“Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?” the first Parent asked.

“Uh huh,” Adam replied.

“Then why did you?”

“I dunno,” Adam answered.

So God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own.

This is an old Bill Cosby monologue called “The First Parent” and it seems appropriate on Father’s Day. At least it gives the solace to know that if we are having trouble handling our children, we are in good company.

If the Apostle Paul had gray hair or if his hair fell out it wasn’t because of all the persecutions he had to endure. More likely it was because of the Corinthian Church. Here was a church full of rebellious children and wayward adolescents—spiritually speaking. Here were Christians practicing immoral sexual behavior, members who thought they knew it all, members who refused to listen to the right voices, members who held mistaken values and had misplaced priorities.

Here was a church being influenced by a wide variety of people until finally Paul stepped forward and laid claim to his role as their father. “You may have ten thousand guardians who think they are looking out after you,” he said, “but I am your father through the gospel.” Notice that when Paul sought to give moral and spiritual direction he laid claim to the role of fatherhood. Paul could have laid claim to being their minister or their guardian or their friend, but he claimed, instead, the role of father.

Fatherhood has sort of fallen on hard times in this day and age. Fathers seem to be, in all too many cases anymore, a non-factor when it comes to influencing the life of the children. In a survey of six year olds, they were asked which they would miss more, their father or the TV. Fathers won out by just 4%.

There was a famous study of three year olds done not long ago in which they were asked about their career expectations and what they wanted to be when they grew up. The little boys wanted to be firemen, astronauts, policemen and the like. The little girls wanted to be mommies. What that says about little girls expectations I will save for some Mother’s Day, but isn’t it interesting that not a single little boy wanted to grow up and be a Daddy?  

Not one wanted to lay claim to that role. And, even when grown, married and with children, there are more and more men who still do not lay claim to the role of fatherhood.

What does it mean to be a father? What does the role consist of? The first aspect of that role Paul spells out at the beginning: “I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you…”

Whether it sounds politically correct or not, Paul saw a father’s role as being one who admonishes his children. Admonish: to advise of a fault, to caution against danger or error.  Paul assumes that children have not yet fully developed a sense of good and bad, right and wrong, and someone needs to step in when a child is making a decision that is harmful and try to turn him or her around. This is probably the least popular aspect of fatherhood today in a society that places a premium on permissiveness.

It’s tough when your young child looks you in the eyes and begs for you to purchase the video game Resident Evil 4 or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or Killer 7 and reminds you that all the other parents allow their kids to play these games. 

And when you object you get the rolling of the eyes because that they don’t see anything wrong with pinning people to a wall with pitchforks, visiting virtual prostitutes, cutting the heads off of enemies and taking drugs to enhance powers.

But if these are not the virtues you want to instill within your children and you believe they are harmful to character building, who will stand up to protect your children if not you?   f pay, it's possible to find the corpse of a woman pinned up on a wall--by a pitchfork through her face."

Today many parents have simply thrown in the towel when it comes to the sexual conduct of their adolescents and they simply encourage their son or daughter to have their boyfriend or girlfriend stay overnight at home where, at least, as one father put it in a newspaper article, “I know where she’s at and who she’s doing it with.”

The Presbyterian Church had a document recommended to it that said that pre-marital sex was sanctioned so long as there was what is called “Justice-love.” The problem is it assumes that young people have the capacity to know what justice-love is and that they are immune from self-deception and the heat of passion.

Who, besides parents, is going to talk to them about commitment and respect? Who is going to tell them that there are some things that may seem good, but which are damaging in the end? Who, besides parents, is going to teach them that not everything the media portrays to them as sexy or attractive is good for them?

Your kids may be smarter than you when it comes to technology and computers, but you should be wiser than they are when it comes to distinguishing right from wrong, good from bad, important from trivial. Parents are still the single most important influence on their children.

It is not the role of a father to simply approve and support everything your children want and do. It’s not a father’s role to be their best friend. A father’s role is to be their father. As Paul said, they have many guardians and influences, but they have only one father.

Someone in their life has to stand up and say to them, “You are headed in the wrong direction” or “This is not good for you.”  Someone has to exhibit wisdom beyond the all-knowing arrogance of childhood and adolescence. To lay claim to fatherhood means laying claim to the role of admonishing.

But notice what Paul said in full, “I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.” The motive behind the admonishing was not to show power but to show love. Whenever we forsake the motive of love, we forsake our role of fatherhood. In all of Paul’s admonishing, he never considers abuse or violence nor does he ever disrespect them.

The Corinthian Church nearly broke Paul’s heart. They insulted him, disobeyed him, misunderstood him, and squabbled like spoiled brats—but he never gave up on them. He kept telling them how much he loved them. In the end it was his love for them that had the greatest influence.

In Paul’s eyes, we only lay claim to fatherhood when we treat our children as our Beloved. Just as fathers are not to be under-bearing, neither are we to be overbearing.

Then there’s the most difficult aspect of fatherhood which Paul lays claim to when he said—“I appeal to you then, be imitators of me.” He wants his children to imitate him. He sets himself up as their moral and religious example.

Here is where so many men fail to lay claim to fatherhood. Religious training in all too many families is something left up to the mother if there is any at all. Paul was not one to say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” He was one who said, “Do as I do.” Children learn more by what we do than by what we say.

In a recent USA today article a survey conducted by a Christian research firm of 18-29 year olds shows that:

• 65% rarely or never pray with others
• 65% rarely or never attend worship services
• 67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts

Of those who profess Jesus Christ as their Savior:

• 68% did not mention faith, religion or spirituality when asked what was “really important in life”
• 50% do not attend church weekly
• 36% rarely or never read the Bible.

I wonder how much of that is a result of what they have seen in their parents, particularly in their father. Studies show that the number one factor on whether children attend church and continue in the faith as adults is whether or not the father does so. As Austin Sorenson put it, “Children are not likely to find a Father in God unless they find something of God in their own father.”

A father is someone who has a first hand, personal relationship with the Lord. You can tell by the way he treats others that respect and compassion are values he holds dear. A good father is the same at home as in public because he is not a hypocrite. He is someone to emulate. He is someone to look up to.

This does not mean that fathers are perfect. Fathers, too, must live by grace and forgiveness. But it takes a strong Christian man to admit when he is wrong and ask forgiveness—and what a powerful and beautiful example that sets to imitate.

What is important is that children see in their father one who strives to live by the teaching and ways of Jesus Christ. How else will we fathers ever have the authority and wisdom to admonish against the ways of the world unless we stand up against the ways of the world ourselves?

On this Father’s Day, we fathers are being encouraged to lay claim to our role. If we don’t, the wrong people will fill the vacuum. Children of all ages need a father who will have the courage to admonish them; to always treat them with love and respect; and to have the moral and spiritual integrity to be worth imitating.

Fatherhood—it’s truly a blessing, a privilege and a wonderful role to lay claim to. Happy Father’s Day.

AMEN.