An edited transcript of
a talk given by Alex at the Dedication of his youngest son (April 2012)
Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all
malice. Be kind to one another,
tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved
children. (Ephesians 4:31-5:1)
Children, obey your parents
in the Lord, for this is right. “Honour
your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that
it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to
anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:1-4)
What we are going to think
about is "fathering". I know
this is a big, complex and emotive topic to talk about. So I want to briefly spell out five reasons
why this is worth our attention, time and energy.
Firstly, statistically we all have
or have had a father. Our father would
have influenced us enormously in our past and very much in our present. Our understanding of who we are, our
character and personality will have all been significantly formed for better or
worse by the experience we have of our fathers.
Secondly, statistically speaking,
the majority of us men either are or will be fathers whether through biology,
adoption or influence. Being a father
absorbs and requires an enormous amount from us – time, money, emotional
energy, health, hair – quite a lot of mine has gone in the last couple of
years! The majority of us men are or
will be fathers and I hope you are
motivated to do this consuming role well.
Thirdly, being a father is
massively influential, for good or for ill.
I think all of us would recognise that subjectively from our own
personal reflections. All of us know how
influential are own father is, or the fathering effect from men is on our own
children. I know for some of us this is
particularly emotive and I am going to touch upon some of the complexities of fathering
in our modern age later on. But first I
want to add some objective background to that subjective statement that
fathering is massively influential.
After the riots
Firstly I want to draw your
attention to the report ‘After the riot – the Final Report of the Riot
Community and Victim Panel’. Published in
the last few weeks it is a series of pre-emptive recommendations based on the
riots of last summer. It makes
interesting reading and I would encourage you to pull a copy off the Internet.[1]
They make seven
recommendations. The first
recommendation of the seven is entitled ‘Children and Parents’. They say: "We heard from many
communities who feel that the rioter behaviour could ultimately be ascribed to
poor parenting."[2] This first recommendation contains a number
of sub-points and the last one is titled "Widening inclusion" and
reads "Some children grow up without a single positive adult figure in
their lives. Public services should take
steps to ensure all children have a positive role model from a child's wider
family or the local community. Where it is in the best interests of the child
to do so, we recommend that absent fathers should be contacted by Social
Services and schools about their children as a matter of course."[3]
Fathering is enormously
influential: the first point of a seven-point summary of reasons behind last
summer’s riots produced by a professional and independent government agency unashamedly
highlights that.
The Fatherhood Bibliography
The second objective reality
I want to place as background is a report produced by Care for the Family,
which is a Christian organisation. It's
called the ‘Fatherhood Bibliography: the Uniqueness and Importance of Fathers’.[4] It is a summary of a significant number of
resources taken from secular studies on sociology, psychology, and a whole
plethora of different areas. They
capture the content of what these various reports say via short quotes.
Now Care for the Family are
at great pains, and I am at great pains as well, to stress that parenting is a
joint thing. It is mothers and fathers
together. They say “…it is vital to be
clear that mothers are just as important.
Indeed many of the entries highlight the importance of fathers in the
context of a wider assessment of the differing but complementary and vital
roles played by mothers and fathers together.”[5] In no way, by focussing on fathers, are we
excluding mothers from this.
But what the report goes on
to emphasise is that in a society which is losing sight of the significance of
fathers we need to re-recognise their vital importance in the family unit. They say "this bibliography details some
of the research highlighting the uniqueness and importance of fathers…a
contribution to the parenting process that cannot be compensated by any other
means..."[6]
I want to reference four
short quotes of the many that they've pulled from various studies to show not
just the subjective reality of how important fathering is, but the objective
backdrop to that.
The first quote is taken
from the Department for Works and Pensions Report 2007.[7] It says this:
"Fathers and mothers matter to children's development. Father/child relationships, whether they be
positive, negative or lacking have profound and wide-ranging impact on children
that last a lifetime."
A second one is taken from a
report from the US back in 1996. It says
this: "Fathers are far more
important than just second adults in the home.
Involved fathers bring positive benefits to their children that no other
person is as likely to bring. They
provide protection and economic support and male role models. According to the evidence, fathers make
important contributions to their children's intellectual competence, pro-social
and companionate behaviour and psychological well-being."[8] Fathers matter. They are highly influential.
This is the third of the
four, taken from the National Fatherhood Initiative, 2002. It says this:
"Fathers make unique and irreplaceable contributions to the lives
of their children. Unique means that
they provide something different from Mothers.
They are not just part-time mother substitutes. Irreplaceable means that when they are
absent, children suffer. The
contributions of fathers to child well-being cannot be replaced simply by
ensuring better child support enforcement, by designing better income
programmes, or transfer programmes or even by providing well intentioned
mentoring programmes. The fact is children
need their Father”.[9] I would add ‘or someone who acts like their father’.
Fourth and finally from
Fathers and Fatherhood in Britain produced by the Family Policy Studies Centre
in 1997. “Fatherhood is, and always has been, about more than
just the financial support of families. Fathers have an equally important role
in the emotional, social and psychological development of their children and
the support of their children’s mother … Being a father is also about helping
young boys and girls develop conceptions of themselves in relation to men as
well as women and encouraging them to understand and be comfortable with
masculinity and maleness.”[10]
So it's pretty stark. Fathers matter and they matter enormously. I feel addressing this topic of fatherhood is
so important that I would rather make a well-motivated but potentially B+
effort at talking about this complex and difficult reality than the church be
silent on such a crucial issue.
To recap: the first reason
why I think it's important we should consider this is that, statistically every
single one of us has had a father who has influenced us enormously. Secondly,
statistically the vast majority of us men will be or are fathers. Thirdly, it's
massively influential. There are two
more reasons.
Fourthly, we live in a society where
the understanding of what it is to be a father is being eroded. Many of us feel unclear and unequipped for
the responsibility of being a dad and what that means. The society we live in is highly
complex. The dominant family unit is called,
in modern jargon, a "blended family". Many of us know the reality of divorce
and a father with limited access to children.
Many of us know the very difficult position of being a single
mother. So fathering is very difficult
and yet very influential.
And the last reason, fifthly,
is simply this: that I am one of those dads. And today seems a remarkably appropriate day,
Gideon's dedication, to at least try and share a few reflections on what fathering
might possibly mean, even if potentially I am the only one benefitting!
Two hesitations
However, before we launch
into it, I want to do one other thing in this slightly prolonged introduction,
which is to answer two possible hesitations you might have about listening to
this talk.
Alex is too young
The first hesitation might
be this, ‘Surely Alex is too young and too inexperienced to talk about
fathering?’ I could respond to that in a
couple of ways. I could point to the two
exceptional role models I have of fathering: Hannah's dad and especially of my
own dad. And it's wonderful for me this
morning to pay tribute to my own dad and the right mix of love and discipline my
upbringing had.
Or I could point to the
three full-blooded sons that we have and say, 'I am learning fast'. But obviously, only in one stage of parenting
– pre-school.
But actually I think that if
your hesitation is that 'Alex is too young and inexperienced', I would want to
entirely agree with you. I would want to
say, 'absolutely, I am too young and inexperienced to talk about fathering.' In fact, I would argue that even if we could fast-forward
to my 80th birthday and I could lecture on every stage of being a father I
would still have a pretty meagre portion to share with you. After all what can one life and one
experience and one man offer so many?
And so my intention this
morning is not to do that. It is not to
draw on tools or titbits that I have learnt over my very short period of being
a dad. My intention this morning
actually is to dive us into the rich and full resource of the Bible and ask what
does the Bible have to say to us in the situations we find ourselves in about
fathering?
The Bible is too old
Now that probably highlights
what might be your second hesitation. If
your first is 'surely Alex is too young', maybe your second is, 'the Bible is
too old.' Surely the Bible is too ancient
a document to have anything useful to say about the context we find ourselves
in? Some of them very painful, very
emotive, and very unclear. If that is
your hesitation I want to politely just raise a warning flag – that
chronological snobbery is a dangerous thing.
What I mean is that simply dismissing something as irrelevant because it
is old is a dangerous position to take.
So I wonder if you would give it a chance and see what sense it might
have. After all it has a proven record
across cultures, families and individuals in helping people know not just what
is right, but what is better.
Fathering
that displays God
Let
me first of all, at the broadest level, answer the question: what is the point
of parenting and of fathering specifically, according to the Bible?
Well,
the point of parenting parallels the point of living. The Bible says that the point of living; the
reason why we exist as human beings, is to put God on display. The fundamental, bottom line, ultimate end
goal of being a human being is to put God on display to other people. That is what is most satisfying for us and good
for everyone else. To show as clearly as
we possibly can what God is like in all aspects of our lives. And parenting parallels that. The reality of parenting is that it is a greenhouse
of high intensity in displaying what God is like to your children. That is your prime role if you are a parent
of any age. You are trying to show what
God is like to your children.
Fundamentally,
our children's dominant and lasting perception of what God is like will be
based on their experience of you as mother and father. A child's dominant and lasting perception of
God fundamentally rests on their experience of their parents. It will be years before a child sees beyond
you, as a mother or as a father, to God.
Their impression and understanding of what God is like will be built on
their experience of you, as a parent, and forever they will be the spectacles,
even as adults, they see God through.
And
fathering, by the nature of the name - that the human father holds the parallel
name as God the Father - means that what is true for parenting generally is
particularly true of fathers. In a
child's mind the one who is named father humanly speaking often is the closest
representation of what God the Father is like.
Single-mums
For
a moment I want to pull into a lay-by and just have a word with those of us who
are single mums. It is true that a
father represents God the Father in a particular way. And that a child's impression of what God is
like is going to be substantially built on their experience of their
father. But being a father, and having a
father, is only one mechanism by which God the Father is displayed - a dominant
mechanism, but only one mechanism. I
want to say clearly if you are a single mum and the father of your children is
absent, or is not being replaced, then it does not automatically mean that your
children will grow up with a distorted impression of God, nor that they will
grow up and not be all that they possibly can be as human beings. What it does mean, if you are a single mum,
is that you need to activate intentionally the other mechanisms by which God
the Father is displayed. Those other
mechanisms will be certain aspects of your own mothering; they will be the
heroes that you direct your children towards in terms of toys and TV and sports’
celebrities; and vitally it will be about identifying men who can have the
father-like influence on your children.
Let's
catch our breath. Fathering specifically
and parenting generally is about displaying what God is like. It is vitally important. It sets a foundational perception of who God
is that lasts well into adulthood, and therefore shapes our character,
personality, sexuality, self-awareness and self-identity. It is hugely important. How do we do it well?
Anger
Look
with me at Ephesians 6:4. In the NIV
translation is says: "Fathers, do not
exasperate your children. Instead, bring
them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." In the ESV it is slightly different and I
want you to notice the word ‘anger’ here which is the dominant thought behind
the idea of exasperation. "Fathers, do not provoke your children
to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord."
If
you look at the few sentences before this one you will see what Paul, who wrote
this, first focuses on: parents - mothers and fathers together. Ephesians 6:1-3 is all about the mutual
responsibility and importance of mothers and fathers acting together. So again, I want to say by focusing today on
fathers I am not excluding mothers.
There is equal importance in both.
Paul
shifts from 6:1-3, talking about parents to 6:4 talking specifically about
fathers. And the emotion he highlights
is "anger". Now why? Of all the emotions a father could and should
generate, good ones and bad ones, why does he pinpoint anger? I think there are a couple of reasons. First, I think that anger is the dominant
response to authority, whether it is a 2-year old tantrum, or a teenager’s
slammed door or sullen silence. Anger is
a dominant response to authority. And parents,
and in some ways particularly fathers, hold that authority.
The
second reason he highlights anger is because it is a reflection of the
significance and weight of fathering. If
fathering is done poorly it is right for the child to be angry about that, either
in the immediate or a much more deep-rooted anger that takes us into
adulthood. It is a reflection of how
weighty and important good fathering is.
When it is done poorly it is right for the child to be provoked to anger
at the failure of their father.
Thirdly, anger as an emotion
devours all other better emotions. When
anger appears, it consumes and overrides other emotions. We can see that Paul, who wrote this, has
already alluded to this earlier, in 4:31-5:1:
"Get rid of all
bitterness, rage and anger [notice anger - the same word as used in 6:4],
brawling and slander along with every form of malice but be kind, compassionate
to one another, forgiving each other, just as God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore...”
He is saying you need to get
rid of anger (4:31) because it consumes things like kindness, and compassionate
forgiveness (4:32). The general
principle of chapter 4, that anger destroys the better emotions is applied
specifically to the father/child relationship in 6:4. Ephesians 4:31-5:1 sets a general
principle: Anger kills the love that
displays God. 6:4 applies that to
father-child relationships which are loaded with dynamite, set to explode in
either the direction of antagonism or the direction of God-emulating love
depending on the purpose and vision of the father. Which father will you be is
the question raised by 6:4?
Set to explode
He is saying father/child
relationships are loaded with potential.
They are weighted down with dynamite and set to explode. And they have a bent to explode towards
anger. This is important: a father/child
relationship is full of power but it has a bent, a lean, to explode to anger. Therefore, if you are a father, handle it with
care - father in such a way that avoids it exploding into anger. Don’t abdicate your responsibility, abuse your
responsibility, or abandon your responsibility.
Rather, father in such a way that avoids the bent to explode to anger
and instead explodes in the relationship in love and kindness and forgiveness.
We’ve seen it from those
riot and secular fathering studies earlier, and now we see the root here in the
Bible: fathering is enormous. It is
influential. To trifle with such a
weighty topic is folly. Fathering and
parenting and mothering are about displaying God to our children. The intensity of what a family is means it is
a greenhouse where God is most clearly put on display. The role of fathers is to be particularly
able and determined to show what God the Father is like, and therefore not
cause their child anger but generate love.
Now, how do we do that?
Two biblical positives
There are two biblical
positives we have alluded to I want to unpack further for you to ponder for
your particular context: whether you are
a father; whether you long for a father for your children and need to look for
an alternative mechanism to generate that; whether you are to be a father in
the future; even if you are battling to comprehend your experience of a father.
The first is this. As a father, do everything you can to be
like God the Father. Ephesians 5:1
says "be imitators of God therefore".
What is God the Father like in terms of ‘anger’?
(A) God does nothing to provoke
our anger and everything to deserve our love.
(B) We respond with anger. Like children, we take the anger that comes
from another relationship or a bad day at school or something that has happened,
and we deposit it on our father. That's
what children do, so we do that to God.
He has done nothing to deserve our anger, everything to deserve our love
but we respond in anger. We are angry at
him for things we perceive he has done.
(C) God doesn't respond in kind with
anger but God responds with further love and in Christ initiates
reconciliation.
That is what God the Father
is really like. What your true Father is
like. If you sit here conscious that
your own father is not what you long him to be then think on this for a
moment. This is what God the Father is
like - nothing to deserve our anger, everything to deserve our love. We are angry at him and he responds not with
anger, but in love and in Christ with a desire to be reconciled. This is your true father.
It means our fathering
should be like God in this way. Do
nothing to provoke the anger of your children, do everything to deserve their
love. When they inevitably respond with
anger towards you – sometimes deserved but often simply because they have had a
bad day at school or experienced some perceived injustice and they deposit it onto
you - don't respond with anger but respond with further love and the desire to
reconcile.
Now the risk of that first biblical
positive is that it sounds weak. It
sounds like puppy love. It sounds like
it lacks any substance. Which is why we
need the second biblical positive to give it backbone and spine.
The second biblical positive
is found in Ephesians 6:4 and it is about pulling that gargantuan purpose of
displaying God into the nitty-gritty of daily life. It says this: "Fathers, do not provoke
your children to anger” meaning do not father in such a way that you release
the potential towards anger, which is the direction it has a bent to go. Do not parent in a way that provokes anger in
your children but father in a way that explodes the gigantic potential of the
father/child relationship in the direction of love and kindness and
compassion. How do you explode it in
that way: “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”. These words are strong and directive. They give fathering steel and strength. What do they mean?
"Bring them up" – the tense is in the
present continuous, which means that it is ‘always now’. It means right now. It is about fathering that is involved. You have to be there, in the life of your
children, not a distant dad. Not a dad
who pops in every now and again, nor who the children are wheeled out in front
of. You know what their favourite TV
programme is; you know who their best friend at school is; what their favourite
colour is this week, even though it was something different last week. You are involved.
Secondly, “in the
discipline”. Interestingly the tense
changes to the past tense now. I think
this is about the ability to help your child reflect on their past. Having good hindsight for your child. That might be over dinner that night, talking
about the day they have had. Helping
them understand the experiences, with the bullying, the failed test, the
successful match. You are helping them understand,
reflect on their past. It may be talking
to your 20-year old about their teenage years and helping them reflect and
learn from that experience.
Next, “and instruction”. The tense changes again. Now it is future tense. This is about preparing your children for
what is to come next in their lives.
What is to come tomorrow. They
have got a big sports’ tournament. They
are anxious – are you preparing them for that?
They are about to go into their teenage years. You sense the emotion starting to bubble and
the awkwardness beginning. Are you
talking to them, preparing them for that future? They are on the cusp of marriage. The role of fathers is enormous in preparing
a child, a grown child for that future event.
And then, lastly: "of
the Lord”. This is the idea of not
falling into the trap of just focusing on a good (and it is good and important)
education that expands your child’s mind.
And not just focusing on the good (and it is very good and important) desire
to create compassionate citizens of the world.
Of course we should be expanding the minds and hearts of our children as
far as they will stretch. But do not
focus on just that good goal. It is
ultimately about helping your children to have the capacity so that when they
meet Jesus, they are ready to meet Jesus.
They have perceived in your parenting an accurate portrayal of what God
is like.
And all these link to
anger. A significant failure in any of
these areas rightly generates anger in your child – failure to be involved, to discipline,
or to instruct. But especially this last
one: in the Lord. A failure to help them
rightly perceive and respond to Jesus generates an eternal anger; the greatest of
anger in your child. A failure to
prepare them for the most important event and relationship their life with
contain, God, makes people very anger at their parents. It is a failure at the fundamental level of
the responsibility of being a father – that God is felt and seen and heard and
known, not perfectly but accurately. Of
course it remains their responsibility how they react and respond to God, but
have we prepared them as best we can? Do
they have a right perception of God from our parenting? Or will they be angry at us for not getting
them ready for meeting and knowing God, even if we have educated them superbly,
matured them emotionally, stretched their horizons, and enlarged their
hearts. Without having aided them to
know God then ultimately, eternally, they will be rightly very angry at us.
And now…
So, now I need to go and do
it, don't I? I hope as we think about
this gargantuan responsibility we have been given - about the difficult context
we might be in and how we introduce father-like influences on children who lack
fathers; or our own present or future fathering - as we realise the gargantuan
greenhouse effect of the family when it comes to showing what God is like; I
hope that many of us men this morning will see through a well-motivated but I
am sure a B+ effort from an inexperienced dad, who has, I hope, a good heart, to
some good that has been in this morning's talk and would join me in trying to
father well.
Prayer
Heavenly Father - some of us
have had marvellous fathers humanly and we praise you and thank you for
that. Some of us have had poor fathers. Some of us, in fact most of us, have had
fathers who are very good at some things and not so hot at other things. Some of us are fathers right now and we fit
into any one of those categories as we reflect on our own fathering. Some of us are in very complicated and
difficult situations and I hope have felt something of an embrace this morning.
Wherever we are I want to
thank you that ultimately all human fathers, even the very best human fathers,
reflect only part of the perfection, beauty, love, justice, truth, wonder,
greatness and goodness of what God is like.
I pray that we might be drawn again to see more clearly, wherever our
starting point might be, the perfection, beauty and intensity of love we have
from a Heavenly Father to us.
In Jesus's name. Amen.
[1]
Found at http://riotspanel.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Riots-Panel-Final-Report1.pdf
[4]
Available at :Reference This document was originally produced
for the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill debate 2007-08
and re-released by Care for the Family in early 2012.
[7]
Fatherhood Bibliography page 6. Original
source: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Joint birth registration:
promoting parental responsibility CM7160, June 2007, p 5. Available at:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/2007/joint-registration-of-births-gp.pdf8
[8]
Fatherhood Bibliography page 8. Popenoe,
D., Life without father: Compelling new evidence that fatherhood and marriage
are indispensable for the good of children and society. New York, NY: The Free
Press, 1996.
[9]
Fatherhood Bibliography page 8. Horn,
W., Sylvester, T., Father Facts, 4th Ed, National Fatherhood Initiative, 2002.
[10]
Fatherhood Bibliography page 16.
Burghes, L., Clarke, L., and Cronin, N., Fathers and Fatherhood in
Britain, London, Family Policy Studies Centre, 1997, p 8.
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