Minister: Marv Vose

God’s Take on Father’s Day

          Bishop Edward Tullis tells this story of a Kentucky Methodist minister who went out deer hunting in the Kentucky woods.  After two or three days of camping and hunting alone in the wilderness, the minister started home.  But it wasn't long before he realized that he was lost.  He could not find his way back to the road or to where his car was parked. He realized that he had been walking in circles and that he was hopelessly lost.
            As darkness fell, he became more and more concerned about his situation so he decided to fire his shotgun in the hopes that someone might hear him and help him find his way.  No sooner had he fired his weapon a couple of times than a state game warden stepped out of the bush and arrested him for hunting at night!
            The minister tried to explain the situation but with no success.  The fact that the road and his car were only a few feet away didn't help matters either.  The game warden was determined to take him to jail.
            But the minister continued to plead, "I'm the pastor of one of the most distinguished Methodist churches in this state!"  The game warden looked at his unshaven face and his dirty clothes and just shook his head.
            But finally the warden said, "Alright, if you are a Methodist minister, then let me hear you recite the words of the Lord's Prayer."  By this time the poor minister was totally shook and he began, "The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."  To which the game warden replied, "By golly, you are a Methodist minister!"
            Now I thought that story was pretty funny, until I got a call at church.  The caller didn't identify himself.  He just said, "I'm sure you know the answer to this, but could you tell me where to find the Ten Commandments in the Bible?"  Weeeeeell, that's not a question you get asked everyday.  And I was trying to figure out the phone call.  Was this a test?  Was this a newspaper reporter calling up Methodist ministers to see how many really knew where the Ten Commandments were?  I knew that the commandments were actually in two different places.  One place is Deuteronomy and the other place is Exodus, but could I remember the chapters?  So I finally said, "I think the Ten Commandments are in Deuteronomy.  It's either the 10th chapter or the 20th chapter, but I think it's the 20th."  I was wrong.  It's the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy and the 20th chapter of Exodus.  But I've found it now and I want to read to you the Fifth Commandment.
           The laws were given to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai.  They were chiseled in stone by the finger of God.  Ancient wisdom.  Eternal wisdom.  These were the laws necessary to turn a bunch of disorganized and oppressed slaves into the holy nation of God.
            Can you hear the power of that ancient wisdom?  Moses is reading the laws again to the Hebrew people just before they are to enter the Promised Land.  For forty years they have been wandering in the wilderness and now the land flowing with milk and honey is right there on the horizon.  And the message of Moses is that if you want to continue to live well and long in this land, you must obey the commandments. 
            They needed to be told to honor their fathers and their mothers.  You can probably imagine the situation.  They were living a subsistence lifestyle.  There was just enough food to barely keep life going.  And then there was grandpa.  What did he do anymore?  Most of the day he just napped in the sun.  He couldn't help with gathering food.  He wasn't doing anything productive any more.  He was just a drain on the resources of the entire family.  The heathens would just abandon their parents when they weren't productive anymore.  Why not just do the same thing?  Because God says "honor your father and your mother..."
            We face the same kind of pressure today, don't we?  Have you checked into the price of a nursing home lately?  If not, then get ready for sticker shock.  The hard work and struggles of a life of frugal living can be wiped out in just a couple of years.
            But the pressure is more than just economic.  It is something far more subtle.  Maybe in started in the 70's when you weren't supposed to trust anyone of 30 years of age.  Or maybe it is just the rush of technology that leaves some of the older behind.  Can't you just hear the little 8-year-old confiding to his friend, "I can beat my dad at Nintendo!  And my grandpa doesn't even know what Nintendo is!"
            It is partly the awful arrogance of youth that can't see beyond the limited vistas of their living.  It is partly the temptation to think that technology is really what living is all about without acknowledging that the wisdom of our elders is often the “people wisdom” that is constant through the centuries.
            Because of all of that pressure, the Fifth Commandment may be more important today than when Moses first presented it to the fledgling Hebrew nation.  It is certainly important to parents.  They cherish those little acknowledgments from their children. 
            Robert Fulghum describes his treasure as a “gummy lump.”  It’s in his book entitled, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  This is what he said.
            “Once it was a shoe box, decorated and given to me by the oldest child.  Then it became a repository of other relics of childhood given to me by the younger children.  The shoebox became my treasure chest in time. Its components are standard:  Three colors of construction paper—pink and red and white—faded now, aluminum foil, orange tissue paper, several paper doilies, three kinds of macaroni, gumdrops, jelly beans, some little white hearts (the kind that taste like Tums:  with words on them) and the whole thing held together with a whole lot of white library paste, which also tastes like Tums.”
            “Anyhow, this shoe box isn’t looking too very good now.  It’s a little shriveled and kind of moldy where the jelly beans and gumdrops have run together.  It’s still sticky in places, and most of it is more beige than red and white.  If you lift the lid, however, you will begin to know what makes me keep it.  On folded and faded and fragile pieces or large-lined school paper, there are words:  ‘Hi daddi’ and ‘Hoppy valimtime’ and ‘I love you.’  A whole big lot of ‘I lov you.’  Glued to the bottom of the box are 23 X’s and O’s made out of macaroni.  I’ve counted them more than once.  Also scrawled in several places are the names of three children.”
            “The treasures of King Tut are nothing in the face of this.” 
If you are a parent, I’ll bet you’ve got something like that around the house, don’t you?  I know I do.  And it is a treasure.  It is important to parents, isn’t it?
            There are some Fathers who really deserve to be honored.  To be a good parent is hard work.  It is demanding.  It is time consuming.  It may be the hardest work there is and when you see someone who does a good job at it they deserved to be honored.
            One young Dad had taken his three-year-old grocery shopping with him and they were having a difficult time, to say the least.  It seems that every time Dad would stop the cart to put something in it, the little boy would pick it up and throw it out.  And if the cart got too close to a shelf and Dad wasn’t looking, the little boy would reach over and pull something off onto the floor.  At one point, dad was bent over trying to re-arrange what seemed like an entire display of cans that had fallen to the floor, when he realized that his little boy had crawled out of the cart and was running down the aisle, screaming at the top of his lungs.  So what does Dad do?  He puts the cans down and takes off after his son.  The people nearby could hear the Dad saying to himself, “Be patient, Tommy.  It’s ok, Tommy.”  Finally he caught up with his little boy and was bringing him back when an elderly lady said, “Young man, I want to commend you.  You have a remarkable way with little Tommy.”  And the Dad got a kind of quizzical expression on his face and said, “What?  I am Tommy!”
            There are some parents who really deserve to be honored.  But there are some who don’t.  There are some parents who never learned the skills of being a good parent.  There are some parents who were abused as children and continue the cycle of abuse with their children.  There are some parents who are emotionally or physically absent.  What do you do then?  Are they still to be honored?
            Let me go back to the scripture.  “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” 
            This commandment is important to God.  It is so important, that immediately after the first four commandments dealing with God, we read this one.  It is so important to God that it’s got a double kicker on it.  Do you want to live long?  Honor your parents.  Do you want to spend a long life in this land of plenty you are about to enter?  Then honor your parents.
            The apostle Paul was talking about this new vision that God has for the world—a place where there is a sense of reciprocity and mutuality.  A place where the way we treat others is affected by the way God has treated us and the way we treat other people affects the way we treat God and the way God treats us.  It’s an idea where there are not beginnings or endings, but it is all tangled up together in this divine network.
            That’s why Paul says, wives submit to your husbands.  Husbands love your wives the way Christ loved the church.  Children honor your parents.  Dads, don’t provoke your children. Owners treat your slaves with respect.  Slaves obey your owners, because all of you have a Master above you. 
            That commandment is still important to God, because it goes beyond just parents.  It touches our lives with others and with God.  We can’t say “I love God,” and then hate our brothers.  It just doesn’t work.
            Honor your Father.
            I had gone to this house for a pastoral visit.  I knew the man wasn’t feeling well.  The folks in the community had told me, but I wasn’t prepared for the situation.  He had been a powerful and wealthy man.  He’d even been a state senator at one time.  It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, but he was still in his bathrobe and slippers.  The skin kind of hung on his bones.  There was very little muscle and certainly no flab.  But what was worse was his obvious lack of a desire to live.  It took almost no time at all to see that he really didn’t care to be in the land of the living.
            Before long, I understood.  He had had cancer and had gone to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, as one last desperate attempt at life.  They had taken most of his stomach out and he was now cancer free, but while he was at the Mayo Clinic, his wife died and with her, went his will to live.
            In the midst of our conversation, his son came into the house.  They proceeded to have a very large, noisy argument in my presence.  The son wanted to do something in the business and his dad was urging caution.  The argument ended with the son stomping out of the house in disgust and obviously going to do what he wanted to do despite what his dad had said.
            A year or so later, the dad got his wish.  He died.  I went to visit the son about the funeral.  There was a noticeable absence of grief.  I had to wait an hour for him to get in from business and then he told me he wanted the funeral service to be light and upbeat.  Not a lot of sadness or sorrow.
            And the son took over the business.  He built and expanded.  It was a real beehive of activity.  But then there were reversals.  Lots of problems.  One evening late, the son was driving home.  Rumors had it that he was seriously drunk and smashed his car.  They found him the next day, dead in his car.  The last I heard the business was in bankruptcy.  The grandchildren were trying to hold things together, but it was falling apart faster than they could tie it together.
            And I couldn’t help but think about that scripture.  “Honor your Father and your Mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”  And I couldn’t help but think about the son.  I don’t believe God “struck him down.”  I doubt that his death was caused by his violation of the Fifth Commandment, although he certainly did that.  It was bigger than that.  The violation of that commandment set the tenor of his life.  It showed an attitude.  It represented a way of dealing with other people and ultimately with God.  He had really violated God’s whole scheme of life.  That can only happen so long.
            Today is Father’s Day.  If you can, it is a great day to give Dad a call or write a note to say thanks.  And if those things aren’t possible, a prayer always is.