FROM THE PULPIT: Fatherhood at its very best

Scripture: Acts 27-29 "Fearing that we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the new day."

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. It is a day that traditionally sets aside once a year a moment to honor the role of fatherhood. That role is easily defined by what we call him – Mr. So and So, Father, Daddy, Dad, Pop or some familiar nickname that communicates affection of the relationship. When my children were young my pager was activated, and to this day I am referred to as "Beepa."

While serving as Chaplain with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, I had a prisoner share his background with me, and he stated that "he was 12 years old before he realized his first name from his father was not "Shut Up." But the saddest reference for a father is a name we do not know because of his absence.

There is a book authored by David Blankenhorn entitled "Fatherless America;" subtitled "Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem." In his book he states the "over the past 200 years, fathers have gradually moved from the center to the periphery of family life." As the social role for fathers has diminished, so our cultured story of fatherhood has by now almost completely ceased to portray fathers as essential guarantors of child and social well being.

Ask any person who is the hero of their life and you very rarely hear the name of one's father except some movie stars, professional ball players, or musicians.

This Father's Day I encourage all fathers to read Acts 27. It is a wonderful account of Apostle Paul's sea voyage to Rome to meet Caesar, and he is confronted by a severe storm. He asks the crew to stop the passage and throw four anchors overboard and wait for a new day. This account of Paul's journey is symbolically poignant of the contemporary Father's Day. There is a storm in America. Fathers need to gain a better understanding of their important role as fathers. While pausing for a new day, like Paul, throw four anchors into the sea of your life so your journey, as a father, is a more wholesome experience.

The first of those symbolic anchors is the need to listen to children. Our children are not little images of their parents. They have their own dreams, their own ambitions, and their own wishes. We all know those who are the fulfillment of their father's expectations, such as a business man who never fulfilled his own desire to be a musician. That first anchor this Father's Day is in understanding that the role of a father is to hear children who seek their own identity. We become a person who sees a father as respectful of who l am and loves me enough to support and encourage my goals in life. You want a new day with your children: Then take the time to listen to them.

A second anchor we need to throw overboard this Father's Day for that new day to which Paul refers is that of companionship. If a father does not have a meaningful relationship as a companion, be assured that because humans are social animals, we need friends; we need those in our lives with whom we can express feelings. Children want time with fathers. Children want to perceive of their father as a hero. That requires time to be alone with them fishing, enjoying a ballgame, or being involved in the child's school activities. Do you want that new day as Paul suggests, then see the child as your best friend; someone who seeks the father's wisdom; someone who loves to tell stories at bedtime. For a new concept of the father by a child is to know I am an important person, and I am a father who cares.

I will always remember my father talking to me one day while in my senior year of high school and saying, "You will never make it in your hometown, and I have made an appointment for you to see our Congressman who has some ideas about your life after graduation." With all his faults as a father, he befriended me by creating an appointment that got me into the Federal Bureau of Investigation and securing a degree from George Washington University. That is fatherhood at its best!

May the third anchor we need to throw overboard for a new day be that of patriotism – to teach a child our nation's history. How can any child make bad choices for our country when we see Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve, or our flag raised at Iwo Jima, or Benjamin Franklin declaring, "lt is a democracy if you can keep it."

A father making it clear to a child that "God has not dealt so with any other nation". We find young people today who do not know who is buried in Grant's Tomb, or in what year was the War of '1812, or who attacked America at Pearl Harbor. I remember having to memorize the Declaration of Independence and my father practicing the knowledge until I got it right. Many fathers today are veterans of some international conflict, and their children need to hear their war stories for a better appreciation for honoring America. This companionship is a win-win experience. It is good, therefore, to relive the expression and it is good for the child's knowledge of firsthand information of war. May a child see the father as a hero for whom the child feels pride in the relationship.

And finally, the fourth anchor for a new day as a father is to be a man of faith. There is probably no picture more profound than to see a young child holding the hand of his father entering church. A father is an authority figure in the life of a child. His role is to be perceived by a child as one who has much to teach. And with the uncertainty of life, with life understood as a great mystery for which there is no answer, one's faith is the assurance that "all things work together for good." The faith to believe is taught as well as caught by a child whose father is the example and not the exception.

One of the most popular of Christian hymns is entitled, "Faith of Our Fathers.” The second verse reads:

"Our fathers chained in prisons dark

Were still in heart and conscience free

And blest would be their children's fate

If they, like them, should die for thee."

Those four anchors that Paul cast out for a better day tomorrow, may they strike a responsive chord in every father's heart to symbolically see them as anchors of listening to children; having a meaningful companionship with your children; teaching the history of our nation; and providing a faith by which, like Paul, will have a new day. ln fulfilling these ends, any child will see their father as a great dad for this is "Fatherhood at its Best'.

The Rev. Dr. Robert P. Lawrence is Pastor Emeritus of The First Congregational Church.