Our Fathers

“Our Fathers”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
June 21, 2009

Father’s Day, a day to honor the men who sired us, raised us, nurtured us, mentored us, taught us. A day also to wince at the pain and frustration known by some among us who do not feel so inclined to honor the men who sired, raised, and taught us. It’s a tough cookie, this matter of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, whether we consider our mothers and fathers—and some of us may well have two of each—or whether we consider the mothering or fathering that we have done and continue to practice. Parenting is such a daunting process, I’m convinced sometimes that it’s all practice. This is why I always say to any among you who announce that you’re expecting a child, whether you’re expecting a birth child or an adoptive child, “Congratulations! Your life will never be the same.”

Parenting is not for the faint of heart. For good reason the fifth commandment of those legendary commandments of Moses does not say: “Love your father and mother,” but “Honor your father and mother,” and not for their sake but, as one translation goes, “that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12)

A demeanor of honor, of respectful civility for our parents, is counseled across faith traditions. In the story I related earlier of the young man and his elderly father sharing a backyard bench, this is conveyed through the brief interchange between them and the background chirping of a sparrow, which held the rapt gaze of the father. Attuned to his surroundings, most especially, the delicate bird, the elderly father asked his young adult son again and again, “What is that?” pointing to the sparrow. The son, with his nose in a newspaper, replied to the first few rounds with a matter-of-fact, “A sparrow.” When the father repeated the question, the son grew increasingly irritated, until the elderly father rose to go into the house. In a moment, he returned with a book, which he handed to his son, indicating to him to read “loud” a certain passage. The son read of how a one-time three-year-old asked repeatedly the same question his father had been asking repeating, also in reference to a delicate sparrow: “What is that?” Again and again, the young father had replied patiently, “A sparrow.” The young man’s face softened and saddened. With remorse over how miserably he had failed to show his father the love and patience his father had shown him, the son reached over and embraced the man who was now as innocent as he had been as a three-year-old child.

The scenario concludes with a passage from the Quran:

“The Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, or repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: ‘My Lord! Bestow on them thy Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood.” (Sura isra’a 23-24)

It could as easily have been the passage from the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus.

The elderly father reminds me of my grandfathers. My Grandfather Edwards sat me as a young child on his lap and taught me songs and prayers with the same ease that he took me by the hand and brought me along to the Halfa Store, a spot-in-the-road general store, where I hopped on his lap and listened to my Grandad and his farmer friends talk away an hour or so as they shared a beer and kept me well supplied with ice cream. As a teenager, I witnessed this same Granddad losing his hold on the precious stuff of his life—his prayers, his songs, his conversations with friends then gone, his capacity to take the hand of a child as a kindly and confident guide. This was not always a patient man, but had he retained the faculty to remind any of us amid any later impatience with him of our shared history, he could have done so with the same nobility that this Muslim father extended to his son.

As some of us gather in circles of family and friends to honor today the fathers among us, I wonder at the gifts that will be given. I wonder how many resemble the gifts given by Roscoe Sr.’s sons to their father on the occasion of his 40th birthday in the story I shared from John McCluskey, Jr.’s much longer story. Cigars we will likely not give, given what we know of their effects; but the boldly patterned shirts and ties will flow in abundance. And I wonder how many fathers, many as rough and tumble as Roscoe, Sr., will proudly wear those precious gifts with no regard for friends who might look askance at their taste.

Yes, there are fathers whom some of us never knew and don’t know. Yes, there are fathers whom we would rather not know. And yes, there are fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, and father figures who have nurtured us with time, patience, stories, and examples of how to live honorable lives, that we too might be fathers or mothers or simply nurturing adults who pass on the stories and lessons, that we too might be carriers of the love.

Our fathers are many and variable, honorable and dishonorable, lovable and otherwise. How might we receive those gifts worthy of passing on to the next generation and know that the cycles we choose to continue or break and re-form ensure that what we pass on is worthy of the next generation? Fathering comes in so many flavors and is received with so many hopes and assumptions. Fathering comes in so many textures. Its gifts are varied and linger. The ties that bind are arrayed with the same hopes and hurts that we bring to our childhoods, childhoods lived and remembered, childhoods that we continue to live out.

What might we say on this Father’s Day to those male figures who have nurtured us and otherwise? Perhaps another rendition of a familiar prayer would suffice:

Our fathers, who are of this earth, who have struggled and achieved and failed and succeeded and laughed and cried as we have, your reality is dear;

Your kingdom is of this earth, our homes, our communities, our nations peaceful and war-torn. Your kingdom is here and now, and you know there is only kingdom, no king.

You have done what you could to put food on the table. For those of you who couldn’t, we forgive you. You have done what you could to ensure our safety. For those of you who couldn’t, we forgive you. You have done what you could to ensure that we grew into loving and honorable men and women, sons and daughters of whom you could be proud. For those of you who didn’t, we forgive you. Would you forgive us when we have failed to honor your attempts? Would you forgive us when we fail to forgive you?

May we not lean into that mindset that closes our hearts to you. May we resist the temptation to know more, feel more, be more than you possibly could and then take credit for the whole harvest. May we stray not into the illusion of asserting that we are better, fairer, and finer than you. Recall us to our humanhood. Remind us that none of us are ever loved as we think we need to be loved. Teach us once again to keep our eye on the sparrow. Teach us through the stories, the images, the songs, and the silence, that we are in this life as members of the great family of all who have ever lived and all who are now alive. Teach us that kingdoms and power and glory are to be shared, because we are all in this amazing life together. Amen.



Sources:

The Second Book of Moses Commonly Called Exodus, The Bible (Revised Standard Version)

John McCluskey, Jr., “Forty in the Shade,” in Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers, Edited by Mary Helen Washington, Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1991, 199-201 (from Mr. America’s Last Season Blues by John McCluskey, Jr., Copyright 1983 by John McCluskey, Jr. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press. This selection originally appeared as a short story in Obsidian, IV, Number 1, under the title “Forty in the Shade.”

Video and script of the story of the Muslim father and son, http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=7rMzbgu30yY.