Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit and speak to us through your word, that we might learn more of your living Word, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let me begin by telling you a story. A few years ago, a friend of mine told me about a conversation he'd just had with his nine year-old son. He'd been at Sunday school that morning, and they'd been looking at the Ten Commandments. My friend had quizzed his son to see how many of the Ten he could remember. The boy took a deep breath and said, 'Have no other gods before me, make no graven image, do not take the name of the Lord in vain, keep the Sabbath day holy, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, or bear false witness, or covet anything that belongs to your neighbour.' (I'm not sure if he reeled them off quite like that - but I think after a little encouragement he got through them.)
"Well done," his dad said - "But isn't there one that you've forgotten?" The boy looked rather blankly and shrugged his shoulders. "Which one?" he said - "Well … it's that one about mum and dad", said his dad. "Oh. I thought I'd said that one; Do not commit adultery."
Well, this boy had done pretty well in remembering nine of the Ten Commandments - even the one that was specifically for his mum and dad. But he'd forgotten the one that was for himself, the fifth commandment: Honour your father and your mother. And, in fact, that one comes before the seventh: Do not commit adultery. Both, of course, are very important.
The family is the basic unit of any society, and the relationships between husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and parents and their children are absolutely crucial. When the family breaks down, society breaks down; it's as simple as that. It's hardly surprising, then, that in the laws God gives us, he commands love and respect within families. Our first reading tonight, from Proverbs, begins: 'Listen, children, to a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight.' St Paul, later on, writing to the the Colossians, echoes this: 'Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord.' And, of course, it's there, in black and white, in the fifth commandment (Exodus chapter 20).
But here's a question for you. What happens when parents make mistakes? After all, are they not human just like their children? Are they not sinners, like everyone else? Parents are not perfect. I wonder how old you were before you realised that. (And, girls of MSJ, just for the record - teachers are not perfect either). So why should we be obedient to our parents, or indeed our teachers?
Well I think we need to take a little step back as we try to address this. Every one of us here tonight has - or had - a human father. Without him we would not be here. And without our mothers, we wouldn't be here either. Our mothers and fathers would not have been here if it hadn't been for their mothers and fathers. (And so on). But we, and they, have one greater father, without whom none of us would exist; indeed, without whom nothing that does exist would exist. (I hope you can see where I'm going with this).
We all have one Father: God the Father. And he does not make mistakes. Our Father in heaven is the perfect image of what a father should be. So, when it comes to obedience, whether we are parents or children - or indeed both - we all need to look to God the Father and see that we obey him. And if we get that right, then our human relationships will follow.
The problem - and it's a problem that many Christian people struggle with - is that if our experience of earthly fathers is less than perfect (or even downright awful), we find the idea of God the Father rather difficult. That's really because it's so easy to make God in our own image instead of remembering that we are made in his image. We forget that we are meant to be like him (not he like us). God the Father is our model of what a father should be like. So if we have had bad experiences of our earthly fathers, we need to look all the more attentively to God the Father. And the more we focus on him, the more we discover his love for us. There's that key word: love. And if there's one thing we must talk about when we speak of God, it is love.
God is not just any old father; he is a loving Father. Now, a loving father is one who cares for us; he guards us, guides us and protects us. And the father who really loves us will also discipline us. The loving father does not see his little daughter run towards a busy road and simply let her go; the loving father grabs the child forcefully and pulls her back - and then, probably, speaks very sternly to her. Love is not about being nice.
I'm reminded of what C.S. Lewis says in his book 'The Problem of Pain'. He writes: '[The problem is that] we want not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven - a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all"'.
The truth is that a good father disciplines us and requires our obedience. Think back to those Ten Commandments. God didn't give us those to stop us having fun; he gave them to protect us, to stop us from hurting one another and from getting hurt. They were given that we might live a life pleasing to God; and that is the best life that any of us could wish for.
But it doesn't stop there. And this is where Christianity really begins to bite. Because as soon as we speak of God the Father, we need to speak of God the Son. God is Father, yes. But that is not the full extent of God. As Christians (and the clue is in the name) we believe that the God who made us has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God came to us and was born among us as one of us. In Christ God made himself utterly helpless, taking on the full nature of a human being. And in Christ, as a man, God was subjected to the same temptations as we are. The difference is that he was without sin. And sin is the thing that spoils our relationship with the one who made us. That's why, in Christ, God put that right once and for all, when he died for us to take away our sin. And that victory over sin and death was confirmed when he rose triumphantly from the grave.
In Christ, God was obedient. Obedient to whom? you might ask. Well, mysterious as it may seem, God was obedient to himself. The Son is God and the Father is God. The Son took on flesh and became one of us and in his earthly, dangerous life, was obedient to the Father. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was tempted to get out of the crucifixion. But remember also his prayer: 'Not my will, but yours, be done.' If in God the Father we see the perfect parent, then in God the Son we see the perfect child.
This is why St Paul writes to the Philippians: 'Christ was obedient unto death - even death on a cross.' When we talk about Christ, we talk about the cross. And when we talk about the cross, we are talking - again - about love.
This brings us, finally, to our second reading, from the first letter of St John: 'We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us …' This is love, and it is costly. Why? Because love involves giving not just a bit, but everything. In Jesus Christ, God gave himself for us, because nothing less would do. Nothing less could bring us back to him. You see, love is not a feeling - it is a decision, and it is costly. 'Little children,' says John, 'let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.' We are to show our love by what we do; and this is precisely how God shows his love for us.
It might be one of the most famous verses in the Bible, and there's a reason for that. St John writes: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.'
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Peter Edwards
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