Homily for Father's Day

SUNDAY, 19 JUNE 2005
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PHILIP, ATLANTA
THE REV. CANON TODD SMELSER, HOMILIST

 Today is of course Father’s Day.  Since my own father died five years ago this summer, the day always rings a bit hollow now.  Dad died after a long battle with emphysema.  His own last days, and those of my mother, were made more comfortable with the able care of hospice.  I can still remember the moments after my father died and the hospice nurse removed the breathing tube from his nose, and I knew that he was finally free from that disease with which he struggled. 

 My father and I were never particularly close.  He was a complex man, filled, I believe, with lots of fears and insecurities.  Although he wanted to be a doctor like his father, my grandmother told him that she didn’t think he had the stuff for medical school—so he didn’t go.  He ended up working in a company that my other grandfather was president of, but never made it to the top.  His best years, he would say later, was the four years he spent in the Navy as a Lieutenant, flying dirigibles in South America and serving for a time in Guantanomo Bay.  While I was always aware of his love, his own addictive behavior made for a rocky childhood. 

 But from both of my parents I received a set of family values that has certainly shaped my life.  Live with integrity and honesty; don’t put on airs; treat everyone with the same respect; do not gossip; respect all of creation; don’t buy a new one until the old one is worn out; love your neighbor as yourself; turn the lights out when you leave the room; make the world a better place when you leave it.

 Recently the phrase “family values” has been used as a political football, and I for one would like to reclaim that phrase for mainstream Christianity.  I don’t know anyone on either side of the spectrum who does not believe that many of the presenting issues in our culture need better responses.  Issues of education, crime, substance abuse, divorce, unwanted children, and domestic abuse are concerns for all of us.  We can probably all agree that better parenting and healthier families make for a stronger community.  But as of yet, I have not found the perfect set of family values that fit everyone.  What about the new AIDS epidemic and the reality that one in every 283 Americans is HIV positive.  What about a health care system in which undocumented alien residents receive better health care that our own citizens.  What about a corporate culture in which those at top not only make 400 times what we do, but skirt basic ethical practices to make even more! 

As Anglican Christians we turn not only to our own experience, and to tradition and reason, but also to scripture.  What does the Bible say to us?  In today’s Gospel Jesus has some rather curious words about family values in his time.  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a mane’s foes will be those of his own household.”  Not exactly the text I would have chosen for Father’s Day!

As you will remember, Jesus’ relationship with his own family had a rather awkward start.  When Joseph learned that his fiancée Mary was pregnant before the marriage, he seriously considered calling the whole the off.  He was only dissuaded by a direct message from God in a dream.  When Jesus was twelve he remained in the Temple in Jerusalem rather than returning to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph.  When they found him missing, and returned for him, Mary scolded Jesus “Son, why have you treated us so.”  And Jesus replied, equally sharply, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

When Jesus finally launched his ministry of teaching and healing, his family thought he was possessed by a demon and tried to seize him and bring him home.  When he learned what his family was doing he exclaimed “Who are my mother and my brothers? Whoever does the will of God are my brother, and a sister, and mother.  In effect he disowned his earthly family, and announced the creation of a new spiritual family. 

Unless you believe the premise of the Da Vinci Code that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife, tradition has maintained that Jesus was not married.  For the three years of his public ministry, his family was a motley group of disciples, both men and women.  These followers of Jesus, at least from the Gospel accounts, walked away from their jobs and families to follow this itinerant prophet.  No wonder Jesus made the religious authorities of his day nervous! 

Jesus was, however, always faithful to the Jewish law.  He never endorsed disobedience to parents, or encouraged husbands and wives to leave each other.  But his teachings did radically challenge the idea of family in the first century.

In Jesus’ day family was everything.  One was a Jew because one’s mother was Jewish.  When Nicodemus and Jesus had their encounter, no wonder Nicodemus was confused by Jesus’ invitation to be born again.  This would have been a radical rejection of the existing system.

But it was not just Judaism that made the family central; it was true of the Roman Empire as well.  Family was the central institution in Rome.  The father of a family had absolute authority in his household.  But Jesus taught his disciples to call no one father except God.

“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  I will set son against father and daughter against mother…”  Jesus came to found an entirely new kind of family.  It did not take long before first the Jewish leaders and later the Roman authorities realized just how dangerous his ideas were.

At their best, families are places of love and warmth and nurture.  God put us in families because they are schools of love.  It is here that we learn not only that we are loved, but also lessons on how to love others, even those different from us.  But Jesus always challenged those around him to make room for the outsider.  In a time when women were merely chattel, Jesus embraced their presence and ministry.  In a time when children where neither seen nor heard, Jesus welcomed the children to come to him.  In a time when lepers and sinners were isolated from the community, Jesus touched them.

Jesus had very clear family values, but they were far from those of the dominant culture or even religious institutions.  He proclaimed a new kind of family, based not on heritage, but on a new spiritual principle. 

In another phrase from today’s Gospel Jesus also makes this incredible claim.  “Nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.”

In a conversation with us, his current disciples, Jesus encourages us to stand up for kingdom living, even if it means being in conflict with the mainstream of society.  We are to be fearless in our witness to this new Kingdom life Jesus comes to proclaim.  There is still more to be revealed.  There is truth to be found.  There is light to be spread.

I think Jesus wants strong and loving families, of all colors, shapes and sizes.  But we can’t stop there.  Jesus also asks us to love the poor and the hungry, the homeless and those who are sick.  Jesus preaches outside the proverbial box, so that we might take a fresh look at those primary relationships with parents and children, spouses and partners.  Then he invites us into a deeper relationship, dare I say a spiritual relationship with all who share in the baptized life of the Risen Lord.

One of the joys of my ministry is to visit and celebrate communion in various retirement and nursing facilities. Some residents have members of their family near, while others do not. Many are widowed. Some are in good health, others less so.  But what I see happening is these folks deeply care and look out for one another.  New families are created out of necessity, and new shared family values are lived out.  Loving, creative and caring communities are reborn, as it were, by the Holy Spirit.  Can anyone be born again?  Yes indeed!

“In faith, we imagine ourselves whole” Barbara Brown Taylor suggests, “Imagine ourselves in love with our neighbors, imagine ourselves bathed and fed by God, imagine the creation at peace, imagine the breath of God coinciding with our own, imagine the heart of God beating at the heart of the world.”

On this Father’s Day, let us renew our own commitment to the family values that Jesus taught his disciples and to us. Love your parents; love your spouse; love your kids; love your neighbors; love yourself; pray to love your enemies; love the God who created and yet more wonderfully restored you.  And have no fear, for those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. Amen

Comments? Contact The Rev. Todd Smelser: tsmelser@stphilipscathedral.org

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