Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5
“Come on, let’s go out.” Frank picked up the thermos of hot chocolate and coaxed his kids out the door. He led them on a walk through the snow on a sunny winter’s day. When they got to the top of a hill, he challenged them: “Go ahead, lie down and make a snow angel. Feel the warmth of the sun on your face.” When they got up from the snow, he had hot chocolate waiting.
“I wanted them to get that feeling of nature,” Frank said, “how peaceful and relaxing it can be.”
*
Derek had just gotten his driver’s license and a job delivering pizza. Ric let him use the van. All was going well until he pulled up in a driveway, leapt out of the van to deliver the pizza and forgot to put the vehicle in park. The van rolled forward, crashing into the unsuspecting pizza-purchasers’ garage.
The homeowner was understanding; she had teenagers herself. She decided not to call the insurance company; Derek agreed to pay for the repairs. Ric helped him by painting the garage door.
“When something like this happens,” Ric told me, “I try to help my kids get through it. When it’s over, I ask the question, ‘What did you learn from it?’” In this case: be sure to put the car in park before you get out. Of course, there’s a larger lesson: stuff happens. When it does, take responsibility.
*
Sophomore year in college was a rough time for Chris. His struggles with depression and anxiety came to a head, and he made the painful decision to come home before the semester ended. “When our kids were having a hard time,” Paul said, “we tried to create a safe space, where they knew they could come no matter what.” Paul and Amy welcomed Chris home and encouraged him to stay long enough to address the deeper issues he was facing. “We’re here to help you through”–that was the message.
*
David and Daniel and Jeff had just come from the movies. They were hungry, and it was time for Happy Meals at McDonalds. The drive-through line was long. They inched their way to the front, got their dinner, and were about to drive off when a disheveled-looking man knocked on Jeff’s window. He told Jeff that he was an addict, homeless and hungry. Could they help?
Jeff said to David and Daniel, “Hey boys, how about we share our food?” He gave the man their happy meals, shook his hand and told him they would all be praying for him. Then they circled around to the back of the line to get food for themselves.
I asked Jeff how the boys responded. Daniel was too young to understand what was happening. As Jeff talked through it with him, David became very excited. He couldn’t wait to get home to tell his Papi–Cesar,–how they had shared their food with a stranger in need.
***
Four powerful stories. Four opportunities for these fathers to convey, through their words and actions, what it means to build the kind of character that leads to a life of hope and meaning.
I am grateful to Frank, Ric, Jeff and Paul for the time they spent on the phone with me this week. My starting point for our conversations was the apostle Paul’s words– “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.” I keyed into the word “character” for these phone calls. How do these four fathers define character and how do they try to help their children build it? In tough times, how to they help them learn and grow, so that suffering–or loss or disappointment–does lead to endurance and character and finally to hope ?
I started the conversations with a question, “How has being a father shaped your own character?” From there, we were off and running.
Ric talked about how he has been changed by his awareness that his kids are watching his every move. He knows he need to be a good example, making good choices, living out the Golden Rule. He knows his kids will see his work ethic. When it’s time to work, he said, I work hard. When it’s time to play, they see me having fun, kicking it up and having a good laugh. It’s very basic, he said, there’s no trick to it.
There are lots of tricks, though, to being the father of teenagers. Sometimes, setting a good example and offering helpful advice didn’t have the impact he would have liked. Ric’s brother, whose kids are older, has helped him see that his actions and his words are like planting seeds. In the short term, not much may seem to be happening. His brother urged him to trust that they will eventually bear fruit.
Jeff has seen his own character shaped by wanting to teach his kids about giving to others. He’s noticed that the desire to be a good example has influenced who he is even when he is not with the kids. I try, he said, to be more careful about my choice of words and how I treat people who are having a hard time.
Jeff and Cesar pray with their boys every night. They model that prayer isn’t just about your own needs, but a way to remember other people. They pray for the boys’ birth parents, that they might be healthy and strong and able to care for themselves. They pray for children who haven’t yet found their forever homes, and they give thanks that God has brought their family together.
When Jeff and Cesar lost a beloved cousin, they turned to God for understanding and help. They did their best to include David, in an age-appropriate way, in their grieving process. They wanted him to know that it is okay to be sad and upset.
For Paul, becoming a father–technically a stepfather, very much a Papa–redefined what it means to be in love. You learn, he said, to accept and care for these distinct individuals no matter what. In the end, he said, it’s all about them, about what they need. Having children taught him to look at the long-term.
Paul reflected on how complicated it is to make decisions for the long-term good of their children. For him, it meant being a good provider, working hard to ensure his family would have what they needed. In retrospect, he wishes he had spent more time with the kids one-on-one. Amy, he said, did more of that. Paul’s role with Chris and Katy was more often to be the coach of their teams and to attend recitals and concerts.
He tried to encourage and enable them to be part of groups that would help them find the things that bring them joy. Sports teams, scouts, dance groups: at their best, Paul felt, they helped his kids develop crucial components of character–being true to their word, following through with commitments, paying attention to the needs of the larger group.
When I asked my initial question about how his character was shaped by being a father, Frank laughed. “I think being a father was more of a learning and growing experience for me than for my kids.” When Adam and Christina were young, he said, he initially felt he needed to tell them everything so they would get it right. Ruth finally said, “ You’ve got to give more attention to what they are saying.” Frank learned to listen.
Being a father also gave Frank an opportunity to shift family patterns he had inherited. While he knew, as a child, that his father loved him deeply, that love was rarely expressed in words or in hugs. As a father himself, Frank had to learn a different way. “Have you told him you love him?” Ruth would ask Frank when he and Adam were having a hard time. The good news, he told me, is that now, when Christina and Adam are both there, they all readily say, “I love you.”
I am struck by the richness and the depth of these four fathers’ sense of what it means have character: the capacity to work hard and have fun, a sense of responsibility to the larger community, the ability to appreciate the beauty of creation, an instinct to help others, an openness to reaching out to God in prayer, a willingness to say I love you.
***
I started my preparations for this Fathers’ Day sermon intrigued by the apostle Paul’s words about suffering, endurance, character and hope. After my conversations with these fathers, I come back to these biblical words with a fresh perspective.
Suffering, the apostle writes, produces endurance, which develops character, which leads to hope. I have experienced the truth of these words: as I’ve worked through my own disappointments and discovered new possibilities, as I’ve watched people grow from their mistakes. I have also seen the opposite: how loss and disappointment can instead lead to bitterness. Paul’s words point not to something that is inevitable, but instead to God’s deepest yearning for each one of us in our times of struggle.
What is it that enables us to live into God’s yearning for us, to face struggle and suffering in such a way that leads to hope? Perhaps one of the major factors is whether there is someone who cares enough to guide us in the direction of endurance, character and hope–a father or mother, an aunt or grandfather, a teacher or mentor, a friend or pastor. We all need people who teach us by example, who inspire us to care for others and encourage us to pray, who create safe space for us to be ourselves, who show us it’s okay to be sad and tell us they love us. Who have been those people for you? Remember them; remember to thank them.
We all need those people. And we all are called to be those people. Whether we are fathers or mothers, aunts or neighbors or friends, we are called to help one another live out God’s yearning for us. We are called to be examples, to model compassion, commitment, and an openness to prayer, to offer safe space and a listening ear. We are called to help one another through times of suffering and struggle, to encourage each other to claim endurance, to trust the strength of our own character, and to find hope in the assurance that God’s love is with us always. May we each be blessed with people who guide us, and with the commitment to guide and support others. Amen.