REFLECTION OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary

Saint Patrick Parish

June 16-17, 2018

USCCB Lectionary Readings

 

Take a moment and bring to mind two characteristics of a good father, two characteristics of any good dad. What is it that comes to mind for you? There are many of course, it's a complicated job. Two come to mind for me and they relate to one another very well. So I'll share those with you. The first is hardworking: a determination to work hard, to get the job done, to do what we can to make sure that we're doing what's right, and doing what we can do. The other is dad jokes. There is a nice little balance between the two. I have something that’s not quite a joke, more of a funny scenario that I'm going to share with you:

So the child walks in to the kitchen and says hey dad I'm hungry, and dad turns to his child and say hi Hungry, I'm dad! And then the child says come on Dad, just make me a sandwich, so that dad says Abracadabra poof, you’re a sandwich! I'll stop there. Maybe...

There is a need for balance. I think it's easy for any of us to see how a father, if leaning too far to the hard working side can become a dictator, a taskmaster, only concerned about the job, and not about the person, seemingly uncaring. Leaning too far to the other direction and dad is really just kind of a joke. The dad on Modern Family perhaps, or for those who are a bit older, perhaps Married with Children. There's always the Simpsons. We need better role models in our society for dads. This kind of take it as it is, humor, that in the end, leaves children wondering not so much about whether or not dad love me, but how much is that love really worth? So balance, we all need balance, as do dads and so a balance between hard working and a little bit of humor come together to keep true love shining through for us.

Now, dads aren't perfect. Some lean one way, some the other. Dads aren't perfect. They're human. Unless you have an old truck driver from Springfield Kentucky as a dad: would my dad please stand. This is my only opportunity every year to embarrass him. So there you go. I have a perfect dad. You don't know. But for the rest of us, we need balance in our lives, and so do our fathers, to help us learn that and to teach us as we grow.

Our Gospel today really shows that balance in many ways. When we look at it the beginning of the Gospel talks about a man who goes out and sows seed in his field. And once the ground is prepared and the seed is sown he doesn't stand there and say grow! Get to work! He goes to bed. He gets up, goes to bed, gets up, goes to bed. The seed does what it will do. No pressure, no barating, no lording over the seed to make it grow. There's only so much work one can do. But when the time of harvest comes along, there he is, sickle in hand ready, to go to work. Right when the time is right. The balance is seen there, but then there is also the second parts of our Gospel, the the well known parable of the mustard seed. To understand this a little bit better it is paired, it is mirrored by the scene in Ezekiel. I think many of the Jews of the time would have heard this similar language. As Christ was proclaiming his parable, they would have recounted what you just heard that God would climb the tall cedar tree, and from the top of it prune a shoot, and bring it down and plant it on a tall mountain. From that shoot, from that branch, would grow a majestic cedar and large cedar, so large that the birds of the air which would come to fill its branches, would live underneath that cedar.

Christ uses the same kind of imagery, except with a mustard seed. We must remember and the Jews had no need for mustard, no need at all. They didn't want it, they didn't need it, kosher hot-dogs didn't exist. Hebrew National had not come along. Dad joke, I warned you:

How does Moses make his coffee? He brews it!

They had no need! Mustard for the Jews, was a weed, simple as that, a weed. To actually find one, to take the time to find this little seed, to have the concern to even go and get it, and then the ridiculousness of planting it in your garden! Talk about a dad joke! It doesn't make any sense. It's ridiculous. The Jews would have wondered what Christ was talking about. Why would you put a weed in your garden? Intentionally! Not only that, but a really large weed in the end. The mustard seed was not only insignificant, it was actually a nuisance at times. So we have this balance: the balance between a cedar tree and a mustard bush, both compared to the kingdom of God, both sheltering birds of the air of all kinds, and their branches representing the love of God for God's people. One, however, one is the most magnificent of plants - one that anyone could look and see that is a beautiful tree, a cedar tree growing on top of a mountain, majestic in fact. Then there is the mustard bush, the mustard bush that has no purpose. What is it doing here? What am I to make of it? God our Father, whom we look to for our example as to how to be a father, loves each and every one of us, not as a cedar tree, not as a mustard bush, exactly as we are. Loves us for who we are, as perfect in every way, with a balance between humor, and a desire to see us be about the work that we are called to and desiring to make of us an image of the Kingdom of God.

Earthly fathers will work to make their household a household that is a safe place, a welcoming place, a place where children can come and find refuge. And so our Father in heaven does just that, except He does so perfectly. The Church is a place where all the birds of the air, all the creatures of earth, all the sons and daughters of the Most High can come and find a place of refuge, to be called to a higher vocation, and yet be met exactly as we are. Our fathers are not perfect. That's OK. But they see within God the Father, the creator of all things, that image which calls us to something so much greater. Let us see in God the Father the perfect image of the father. Let us pray for our dads: living, deceased, near, far, let us pray for them. Those of you who are fathers, pray to be the image of God the Father, a Father out working in the world, to see your children as they are, and to help them grow into who they are called to be. We look to the creator of all things, to see us for who we are, and we trust God the Father sees us that way, and we know that each of us are loved so very much. We live in that love and give thanks for our fathers today.