Today we celebrate fathers, for the vital role you play in the human drama of family. Indeed, when fathers are absent, families and communities suffer, so you are an essential part of both family and community.
One of the great changes that has occurred in the past twenty or thirty years is the positive involvement of fathers raising children. Many in my father’s generation, and generations before observed role distinctions where mothers raised the children, and fathers provided for and protected the family. Machines, technology and changing role definitions have freed fathers to have the time and energy to devote to family. The trend toward a more involved father has been a huge shift, one in which the father is more intimately connected with his children—this is a win-win for a father and his children.
There was a woman sociologist who looked at the voluntary role a father plays for his family, in comparison to living only for himself. To financially provide for himself only would require far less effort on his part, without the need for a family home, and food, clothes, and education for his children. Her point was that the father puts forward a tremendous effort to provide for his family, often without much acknowledgement—it is done quietly, expectedly, and without much fanfare. How grateful we are for those fathers who make sacrifices for family; often playing a more invisible but essential role to those he loves.
In many of the great Western traditions the father archetype came to symbolize God, or the chief god, such a Zeus. With the great master Jesus, we get the most touching, intimate connection with Father as God, or Abba in Jesus’ Aramaic. Now, to some it may sound heretical to give God a gender, but the truth is metaphors are powerful symbols that bring out certain positive qualities in us. Clearly for Jesus, Father was an endearing term for God that touched his heart, made him feel close and intimate with the Divine Presence that existed both in his own soul, and as the creative power and intelligence that has manifested as this entire universe. Far from the fiery rule-making God of Moses, Jesus’ Father is loving, understanding and giving—He doesn’t even mind a little rule breaking if it preserves the spirit of the law!
So, today I give honor to my father and grandfathers, and our beloved Father in heaven. To my father and grandfathers, I feel such gratitude for all your hard work that conveyed your love for family far more eloquently than you ever expressed in words. And, for my Father in heaven, may we all feel the same intimacy that Jesus felt in relationship with You—such love, care and closeness. And for all of you fathers today, who work and strive to make your families safe, secure and loved, I give you thanks.