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June 17th, 2007-(Father’s Day)—Third Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: 1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a; Psalms 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36, 8:3
Well, today is Father’s Day and so I think it’s appropriate to pay homage to our fathers and to those who have inspired us and shown us how to be good fathers. And as a Gen X member I have to say that some of the most memorable parenting styles I saw growing up Homage to our Fathers were that of Tony Macelli and Dr. Heathcliffe Huxtible. So Homage to our Fathers I thought I’d start off today by reading a few quotes regarding fatherhood by Bill Cosby:
“Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home.”
“The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.”
“Fathers are the geniuses of the house because only a person as intelligent as we could fake such stupidity. Think about your father: He doesn't know where anything is. You ask him to do something, he messes it up, and your mother sends you: "Go down and see what your father's doing before he blows up the house." He's a genius at work because he doesn't want to do it, and knows someone will be coming soon to stop him.”
Here’s a few others by famous authors:
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”- Mark Twain
“The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.” - Tim Russert
I can resonate with these last few statements, especially as I gain more and more ministry experience. My father was a minister during my early years growing up, and still retains his ordained status while he works for an international mission organization called Every Home for Christ. My dad has always placed an enormous emphasis on the need for the Church to reach out to the lost—and it was providential indeed when he was invited to be the Canadian CEO for an organization who’s mission was simply to reach every home in the world with the gospel message. His passion and commitment to play a part in the fulfillment of the Great Commission will be his legacy, and I am coming to realize more and more how greatly I have been influenced by his convictions.
Take our gospel reading today. It is a remarkable story about a woman with a bad reputation who shows up in a place she is not welcome in order to wash the feet of one she loves. One could pick up one of the many themes present in the story: religion vs. relationship, the role of women in the New Testament and how that fits with Luke’s vision of Christ’s Kingdom, or perhaps even the divine authority Jesus seems to evidence as he proclaims the woman’s sins forgiven. But me? I see evangelism and mission all over this story: It is an example of how we are to treat people who are desperate for God’s love and forgiveness.
Jesus has been invited to share a meal with a Pharisee. Strange isn’t it that Jesus would accept an invitation to fellowship with some of the very people he knows will betray him? But that’s Jesus, he’s even willing to reach out to those who seem self-righteous and overly religious—perhaps that’s a good thing for us church folk!
Anyways, here he is eating at a Pharisee’s home when a woman enters the scene unexpectedly. We don’t know much about her, except that she is known as a ‘sinner’ in the community. This was an honour-shame culture that would have exposed her indiscretions to the community so all could reprimand her. She may have been a prostitute, or perhaps someone guilty of adultery or accused of witchcraft. We don’t really know what her sin was, but we do know that she was driven to see Jesus. She hears that Jesus was eating at this man’s house, a man who was part of a faction that often stoned people like her. But she braves a possible confrontation, and possible harm to herself, in order to be with Jesus.
She brings ointment to her Lord, washes his feet with her tears and kisses, and dries them with her hair. To our modern ears her actions seem a bit extreme—having someone else wash our feet is embarrassing, if not unsanitary. And if this woman was so intent on washing Jesus’ feet, why doesn’t she simply get a bucket full of clean water and some sponges? And why would Jesus, this great healer and prophet, allow himself to be touched intimately by this dreadful and ‘unclean’ woman?
The host was certainly wondering this…but Jesus reads his thoughts and explains, through a story, of how someone who has been forgiven of a great debt will tend to love his or her forgiver more because of it. Since this sinful woman has been forgiven a great deal, in gratitude she lavishes her love upon Jesus in the only way she knows how. Jesus says to her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Like I said earlier, there are many points that could be drawn from this story, but I’d like to focus on two simple points from a perspective I think my father would appreciate:
Scripture tells us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and it is not difficult to see this in our world and community. Rising divorce rates and fractured families show us that many are hurting and longing for love and forgiveness. There is so much violence we almost don’t know where to begin. One of our young people from the deanery this weekend responded to a question I asked about what he would like to see changed in his generation with “violence”. I asked him to be more specific but he just said, “Violence, everywhere, it’s everywhere, people are just more violent today.” He wasn’t just speaking about overseas wars, I believe he was speaking from firsthand experience how short-tempered and violent his generation had become.
When these impulses are acted upon, people make poor decisions and live with those consequences for the rest of their lives. How many people have you known weighed down by the pain of regret, disbelieving that they could be forgiven for what they’ve done? Jesus teaches us that he forgives those ‘sinners’ who make the big mistakes…in fact, he came especially for them.
2) Sometimes we have to be creative to get the message across (especially to people who are more resistant to it)
In our story Jesus uses a parable to try to get through to the thick-headed Pharisees. He was dealing with a culture that used religion as a cloak to hide themselves from the truth about their own sin. He was dealing with a culture that thought “If I do enough good works I can earn my way into God’s favour.” This culture was not so different from our own—we can be just as hard-headed, just as judgmental, and just as ignorant to Jesus’ message. And even though Jesus knew this group of Pharisees would be the ones responsible for his death, he still took the time to find a meaningful way to tell them of God’s love and forgiveness.
What are we doing to get across God’s message to our culture? My father taught me the importance of finding creative ways to teach people about Jesus. Even now his organization is putting together creative literature that they will make available to churches to use in their communities so that every home in their towns and cities will have exposure to a simple gospel message. And every person in that home will have contact information of a local church where they can seek out answers to their questions and see for themselves the difference God makes in his people’s lives.
When we talk about growing our church are we looking outside our church walls to make new disciples, or are we simply hoping to recycle the old ones? Forgive me if that sounds harsh, but it just seems like in most churches we talk about growth but we think only of the Anglicans out there who don’t come as often as we like. But in actuality Christ commissioned us to go out into the world to make disciples—that means going outside our four walls to find those who don’t know Christ. That means looking for opportunities amongst friends and work colleagues to share the difference God has made in your life. That means teaching your children how to grow in a relationship with God. It means inviting people to church.
But what will we have for people when they come to church? Do we consider their needs before our own? Do we have programs specifically for them that we can plug them into where they will experience God’s love and forgiveness as they explore questions of faith?
It is out of our concern for these people that we will be starting an Alpha program in September. Throughout the summer you will hear more about it, but for now simply pray that God would use this ministry as a means of growing his church. And begin to think about and pray for people in your life that you can invite to Alpha so that they may experience God’s love and forgiveness for themselves.
Every decision we make as a church ought to be with the intent of doing what is most important in God’s eyes. From the furniture we choose, to the worship styles we use, to keeping the bathrooms and floors clean. We must always find ways to be more inviting and to allow God’s message to be even more compelling.
I share these thoughts with you on this day where we honour our fathers and hope that I have honoured mine. As Confucius says, “The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them.” Let us not neglect the things our fathers have taught us. Fathers, may you not neglect in teaching your children the ways of God. And may we all not neglect the duties our heavenly Father has taught us through his most precious Son. Amen.
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