June 25th, 2023

Psalm 89; Isaiah 64:1-9; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 21:33-46

The relationship between a child and their parents is supposed to be the strongest and closest relationship we Our parents are charged with watching over us in the formative years in which we grow, develop, and learn what it is to be a human person. And it takes a great deal of responsibility to be a parent, doesn’t it? It takes a great deal of time, sacrifice, intentionality, and a sense of purpose to know that for at least the next several decades you’ve got to take care of this child and in large measure, what you teach her or him is going to shape their future.

         But we all know that sometimes that relationship goes wrong. We all know that even in the best of families where the parents want to do the right thing that, for any number of reasons, things might not go quite as intended. And sometimes, parents get too busy, or are too stubborn and inflexible, or have too many of their own hangups to be the kind of parents the child needs. Sometimes parents can be too harsh, sometimes too soft, some parents can be too wrapped up in themselves and their own issues to be of much help to their children. And parents can have multiple children and what works for one might not work for another.

         And that reminds me of a story I heard about a man who wanted to reconcile with his son. You see, this man, let’s call him Robert, was a good provider for his family. At least he thought so because he brought home a great deal of money to be used for the maintenance of his family. But all of that money cost him a great deal of time away from home and family. But Bobbie, Robert’s son, didn’t feel that Robert was a good provider. Because Robert missed so many of his school events. He missed his plays, his sports events, his music programs. And whenever Bobbie complained about it, Robert half-heartedly apologized and said something about all the nice material things he provided for Bobbie, how he had to work so that Bobbie could do all of the things he wanted to do.

         Fast forward a decade after Bobbie’s high school graduation. Robert is still working really hard. But Robert’s wife has now passed away from cancer. Bobbie has gone to college, gotten a job, and started a family of his own. But there is something else that Bobbie has done…he’s shut Robert out of his life. He’s gone, as my generation puts it, “no contact.” He doesn’t call, he doesn’t write, and he hasn’t even given his father an address when he moved away.

         Desperate to find his son, Robert places an ad in the newspaper. He says in the ad, “Bobbie, I know I’ve messed up. I know I missed too much in your life. Please forgive me. Please meet me in front of the mall entrance next Saturday at noon.” The next Saturday rolls around and guess what happened? Yes, Bobbie was there…but so were about ten other Bobbie’s who had been neglected as well by their parents…

         Parenthood is hard. Well, let’s be honest…relationships are hard. Any time you have two people who have to relate to one another, there is going to be difficulty. And because parents are charged with raising children and teaching them such basic things as what is appropriate and what isn’t, to set limits for their children, it is easy and almost inevitable that some distance is going to grow between parent and child, particularly in a culture like ours in which there are so many choices and options for young people to make.

         The Bible has a lot to say about raising children. The book of Proverbs even tells us, at least in part, that it was written by a father for a son to learn how to navigate the complexities of life. But the Bible also makes clear that no matter how effective or ineffective our own fathers have been in nurturing us, we have a great, good, and kind heavenly Father that loves us.

         But for some people that isn’t good news. You see, depending on how you were raised and how your relationship was with your own father, you might have difficulty relating to God as Father. For instance, people like Bobbie might start to assume that because his own father was distant and busy that God is distant and busy too. Or on the opposite extreme, say your father was indulgent and let you get away with bloody murder and always stood up for you—even when you were wrong. Well, then your image of God might be of an indulgent sugar daddy that thinks you’re just great no matter what you do in life.

         But we have to draw some comparisons and some contrasts between God as our father and our earthly fathers don’t, we if we’re going to come to an appreciation of what the biblical image of God as father is trying to communicate.

• Similarities
  • Loving
  • Kind
  • Merciful
  • Wise
  • Source of our being
• Ways in which not similar
  • Deity
  • Perfect in all his ways
  • Does not tolerate sin.
  • Does not tolerate injustice.
  • God knows all things—including what we really need.

So now that we’ve seen the similarities and dissimilarities between God and a human father we can turn towards a biblical vision of the fatherhood of God and how this all relates to the Lord’s prayer.

• God as Father is a metaphor that the Bible uses many times.
  • Unequally distributed.
    • Old Testament: A Present metaphor, but not the most common
    • The most common metaphors are King, Lord, God
    • Who is Son of God in the Old Testament?
      • Adam
      • Israel
      • The King
  • The New Testament
    • Jesus fulfills all three of these roles, doesn’t he?
      • Jesus is the Second Adam.
      • Jesus is the representative Israelite.
      • Jesus is the King of Israel, the Messiah.
    • Jesus teaches us that God is our Father.
      • The church is the new Israel.
      • We are joined to Christ, and we become part of the new humanity a new family, the church, the body of Christ
      • We are all children of God through adoption.
      • We are joint heirs of Jesus. Jesus is our brother.
      • This is why we can pray to the Father; we pray in and through our relationship with Jesus.
    • Conclusion:
      • The parable of the vineyard
      • The parable of the prodigal son
      • All those Bobbies and Roberts can be reconciled in and through Christ