Tuesday, June 21, 2011

God Bless Craig (Sermon for Father's Day!)

God Bless Craig
Text: Ephesians 6:1-4
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
June 19, 2011

In the Manzo family lore, there is a story, a true story, that has been passed on and it’s about my Dad.

My brother was born in August of 1957. Several weeks after his birth, my brother was Baptized and people were coming to our home for a party after the Baptism was held at church. My Dad went to the bakery and ordered a special cake in honor of the day. On the cake, he had the baker put the words, “God Bless Craig.” The baker wasn’t really sure how to spell ‘Craig’ so my Dad spelled it out for him.

The day of the Baptism came and the cake was taken out, and there, perfectly written on the cake were the words, “God Bless Craig.” Everything was great except for one tiny little detail. My brother’s name is Mark. I do have a cousin named Craig and evidently my Dad, who was legendary at messing up names, was thinking of ‘Craig’ and not Mark.

We never really knew how far this piece of family lore had gone until many years later when my Grandmother died in 1993. At the funeral home my sister’s childhood friend, Kelly, came to the funeral home and my sister was introducing her to family members. When she introduced Kelly to Craig, Kelly’s eyes lit up and she said, “Oh wow. God bless Craig!!!”

Dad died in 1997 and at the funeral home we were standing around talking and laughing, and thinking about his immortal blunder that lives on in the life of the Manzo family.

Sometimes, in life, the role of being a Dad is to bring comic relief to a family. The story of my Dad and the cake, however, is a story with humor, but underlies something much bigger. My Dad was a really good Dad. He cared for and loved every member of his family and took care of everyone with everything he had. That is why we found the story so much fun and endearing. It brings back great memories.

Sadly, fatherhood is a tough subject. If there is a parent who bails on a family, most of the time it’s the father. If there is a parent who fails to take responsibility for the care, raising, and loving children, it’s usually the father. I read a statistic the other day that 47% of families with children at home are single parent families, with the largest percentage of the single parents being mothers. Often fathers make themselves the people out of the family picture.

And society doesn’t always treat fathers seriously.

In the early 1980's there was a movie made entitled Mr. Mom, and it was about the unemployed Dad staying home as the homemaker while Mom went to work every day. Mom, despite some starts and stops did just fine in the world of business, but Dad was seen as a total moron at home who could do nothing right. Dad was not taken seriously.

Recently AT&T has had a commercial that really drives me crazy. The Dad, in the commercial does not understand the wireless Internet service in his home and spends most of the commercial being lecture by his wife and daughter like he’s a total moron. Dad is not taken seriously.

St. Paul, in some interesting ways, helps redefine fathers, and in doing so helps redefine families.

Ephesians is, for many, a troubling letter when St. Paul begins speaking about family life. He precedes his words today with the famous passage on women submitting to their husbands----but it is, in many ways, a stunning passage.

When the letter hit the Ephesians they must have been shell-shocked. They wouldn’t have been shell shocked by women submitting to their husbands. Women were, at that time, property of their husbands. They had as many rights as a goat or a cow. Life for women in that era was, in a word, grim. Submission and often even abuse were part of their lives. It was a dreadful time for so many women.

But when the words of Paul came and read, “husbands, love your wives,” and later, “do not provoke your children to anger,” St. Paul was walking on new ground. People did not tell men, in that day and age, to live in a family in such a manner. Men were in charge. Real men didn’t eat quiche, didn’t love their wives, didn’t have to respect their children, or even have any emotional bond with their families at all.

But Paul is saying the opposite. Real men, do all these things. Real men do love their families and have emotional bonds with their family members. And quiche is optional.

But this day reminds us of things beyond Dads. It is a reminder to us about how we adults interact with children in our society.

This whole concept of ‘bringing them up,’ is not a passive process. It’s an active, every day kind of thing. Children do not raise themselves.

Here is one of the great myths of society. I have heard, many, many times, people make the statement that they were not going to raise their children in a church tradition; they want the child to grow up and make the decision for himself or herself.

It sounds good in theory but, in essence, when we raise children in nothing, they will choose nothing. If a child has never gone to church before then there is no reason to believe they will start going later. Increasingly, the younger generation is not only unchurched, but not even close to having a comprehension of a life of faith.

Every time we Worship and we pray, we end the Morning Prayer with the Lord’s Prayer. It is not printed in the bulletin and people do not ordinarily go looking in their hymnals for the prayer. We know it. We have been raised with it. The words are used in church so often that we pray the prayer by heart.

After Funeral Services, most Committal Services at the grave side end with the Lord’s Prayer. Most of the time, for these services, I have the words printed in the program because many people in younger generations do not know the words.

The Lord’s Prayer, the Prayer of Our Savior, the prayer Jesus taught us, is becoming less and less known. Increasingly, in our society, more people know what is on a Big Mac than they know the words of this prayer from Jesus.

The problem is at home and in church because we have forgotten to direct children to God as Paul reminds us. And part of the way we assure children are here is to be here ourselves.
A church in Florida had been having monthly family events for the whole community in an effort to reach new people. They were having a problem, however, with some parents dropping off children but not coming themselves.

To combat this problem, they issued the following announcement: "The Magic of Lassie, a film for the whole family, will be shown Sunday at 5 P.M. in the fellowship hall. Free puppies will be given to all children not accompanied by parents."

For the past several days I have been pondering being a Dad.

On my Facebook page I posted a picture back from 1977 when I graduated from college. My sister, who was just finishing the 8th grade was there along with my parents who, at the time, were both 46. At age 46 they were 10 years younger than I am now.

It was a big day for me but, I suspect, an even bigger day for them. Their oldest child had graduated from college, something neither of them or anyone in their families had done before. I had an opportunity they did not have and they supported me through it, as they did my brother and sister after me. It was a big deal.

My parents are both gone now. Dad died in 1997 and Mom died 5 1/2 years ago. It's hard to believe. You never really ponder life without your parents until they are no longer with you.

The biggest lesson I learned from them is this. Love your children. My daughters are now adults and neither one lives at home with us now. One lives in town and one lives 7 hours away. But they are still, in so many ways, at the core of my being, deep in my heart. I love them dearly and profoundly. And I learned to love them from my Mom and Dad.

In many ways, days like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are universal days that remind us of love. Sometimes, for many people, the love of their parents was lacking or deficient or even gone. For others, it was profound. For each of us, no matter what our circumstances in life, we are challenged to love others. I learned about love, the love of God, the love of other people, the love of my wife and children, from my parents. And on this day, I celebrate and remember their love, as I attempt to love as well as they did.

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