We’ve Got Men Down!
Scripture: 1 Samuel 15.34- 16.13; Mark 4.26-34; 1 Timothy 1.1-2
Donald Miller’s latest book is about growing up without a father. In To Own a Dragon, Miller writes about the early “replacement fathers” he had.
“In the absence of a real father, I had a cast of characters that were at times hilarious, pitiful, perfect, kind, and wise. Here they are:
My first father was a black man on television who wore bright argyle sweaters. He lived in New York or Chicago, I can’t remember which. He was incredibly intelligent, and had a knockout wife. I’m talking about Bill Cosby. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Theo Huxtable. I liked the way Theo dressed. I like that he was confident with women and even though he didn’t make good grades still felt good about himself, and he had good-looking sisters who were both older and younger and who always gave him encouragement and advice about life. I liked that Bill Cosby had money too, tons of cash and certain philosophies about saving and spending that gave the family a sense of security. . .Bill Cosby never panicked about small things, he never got worked up about broken windows or cereal on the floor, and if he did get worked up, it was more like a comedy routine than a drunken rampage. He also laughed at himself, which was endearing, and I would sit in front of the little black-and-white television in my room and live vicariously through the made-up life of the Huxtables, who had celebrity guests coming through the house every few episodes to play trombone or tap-dance. . .I would watch and roll over backward on the floor and sigh under my breath, Black people have it perfect.”
After an ill-fated attempt to fill in as a dad at the Scouts’ pinewood derby, Miller’s mother introduced him to a series of men to help fill the void for her son.
“Mom kept trying. She asked our landlord’s son, who was a pothead, if he would take me to the Boy Scout father-son campout. His name was Matt and he drove a VW bug and listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd tapes and ended every sentence with the phrase, “Do you know what I mean, dude?” He was pretty cool, but I think he felt out of place around the other fathers, men who were approximately twenty years older than he was, and drove trucks or minivans, and were married, and rarely, if ever, smoked pot, or for that matter, listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I think both of us felt out of place at the father-and-son campout. After all, we had only met once before, when Matt had come over to the house to change lightbulbs on the front porch.
“Hey little man,” he said to me, looking down from his ladder, “how can I put a bulb in this thing when there’s already a bulb in it? Do you know what I mean, dude?”
On the last night of the campout, we were sitting around a fire and the fathers were telling about their favorite memory with their sons, and when it came time for Matt to talk about me he sat silent for a minute. As I said, Matt and I had spent little time together before the campout. I was searching my mind for any kind of memory, and considered talking about that great time he changed the lightbulbs, how he had to move the ladder a couple times, and how I helped him by turning the switch on and off. I knew it was a boring story, but I thought I might embellish it a bit by insisting both of us got electrocuted and had to give each other CPR.
But then Matt broke the silence. Having searched for any kind of memory himself,, he told about the car ride on the way to the campout: how we stopped at McDonalds and had to jumpstart the Bug, and how we played air guitar and bashed our heads against the dashboard to the tune of ‘Sweet Home Alabama.”
“Times with our sons, or with our neighbors kids are important, do you know what I mean, dude?” Matt said to the fathers, most of them looking very confused. I nodded my head.
“I know what you mean,” I said, breaking the awkward silence.
“Sure you do, Doug,” he chortled, rubbing my head.
“Don,” I corrected. “My name is Don.”
“Sure it is, little man,” he said to me with a confused look on his face.
Matt was great, but not much of a guide in the father-sense. The next guy was more fatherly, but he was also nuts. His name was Mr. Kilpin and he went to our church. His thing was to fly remote control airplanes in a field. It was exciting at first, but he would never let me control the plane. He would stand there wearing some sort of military hat he must have picked up in Vietnam, and his eyes would get big as planets as he made the plane dip down and sweep across the field, all the while making bombing noises with his mouth.
I kept asking, every two minutes, if he would let me fly the plane, but each time he would say maybe next time. I had to endure three weekends of simulated bombing runs over the Mekong Delta before he finally gave in to my pestering and let me take the sticks. Within eight seconds I had flown the thing into a tree, at which point Mr. Kilpin shrieked and ran across the field, shouting, “We’ve got men down, we‘ve got men on the ground!”
I can relate to Miller. I too was a failure at Boy Scouts. Though my dad never left, he was, for much of my childhood, preoccupied with alcoholism and other demons. My mother, thank you God, never tried to fill in at scouts or baseball. My grandfather at times did, and admirably I might add. He was there at my baseball games and he sat beside me at the father-son banquet. Having my pappy there was better, many times over, I imagine, than having mom there, no offense to mom intended.
But just as Miller’s father-figures improved (his in the person of a youth pastor) mine became varied and invaluable. God provided the men in my life I needed - my grandfather, my coach, my Sunday school teacher, my English teacher.
In a discussion about the root causes of criminality in America, Richard John Neuhaus says, “Almost everybody who has been paying attention agrees that the big change is in the number of young males who grow up without fathers. This is now an intergenerational phenomenon. I witnessed this harsh reality years ago in Brooklyn. Not only boys who did not know what it means to have a father, but boys who did not know what it means to be a father. They did not know any men who accepted open-ended responsibility for their children. These boys did not expect to be, and almost nobody expected them to be, fathers to their children. Today, 35 percent of all children born in America are born to women who are not married.
Sons need fathers. Daughters need fathers. And oftentimes, fathers come to sons and daughters in the form of a teacher, a coach, a grandparent, a friend. We sometimes call them mentors.
Mentoring as a leader, a teacher, a guide, is a spiritual gift from God. But, as with all spiritual gifts, it is mostly a self-giving, humble passion to serve and care for others.
Listen to how the Apostle Paul writes his letter to the young Timothy, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”
My true child. . . is how Paul describes Timothy. That is how important Timothy is to Paul. That is an indication of how much of himself Paul has invested in the young man. This is not an isolated instance in scripture.
Samuel, who himself had been mentored by Eli, was a mentor to both Saul and then Saul’s successor, David. It went better the second time. As much as Samuel tried to get Saul to trust God and grow into a mature leader, Saul continued to lead by his impulses.
Finally, Samuel has to tell Saul that he will no longer be King, the Lord has withdrawn his favor and chosen another to replace him.
"And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul." 1 Samuel 15.35
That tells you all you need to know. Samuel had poured himself into young Saul. He wanted to see Saul succeed. That's the heart of a mentor and a leader - to work to see others become great. As I said, Samuel's second mentoring relationship would also present challenges, but would turn out much better in the person of David.
Samuel shows us that mentoring is not a science but rather an art. It is bound to be as a gift of the Holy Spirit. There is mystery in how the Spirit works through us to others.
"The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. . .
With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." Mark 426-32
We plant seeds in young men and women and watch them grow, though we know not how sometimes. But I think we know why. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a great man. I think many think of him as the straight-laced general, the quintessential man of the '40s and '50s. But when he was younger, he was quite a character, causing a lot of trouble, getting himself kicked out of West Point. But there was always in him a sense of confidence. He believed the world needed him - that if he didn't exist, things would fall apart. This self-confidence was not a fluke. Eisenhower said his mother and father had this assumption and instilled it in him - that the world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence. The first step of growing into maturity is believing there is something there worth growing.
Too many kids, and maybe especially boys, grow up doubting their value, the necessity of their existence. I sometimes doubted that too. But I remember one time when I was in college that God used an unlikely person to convince me of my value. We were driving back to school, me and some friends, after a Christmas break. My dad was driving us back. My friends and I were talking a good bit and listening to music, you know, being self-absorbed as maybe only college students can be. My dad was mostly quiet, and you would have to know him to know the nature of his solitary confinement. He was there but he wasn't. And this song from the soundtrack of The Color Purple was on the stereo. The song was called Maybe God is Trying to Tell You Something. It's a raucous gospel number and we were all getting into it ,me and my friends that is, singing and clapping. We got back to UPJ and my friends scattered to their rooms and it was just me and my dad in the parking lot. And my dad stepped out of his solitary confinement and he looked me in the eye, something he rarely did, and his eyes were shining as he said, "Richard, I'm proud of you." Now, in that moment and later when I reflected on that moment, I used to think, well, God finally got through to my dad. Now, when I think about that moment I know that it was me God finally got through to. I grew up a little that day when I heard those words from my dad. I knew that I was valuable. I knew that I was needed.
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes - 5 times the national average
85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes - 20 times the national average
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes - 14 times the average
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes - 9 times the average
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes - 10 times the average
70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes - 9 times the average
85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes - 20 times the average
Church, we've got men down. The Spirit of God wants to do something about that. He needs our help.
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About Me
- Name: Rich Morris
- Location: Duncansville, Pennsylvania, United States
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Hospitality- God’s Invitation to Everybody
Scripture: John 3.1-17; Luke 7.36-50; James 2.1-4, 14-17
My friend Joe tells about the time he and his wife went to an open house. There was a stately old home in the small town where they lived that had been renovated and opened as a tea room and bed and breakfast. They put a placard out on the sidewalk which read, “Open House Today.”
Joe and his wife thought they would like to tour the house so they went and knocked on the front door. A man opened door and said, “Yes?”
“Hello, how are you?” Joe asked the man.
“Fine. What can I do for you?” the man replied.
“Well, we would like to see the house,” Joe said, kind of chuckling.
“I’m sorry?” The man looked at Joe.
“The Open House,” Joe said, with a trace of exasperation. “We are here for the Open House.”
“What Open House?” the man asked.
“The Open House you’re supposed to be having,” Joe replied, this time visibly exasperated.
“There is no Open House,” the man said matter-of-factly.
“The sign in your yard says differently,” Joe pointed out.
“I know nothing of an Open House,” Sergeant Carter from Hogan’s Heroes stated.
My friend was beginning to think that he had landed in an Abbot and Costello, Who’s on First routine.
“I’m sorry for the confusion,”Joe said, and he and wife turned and left, though he wasn’t really sorry as much as he was disturbed and confused and feeling not al little rejected by a strranger.
Jesus was once invited to a dinner party at the home of a Pharisee. As a rabbi, Jesus had been invited as a guest of honor. As such, certain rules of etiquette would be assumed.
The customary greeting was a kiss. This was not an expression of affection so much as a polite acknowledgment of the guest’s arrival. The way you kissed your guest, on the hand or the cheek, also followed certain rules, but to neglect the kiss entirely was the equivalent of ignoring someone. To put this in our own terms, say you were invited to someone’s house for dinner. The door is open, so you assume you are supposed to come in. Family members are busy watching television, no one gets up from the recliner or coach to greet you. No one even speaks to you or looks at you. To do this to a casual guest is rude; to do it to a guest of honor is a deliberate insult.
Again, the washing of feet for any guest was mandatory according to custom. If a guest was of high status, the host would wash their feet himself. If not, he might have a servant do it. A particularly lazy or arrogant host would set out a basin of water and expect the guest to bathe their own feet, but it would be like telling your guest they have to wash their own dishes after dinner.
A thoughtful host would provide some olive oil for anointing. In a world with surplus heat and a scarcity of deodorant, the gesture would be welcome.
In our story, Jesus arrives at the man’s home and receives nothing. No kiss. No greeting. No oil. Not even a bowl of water to wash himself with. Keep in mind, Jesus is no longer an obscure carpenter, but is now a renowned teacher whose fame and reputation is known near and far. His following is international in scope. Yet, at Simon’s home, Jesus is ignored, like he was not invited in the first place.
These are not subtle omissions, easily overlooked. They are intentional. Everybody present knows it. It’s like war has been declared. Everybody wants to see how Jesus will react. The tension is thick.
This was a private dinner, but it sort of had an Open House feel. This was to owing to the fact that anyone could and did walk up in the courtyard of a well-to-do to watch and listen to the dinner party. The onlookers were not invited to the dinner, but they could watch the Red Carpet proceedings. A woman is there. She is a prostitute and is known as such by everyone in that town. She has heard Jesus speak somewhere and something has spoken to her heart. Maybe she begins to wonder, “How in the world did I get to this point in my life?” She was once somebody’s little girl. She never planned on becoming a prostitute. We’re not sure how she got there but one thing is for sure - she knows what it means to be rejected. She is utterly rejected in her life. She is known as “a sinner.” No one in broad daylight talks to her or looks at her. Doors open for her only at night, in secret and shame.
She hears Jesus is going to be at this diinner so she comes to see him. She watches as Jesus is ignored and insulted and rejected, this good teacher being treated like people treat her, and she can’t stand it. Without thinking she enters the inner courtyard and kisses Jesus feet. On her knees she weeps over him, wetting his feet with her tears. She tries to dry them with her hair. She has brought an alabaster jar with oil and she anoints his feet then with this oil.
Everyone stares but nobody makes a sound. They’ll all waiting for the storm to hit.
We’re not sure why Simon invited Jesus to his house only to snub him. Maybe it was test. Maybe he wanted to see if Jesus was the real deal. If so, then the scene with the prostitute would have confirmed in Simon’s mind that Jesus was no man of God. Any self-respecting Rabbi would not be seen in public with such a woman.
But Jesus, knowing what Simon is thinking, tells him a little story about debt, forgiveness, and love.
Then, and this is important, Jesus turns directly toward the woman and says,
“Simon, do you see this woman?” Jesus is speaking to Simon but he’s looking at the woman, thereby willing his host to look at the woman as well.
“I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.” All the guests and onlookers are listening intently. They think, ‘Here comes the storm.’
Jesus continues. “You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You gave me no oil to anoint myself with, but she has. Though her sins are many, they are forgiven, for she loves much. . .”
Jesus was telling Simon that he just didn’t get it. Simon the Pharisee used religion as a test that people passed or failed, mostly failed. Jesus was saying that true relgion is love for God expressed in loving others, even sinful others, even the stranger that you’ve never looked at before.
The Gospel is God’s Good News of Invitation to Everybody. Jesus explains this to Nicodemus in John 3. “God so loved the world that he came, by the Son. . .” God sought us ought and invited us to come and eat with him. The Good News is Divine Hospitality - God’s having a party, and dude, we’re all invited!
Can you see how Hospitality, this gift from the Holy Spirit, is so central to our salvation and joy and well-being in life?
Some individuals have the gift of hospitality. You can tell. They are so good at opening their homes to others. They are excited to have friends over for dinner, or to host a group of strangers even. Maybe theirs was the house where the kids of the neighborhood flocked to. They fed twice as many as their own, because they looked at all as their own. Their house was and is often packed.
You may not be that person. We don’t all have the spiritual gift of hospitality. But we are all called to give God’s invitation of welcome always to anyone we meet.
“My brothers and sisters, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘Stand over there,’ or ‘Sit down somewhere,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
“What doe it profit, my brothers and sisters, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, and be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” James 2.1-4, 14-17
Church, can you see how Hospitality is at the center of who we are as the Body of Christ? It’s not enough, not enough, to be friendly with each other. We must truly be friends, and most importantly, welcome the visitor and stranger in our midst with humility and invitation and love.
We truly exist to serve and welcome those not yet a part of us. When the church is healthy and faithful, then God’s invitation to Everybody is answered. Everybody comes - all ages, all races, all shapes and sizes and multitudes of sins - all come to the invitation of love.
Some years ago Jennifer and I went out to dinner for our wedding anniversary. There was a restaurant in the area that had just opened and had some good buzz that we wanted to try. It didn’t open until five o’clock, which I thought was a little unusual, but we got there around five and found the door was locked. I knocked on the door (maybe they forgot to unlock), waited, but nobody came. There was lots of glass and we could see inside. There were people in there, sitting at the bar, having drinks, but the doors were locked. I knocked on the door a second time. There was a waiter walking around doing things, but he didn’t come to the door. A couple people at the bar even looked out through the glass at us, but nobody came to let us in. We got in the car and left for another restaurant.
Which is image is closer, do you think, to the Kingdom of God - the upscale restaurant with doors locked to all but a select few, or an ordinary house, packed with friends and strangers, eating together to their host’s delight?
What We Remember
Scripture: Numbers 6.22-27; John 17.6-19
There’s a scene in the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, in which June Carter is shopping at a Five and Ten type store. She is the middle of a painful divorce; she’s on tour with Johnny Cash, and she’s trying to figure out her life. A woman she’s never seen before approaches her in the store.
“You’re June Carter.”
“Why, yes, maam,” Carter politely responds. It’s nice to be recognized by fans.
The woman continues. “Your parents are such fine and upstanding people.”
June is a member of the legendary Carter family, called the “First Family of Country Music.” She grew up singing gospel with her mother and sisters and cousins.
“Why thank you, “ Carter replies, “I’ll tell’em you said so.”
But the woman is not done. Her smile twists slightly and her eyes narrow.
“You must be a big disappointment to them,” the woman tells Carter.
“Maam?”
“You getting a divorce,” the woman delivers.
It was like a slap in the face to June Carter. You don’t forget things like that.
Doesn’t it seem like it’s much easier to remember the bad stuff, the slap in the face, than it is the good and precious memories.
It’s been said that if we receive nine words of praise and one word of criticism we will remember and dwell on the criticism. I think it’s a result of the Fall and our human nature that the negative seems more believable to us than the positive. We call negative news “real.” It’s supposedly an accurate description of reality. Plane crashes are news. “Everything went well today” is not a headline you will ever see in the paper. We call a positive outlook “naive” or “polyannish.”
A big part of our conversion is learning to see goodness and beauty in life once again. It’s part of what it means to “become a like a child” as Jesus said.
St. Paul, who was never considered a sentimental optimist, wrote this to the church, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4.8
For most of us, we are probably not there yet. Our times of meditating on the good are, perhaps, sporadic at best. A helpful tool in pursuit of that “Philippians standard” is what I will call Selective Memory. None of us remember everything. For one reason or another we select certain things to retain and others to discard. I can remember the names of most of my teammates in Little League when I was twelve, but I forget the names of people I used to know fairly well only five years ago.
What is needed for this transformation of mind is a selective memory that selects more good than harm, and specifically selects an interpretation of the past based on a view from the Cross of Christ and a trust in the Savior who died for us there.
A parallel to this is Memorial Day. It is a national holiday in which we remember past wars in which men and women served in active duty for their country. Whole forests have been felled to fuel the debate over the necessity or justness of most of these wars. But Memorial Day is a selective remembering in the sense that we, no matter the cause or outcome of the war, say the service of these men and women was an unqualified good. We praise the qualities of honor, commitment, and sacrifice.
The history of Israel really is a right remembering, or a faithful remembering of God’s dealing with them. They remembered their past honestly, not glossing over their sins and unfaithfulness, and yet they did even this with the perspective of faith. As in Joseph to his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has redeemed our sins as part of his purposes and plans.
Certainly, for all of us, God has things to teach us about what and how to remember our past. We are counseled to see ourselves “soberly and rightly,” (Paul’s words) but we are also counseled not to dwell on the sins and errors of our past.
“Like a dog returns to its own vomit, is a fool who reverts to his folly.” Proverbs 26.11
Instead we are urged to turn away from past sins and open our eyes to God’s presence and activity here and now.
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43.18-19
What is this new thing that God wants us to see? From the perspective of the Cross and the new life Christ has purchased for us, God wants us to see that we belong to Him and we are loved by Him.
Listen to the words of Jesus in what is called is his High Priestly Prayer. Some have called it the true “Lord’s Prayer.”
“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave me - so that they may be one as we are one. . .My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” John 17.11, 15-16
God wants us to know that once, through Christ, we become his children, nothing can change that or separate us from him. That, in fact, we are always on his mind. “Though a nursing mother may forget her sucking child, I will not forget you. Your name is engraved on the palm of my hand.”
We had another get ready for school episode the other day. Someone’s belly hurt again just when it was time to get dressed and go out for the bus. I tried to get the boy dressed very quickly as he dragged his feet. My frustration level rose, as well as, I think, my internal core temperature, almost to the point of exploding when I heard the squeal of the schoolbus’ wheels outside and we weren’t ready to go. The last time we missed the bus I threatened there would be consequences the next time it happened.
There were consequences. One was that I had to drive him to school again. The other was that we were not talking to each other anymore. We drove over to school in silence. I pulled up in front of the school. He got out and started walking up the sidewalk. I watched him go as I started to pull away from the curb. Just then Michael stopped and turned and looked at me and gave a smallest of waves but with a look on his face that was both apologetic and hopeful. The look said, “You still love me don’t you?”
And I waved back with, what I imagine was, that same look on my face. I don’t want my son to only remember my yelling and my anger and my disapproval. I want him to remember my encouragement and my patience and my love. I want him to remember that I turned my face back toward him and I shined upon him again.
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
The Lord turns his face toward us. He looks upon us and knows us. He makes his face shine upon us and we know his pleasure. This is the blessing of God to us. And nobody and nothing, not even the power of Hell can take that away from us.
Children of God, that’s worth remembering! Let your heart and mind dwell on these things.