Scripture: Matthew 10:24-33
24 “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.
26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
We celebrate Father’s Day today, and we lift up our own earthly fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and those who have been like fathers to us.
So I want to share a story with you for my Dad, a story I think he will appreciate because this story is the very epitome of what he would have done if he and I were in this situation, and also, he’s a fisherman through-and-through, and so, I know he’ll enjoy this fish tale!
This is a true story. There was a boy, about 16, jumping over waves at a sandbar at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. He was about 25 feet from the beach, when his father heard him screaming. He was being attacked by a shark!
The father sprang into action, raced out to his boy, who had a shark’s jaws clamped tight into his thigh and not letting go. The father began to punch and kick the shark, and the shark finally let go when the brave dad kicked it in the nose. Thanks to his father’s quick intervention, the boy has 40 teeth marks on his thigh and required 17 stitches, and the father had to be treated for injuries to his hand.
This very well could have been me growing up- out playing in the ocean, not paying attention to what was going on, having a good old time, and then BAM! Shark attack! I know though that my own Dad would have done the very same thing- he would have come running and Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked that shark right in the nose!
(Maybe not today, though, maybe today as a big old 40-year-old dope, Dad might have gotten his cellphone out to video and laughed at me as the shark had a snack. He might have put it online, maybe. But then I’m sure he would have come and punched it out for me.)
I praise God that God blessed me with a tremendous man to be my father. I wasn’t aware of it growing up, though. I didn’t realize at the time that a man who remained dedicated to his wife in love, who worked himself to the bone to provide for his family, a Godly man who kept his family in church- I had no idea that I had won the parenting lottery. I have to say the same too for my mother, but we already celebrated Mother’s Day, right? Love you, Mom! I have two wonderful parents who love me despite myself and despite my shortcomings and despite my wrongs and despite my sin, just like God.
My father loves me like any good father should love his son- He puts up with the wrong, stupid stuff I do, he gives advice when I need it, he provides help however he can, he loves me unconditionally. He forgives me and I know he will always be there whenever I need him.
This is the message of Jesus today. Jesus tells us to have no fear, to fear nothing except Almighty God, because God is our Father, and God loves us and has made us part of God’s own household.
What do we have to fear today? We’re only halfway through 2020, so that’s a little bit of a loaded question. Bushfires burned millions of acres in Australia, we almost had World War III, Prince Harry and Megan Markle left the U.K., then the U.K. left the European Union, and then the Coronavirus made its way around the world and we’re still in the midst of dealing with the effects of the pandemic (but even better, we’ve now in the U.S. made following healthcare advice a political issue), there were murder hornets at some point, we can’t have the Olympics this year, wow. That says nothing of the fact that we as a nation watched in horror as George Floyd was murdered for 8 minutes and 43 seconds by a Seattle police officer, and finally, our nation is beginning to discuss history and our part in the abuse of African Americans for centuries. It’s only June. We have six more months to go.
But then we come to Jesus, our Savior. Jesus, our Messiah. Jesus, our Lord and our God. Jesus says to us here, “Have no fear.” And Jesus says, “You belong to your Father in Heaven.” And finally, Jesus says, “You are worth more to God than all God ever created.”
Jesus was fully human. So Jesus knew fully well that all of us would experience times of fear, times of doubt, times of depression, times of loss, times of longing, and so, Jesus reminds us here today: we are worth more than the birds of the air, who do not fall to the ground but by God’s own command, and God loves us so much, God knows us so well, God has even numbered the hairs on our head, which seem to be fewer and fewer and grayer and grayer the older I get.
Jesus knew we would worry, we would experience anxiety, we would encounter times in our lives when answers were not easy, and solutions were slow to present themselves. So, then, Jesus gives us both the best and most difficult advice of all: “Have no fear.”
Jesus tells us, even as He has proclaimed, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself,” He says to us, “Shout this from the rooftops! Let everyone know how great, how deep, how grand, how marvelous God’s love is for you as your Father in Heaven.”
Then how do we do that? One of those things we generally try to do is please our parents, no matter what age we reach, and no one could argue that God, our Father, is not our ultimate Parent, loving us limitlessly, blessing us with grace and mercy and peace day after day. Jesus says, “You don’t have to try to be above God. It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher.” What does that mean for us, here and now, here in the midst of the chaos and calamity we find ourselves right smack in the middle of 2020?
Jesus also had advice for this. He said, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” That means, for us, to love like God loves- without limits, without bounds. That means for us to recognize and give grace to all of those around us, especially to those closest to us, remembering that sometimes we, too, can be unlovable- ask my wife about me this week (I’ve been more than a bear!), and yet, we also have to love and forgive ourselves because this is love. God’s love allows us to transcend our human emotions, our interactions and reactions to pain and desperation and loneliness and anxiety. Jesus calls us to have no fear, to love like Jesus does- fully and completely and extravagantly.
So as we celebrate this Father’s Day and we send love out to all our fathers and fathers-in-law and uncles and grandfathers and great-grandfathers and those who have been father figures to us throughout the years, let us also celebrate our Father in Heaven who loves us despite ourselves, in spite of our shortcomings. Let us celebrate and lift up the name of Almighty God, Jehovah, God-with-us. Let us celebrate God’s own love for us which was so great, even when we did all we could to separate ourselves from God’s love, God sent Jesus to the earth to take on flesh, become human, and give Himself as a sacrifice on the cross for our sin, forever paying a debt we could never resolve ourselves, just because God loves us that much, that God wants to live with us and love on us forever and ever, just as God created life to be from the very beginning.
I thank God this day for my own father, Carl West, a man who suffered my own shortcomings with patience and grace, who tried to instill in me a love for nature and creation through long days on the river fishing, through many hours serving as an apprentice to his woodworking, who dealt with my inattention and greater attraction to video games, who always shows up when I need him, but who also kept me in church, who raised me in the paths I should go, so that I would not depart from them as I grew older, who nurtured and directed me in the faith, and guided me always, through all things towards the love of Almighty God.
Likewise, I thank God this day for God and God’s own love for me, a love so great that for even me, for even my weakness and sin and worthlessness and unrighteousness that God saw fit to send Christ to die on the cross to pay my debts of sin. I thank God for a love so great that Jesus is preparing a place for me there in Heaven where someday I will join God and I will be reunited with all my family there, and for the hope God provides that indeed, one day, I will see my Lord and my God face-to-face, that I will see and feel and experience God’s love for myself.
Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Have no fear. God loves you more than the birds of the air and has numbered the very hairs upon your head, Jesus tells us today. Let us go ever forth to love one another like God loves- completely, absolutely, without reserve, without judgement, and without limit.
This is our mission, from our Father in Heaven: to love God with all we are, to love one another just like God loves us, and to tell all the world of the great love of Jesus.
Let us end on this Father’s Day by praying the prayer which Jesus taught us together. Would you join me?
Our Father, who Art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil
And thine be the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory
Forever and ever.
Amen.
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