Sunday - 06/16/13
RWJ/Pottersville UMC
Sermon: “Gifts from
our Fathers”
Scripture Lesson: Galatians 2:15-21
Gospel Lesson: Luke 7:36-8:3
Good morning brothers and sisters! What
a joy and a pleasure it is to be here with you all on this our Fourth Sunday
after Pentecost, and on this our Father’s Day. This is the day of the year that
we specially honor our fathers, our grandfathers, and all those men who have
mentored us, taught us, and have loved us. Some of the kids I work with however,
don’t know their fathers, or rarely see their fathers. I suppose for those folks
who never knew their fathers, or for those who rarely saw their fathers, I
would challenge you to think about an uncle, a mentor, or the men that were, or
still are positively influencing your life even today. Today then, we honor all
of these men, both past and present that showed us faith through both their
deeds and their actions.
Some of you might remember that I
preached a mother’s day sermon on the “Founding Mother’s” of the Christian
Church. You might remember that I talked about the significance that women had
not only in the Bible, but the significance that they have had for centuries as
being the ones who were often the transmitters of the Christian faith. For the
women in our lives, were often the ones who taught us the Bible, read it to us,
and taught us the Christian faith in general.
So given this, where do our father’s
fit into this? What “gifts” did we get from our fathers? While many of us can
say that the women of our lives taught us our faith, took us to church, and
taught us about Jesus, I would argue that for many of us, we have received many
“gifts from our Fathers.” Well first and foremost, I was lucky enough growing
up to not only have a father, but to also have a step-father to. In fact then,
I had and continue to have two different fathers. Yet growing up, I found that
that my father and my step-father did often talk about “mushy emotional stuff.”
I mean were men right. We didn’t usually talk about John the Baptist, but we
did talk a lot about John Deere. My father and step-father didn’t talk to me a
lot about King Herod’s generals, but they did talk to me a lot about General
Motors. My fathers did not talk to me a lot about the book of Hebrews, yet they
always brewed fresh coffee in the morning.
While mom might have taught me about
the gospel according Mathew, dad taught me the “gospel according to Craftsman.”
Dad taught me that you can have a religious experience in the Sears tool
department. That the only place close to being as good as church is Lowes and
Home Depot. That a garage or a woodshed can quickly become a butcher shop
during deer season. My two dads also taught me the meaning of the phrase,
“don’t tell you mother.”
While my grandpa Winkelman who is
91-years old didn’t talk about God much either, he and my two fathers have
given me many gifts. In our scripture from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the
church in Galatia, or the Galatians from this morning, the Apostle Paul said
that, “yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but
through faith in Jesus Christ.” I would say that my two fathers and the many
men that have been and continue to be in my life have often practiced the quote
from St. Francis of Assisi, to “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”
The “Gifts from my Fathers” that I received and continue to receive is that you
have faith in God. That you trust God, but that you don’t always have to talk
about God a whole lot.
My
father’s taught me that you “give a man an honest day’s work,” that your
handshake is as good as any written contract, that when you talk to someone you
look them in the eye. That you have respect for your elders, that you respect
authority, that you love your country, that you support your community, that
you respect your mother, that your respect women in general, and that you do
the best you can by your family. You see these are the “Gifts from our
Fathers.”
For
when those brave men so many years ago on the sands of Iwo Jima in World War II
lifted that American flag, they were not only saying that they love their
country, they were not only saying that they were willing to lay down their
lives for freedom, they were also giving all of us a gift. They were showing us
the great love that they had for us. For as Jesus said in John 15:13 “Greater
love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
“Gifts from our Fathers.” The gift of a good work ethic, the gift of defending
the weak, the gift of serving the unfortunate, the gift of honor, the gift of
discipline, and the gift of hope for a better tomorrow. Yes, these are all in
fact for many of us, “Gifts from our Fathers.”
When
looking at this mornings’ reading from the gospel of Luke, Jesus enters the
home of a Pharisee to eat with him. The gospel then says, “And a woman in the
city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s
house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him as his feet,
weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her
hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with ointment.”
The Pharisee who invited Jesus to eat with him observed what this woman was
doing and said, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what
kind of woman this is who is touching him-that she was a sinner.” Jesus then
looks at Simon Peter though, and asks him if a creditor were to forgive the
debt of two people, and if one of those two people had a large debt, and if one
had a small debt, which person would love the forgiver of their debt more?
Simon Peter guessed correctly that the one with more debt would love the
reliever of debt more. You see the woman, who was sinner, came with faith, with
genuine compassion, and with love. Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Therefore, I
tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she had shown
great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little. Then he said
to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Like
Jesus, some “Gifts of our Fathers,” are to love those who are weak, who are
fallen, and to serve and protect even the most awful of all sinners. That
giving all you have in service and love, is rewarded by Jesus. That when you
come to Jesus with all of your debt, and when you come in love and in genuine
compassion, he forgives all your debt. For he loves you that much. For many of
us, our fathers love us this much.
I would like to close with this message this morning
with a Father’s Day poem by Joe Haynie. The poem is called “So God Made a Father.” Here is how it
goes: “And
on the 8th day, God looked down on the Wonderful World He had made and said,
"My children will need a protector." “So God made a father.” God said, "I need somebody willing to
get up with a crying child in the middle of the night so her mother can get
some well-deserved rest, and then catch a few hours of sleep himself before
waking up again to his 5:30 a.m. alarm so he can hurry off to beat the morning
rush hour. Somebody who’ll work hard all day plus a little extra to get
the job done, get stuck in the evening rush hour, eat a rewarmed supper, read
the little ones a story and tuck them in bed, and then stay up until past
midnight helping a 10-year-old with a science project. "So God made a father."
“I need somebody tough
enough to barely wince from the bloody knuckles he gets when his wrench slips
while re-repairing the family car, but tender enough to push back tears when
his shy 7-year-old reads a poem in her school assembly. Somebody to spend
all-day Saturday unclogging toilets, searching the neighborhood for a lost
kitten, mowing the lawn, getting zapped while replacing a dead light fixture,
and cleaning up the paint spilled while the kids were playing hide-and-seek in
the garage, and then hurrying to get cleaned up for a weekly date with his
wife. “So God made a father.”
God said, "I need
somebody who’s just as happy to listen patiently while his teenage daughter
gives him the blow-by-blow of a conversation with her friends as he is to play
rough-and-tumble on the floor with his boys. I need somebody to call his
family together to pray every day, and then to thank Heaven for each one of
them by name. I need somebody to be firm enough to be absolutely
inflexible about his children respecting their mother, but who will quietly go
back to the store one-more-time because a forgetful child remembers that she
also needs poster-board for her school project. “So God made a father.”
God had to have somebody
willing to keep wearing second-hand shoes and his old jeans with the hole in
the knee for another few months so the family can afford a prom-dress for the
oldest. “So God made a father.”
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to apologize when he’s wrong and
then to bite-his-tongue when he could have said ‘I told you so’. I need
somebody who’ll look the other way when a pretty girl with a mini-skirt walks
by but who will pay careful attention and intervene when a car full of ruffians
tries to follow her home.” "Somebody who would gladly give his life
defending his country, but who is much more likely to spend his life keeping
her strong. Somebody who'll love his children more than his own soul, and
who’ll adore his wife even more than his children. Somebody who will
laugh and then sigh, and then respond, with a tousle of hair and a grateful
grin when his son says 'I want to grow up to be a daddy too.' “So God made a father.”
My brothers and sisters,
today we honor our fathers, and all the men who have in the past and who continue
to shape us and influence, even today. Let us all thank all the fathers we come
in contact with on this day. Amen.
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