Proper 12/Pentecost 10/Ordinary Time 17
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Object:
Theme For The Day
The opening words of the Lord's Prayer teach of fatherhood as a rich metaphor for God.
Old Testament Lesson
Hosea 1:2-10
God Will Reconcile With The Unfaithful Israel
Hosea is the other notable eighth-century prophet, besides Amos. Some prophets communicated their message primarily with words, and others by prophetic actions. To the extent that Hosea's action in marrying Gomer, an unfaithful woman, and then pursuing her tenaciously in order to reconcile with her is historically true, then he belongs to the latter category. The Lord's initial command to Hosea is shocking: "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord" (v. 2). Hosea appears to have been a man stuck in an unhappy marriage, who used his experience as a cuckolded husband in order to communicate God's dogged pursuit of a beloved but unfaithful Israel. Hosea apparently names his children as a way of communicating God's judgment: Jezreel means "I will punish"; Lo-ruhamah means "I will no longer have pity"; and Lo-ammi means "you are not my people." Yet even so, there is hope: "the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said to them, 'Children of the living God' " (v. 10). As fierce is God's judgment, stronger still is God's desire for reconciliation.
New Testament Lesson
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Baptism Is The Only Requirement
Having completed the preliminaries, Paul now gets around to the reason for his letter: the polemic against his enemies, the false teachers. "Philosophy and empty deceit" refers to their misleading teachings, which are "not according to Christ" (v. 8). Paul takes pains to remind the Colossians, "you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision." The physical act of circumcision, therefore, need not be performed on new converts. Baptism now fulfills this purpose: "when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" (v. 12). When God forgives the sin of Christians, God erases "the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross" (v. 14). Religious rituals -- dietary laws, observance of certain festivals, and the like -- "are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (v. 17). "Do not let anyone disqualify you" for being in relationship with Christ; he is the head of the body, which is all that matters (v. 18).
The Gospel
Luke 11:1-13
Persistence In Prayer
"Lord, teach us to pray," asks one of the disciples, and Jesus responds by sharing the Lord's Prayer (vv. 1-4). The text of this version is different than the slightly longer version in Matthew 6:9-13. The phrase, "in heaven" is missing from Luke's version (his text simply opens with "Our Father"). "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" is also missing. Luke's version ends with "do not bring us to the time of trial," omitting "but rescue us from the evil one." Neither version includes the closing ascription, "For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever," which was a later liturgical addition by the church -- although some later manuscripts of Matthew do include it. After teaching his disciples this simple prayer, Jesus goes on to encourage them to be persistent in prayer. He tells a parable of a man who has unexpected guests at midnight, and bangs on a neighbor's door to ask for some bread to give to them. The neighbor will respond eventually, Jesus teaches, but not because the person asking is his friend; he will do it because of the insistent knocking (vv. 5-8). "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you" (v. 9). No one would give a child asking for food a snake or a scorpion; in the same way, God -- who regards us as beloved children -- will give us whatever we need (vv. 11-13).
Preaching Possibilities
The Lord's Prayer has been called the most perfect prayer ever written. Just 64 words in length in the most traditional English version, its familiar phrases are intoned, on a given day, by more people around the world than perhaps any other statement of comparable length, of any kind.
"Lord, teach us to pray," the disciples plead, in today's reading from Luke. Jesus answers them with the gift of this simple prayer. Matthew includes the Lord's Prayer in his gospel, too, but he places it in a slightly different context. In Matthew, the Lord's Prayer appears in the Sermon on the Mount, as one part of a larger discourse on how to pray.
Every once in a while, it is a good idea for congregations to study this prayer; to carefully scrutinize it, word by word. So familiar has the Lord's Prayer become, that many have learned long ago to say it without thinking, to allow its phrases to flow out as thoughtlessly as respiration. Yet there is an incredible amount of wisdom packed into these 64 words. These words can teach more about the Christian life than perhaps any other statement in scripture.
Even the first line of this famous prayer can open up a wealth of meaning: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name...." Most people think the first word of the prayer is "Our," but in fact it's not. The first word of the Lord's Prayer, in the original Greek, is "Father." This is true in both Matthew's and Luke's versions. In Matthew's, because the Greek word order is literally "Father of ours, in heaven," and in Luke's because he doesn't include either the possessive pronoun, "our," or the phrase, "in heaven." In Luke, the Lord's Prayer begins simply, "Father, hallowed be your name...."
In both cases, the prayer begins with the word "Father." Now that may seem utterly routine to some, but in the time of Jesus it was shocking and provocative. Very few first-century Jews would have been so audacious as to address God as "Father." They might have employed a euphemism like "the Almighty," or "the Most High" -- as some do, even today. Or, they might have used a generic substitute like "Lord."
The use of "Lord" -- Adonai, in Hebrew -- goes way back in Judaism. The ancient Jews believed that to even pronounce God's proper name of Yahweh could bring catastrophe. They inserted a kind of neutral counter to stand in for the name-that-cannot-be-uttered. Even to this day, many faithful Jews routinely substitute Adonai for Yahweh -- and when the modern scribes who laboriously copy the Torah scrolls by hand come upon that troublesome word, they will write the consonants alone, with no vowel points, so there's no chance anyone might slip and utter the name of God by accident.
For Jesus to begin his model prayer, "Father," is audacious to the point of blasphemy. It's audacious because the God of Israel is not the sort of God you can cozy up to. The God of Israel is a hurler of thunderbolts and a giver of earthquakes. He is most emphatically not your friend.
More than that, it's likely that the Aramaic word Jesus used, which is translated by the Greek word for "father," is the little word Abba. Abba is a childhood diminutive, the equivalent of our words, "Daddy" or "Papa." In his model prayer, Jesus is getting very intimate with God indeed -- something that would have made some of the religious authorities angry to no end.
There are three places in all of scripture where this Aramaic word Abba occurs: one of them is in Mark's account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prays, "Abba, Father, with you all things are possible, remove this cup from me...." The other two are in the letters of Paul.
One of these is Galatians 4:6: "... because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!" Paul, here, is remembering Jesus as the one who addressed the Lord as Abba. More than that, this passage from Galatians helps explain how it is that Jesus could use such an intimate form of address to refer to God, and how we, following in his tradition, can be so bold as to do the same.
Because of Christ, says Paul, we are considered "Abraham's offspring, heirs according to his purpose." Once we were orphans, but now we're adopted. That word "offspring" he uses in that Galatians passage is very interesting. In the Greek, it's sperma, and it means "seed." From the sound of the word, we can also recognize that it refers to the male "seed." What Paul is claiming, here, is quite extraordinary. He's claiming that, because of Christ, our spiritual DNA is altered. We're not just adopted, not simply living with a host family -- we have actually been transformed into part of that family. We have been made, because of the blood of the cross, a blood-relative of God.
For Christians who take seriously the insights of feminist theology, the whole notion of the fatherhood of God can seem problematic. Just as Jesus' use of the word Abba made many people of his own day angry, there are some today who become angry whenever anyone uses male language to describe God. There are very good reasons for this. A heavy handed use of male imagery for God may convey to young girls that males are superior to females. Also, using exclusively male -- and especially fatherly -- language for God may create difficulties for those who are continuing to come to terms with abuse or neglect by their own fathers.
Truly, as many modern theologians are quick to point out, God is neither male nor female. In the immortal words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable." The book of Genesis tells how "God created humankind in his image ... male and female he created them." While we may choose to refer to God as "he" (or "she" for that matter), because personal pronouns in English have to reflect one gender or the other, the "immortal, invisible God only wise" cannot be confined within such an earthbound reality as sexual identity.
Actually, fatherhood is just one of many metaphors for the vast and incomprehensible God, "whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts." There is, for example, the rich metaphor of the motherhood of God -- as used in the book of Isaiah, where God asks, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).
There also happen to be numerous places in scripture where God is referred to as a "rock" or a "fortress." No one worries much about confusing God with a rock or a castle. These alternative images for God make our language repertoire all the richer. None of these metaphors can begin to comprise the total reality of God. All they can do is point.
When Jesus addresses God as Abba, it's not so much the maleness of the title that's important, as it is the word's innocent, childlike character. The title Abba says as much about the one saying it as it says about the one to whom it's directed. That was what was revolutionary in Jesus' own day. And that, too, is what continues to be revolutionary about the fatherhood-of-God language -- truly understood -- today.
There are many in our world who, perversely, prefer a God of wrath to a God of love. There are many who prefer a God of judgment to a God of grace. Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer, in part, so we can approach God with confidence -- in the same innocent, trusting way that children go running to the loving embrace of their Abba.
Prayer For The Day
"Our Father" -- those words we sometimes say, O God -- they bear such weight for us. For in that word "father" is the accumulated weight of years of living: of absence and presence, of intimacy and distance, of love and failure of love. Teach us of true fatherhood, and true motherhood, as well. Teach us that you are all these things to us, and more! Amen.
To Illustrate
One of best illustrations of this concept of God as Abba comes from Jesus himself. When he tells his famous Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father in the story -- the one who waits faithfully at home while his crazy son is sowing his wild oats and squandering his fortune -- is not so much a stern, unforgiving patriarch as he is the kind and welcoming Abba. Remember how the unfaithful son in the parable sits off at the hog farm in the far country, planning out that formal speech, in which he begs his father's forgiveness, and begs for employment as a hired hand? Yet his father will have none of this. For this is not "Father," after all. This is not the family patriarch. This is Abba.
Abba does a most uncharacteristic thing, for a Near-Eastern father. As soon as he sees his son coming, he immediately runs out and greets him. In a land of long robes, this means that, in order to run, the father must hike up his robe and show his ankles -- maybe even his calves! For a patriarch, this is most undignified. Yet for Abba -- for Papa rather than Father -- it is a matter of no consequence. For the one thing that matters most to Abba is that moment when he and his son come together once again, in a loving embrace.
***
We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us. That's the truth of our lives. [God says] "I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at ever step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brothers, your sister, your lover and your spouse ... yes, even your child ... wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen, from Life of the Beloved (New York: Crossroad, 2002)
***
There is something Fatherly, Far-away:
in still nights,
as by the breath of a star,
my soul grew small and clear again.
Here in life I am alone
and apart from me there is only one Other,
and I am afraid, because I am farther
away from him than he from me.
-- Rainier Maria Rilke
***
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have about the birds and the bees, or about nothing at all -- simply feeling his breath, heartbeat, presence. As a boy, I used to sit on the front porch watching the cars roll by, imagining that one day one would park and the man getting out would be my daddy. But it never happened.
When I was eighteen, I could find no tears that Alabama winter's evening in January 1979, as I stood finally -- face-to-face -- with my father lying cold in a casket, his eyes sealed, his heart no longer beating, his breath forever stilled. Killed in a car accident, he died drunk, leaving me hobbled by the sorrow of years of fatherlessness.
By then, it had been years since Mama had summoned the police to our apartment that night, fearing that Daddy might hurt her -- hit her -- again. Finally, his alcoholism consumed what good there was of him until it swallowed him whole.
It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation, that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that He -- God, the Father, God, my Father -- had found me.
-- John W. Fountain, "The God Who Embraced Me," from a reminiscence broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, November 28, 2005
The opening words of the Lord's Prayer teach of fatherhood as a rich metaphor for God.
Old Testament Lesson
Hosea 1:2-10
God Will Reconcile With The Unfaithful Israel
Hosea is the other notable eighth-century prophet, besides Amos. Some prophets communicated their message primarily with words, and others by prophetic actions. To the extent that Hosea's action in marrying Gomer, an unfaithful woman, and then pursuing her tenaciously in order to reconcile with her is historically true, then he belongs to the latter category. The Lord's initial command to Hosea is shocking: "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord" (v. 2). Hosea appears to have been a man stuck in an unhappy marriage, who used his experience as a cuckolded husband in order to communicate God's dogged pursuit of a beloved but unfaithful Israel. Hosea apparently names his children as a way of communicating God's judgment: Jezreel means "I will punish"; Lo-ruhamah means "I will no longer have pity"; and Lo-ammi means "you are not my people." Yet even so, there is hope: "the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said to them, 'Children of the living God' " (v. 10). As fierce is God's judgment, stronger still is God's desire for reconciliation.
New Testament Lesson
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Baptism Is The Only Requirement
Having completed the preliminaries, Paul now gets around to the reason for his letter: the polemic against his enemies, the false teachers. "Philosophy and empty deceit" refers to their misleading teachings, which are "not according to Christ" (v. 8). Paul takes pains to remind the Colossians, "you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision." The physical act of circumcision, therefore, need not be performed on new converts. Baptism now fulfills this purpose: "when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead" (v. 12). When God forgives the sin of Christians, God erases "the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross" (v. 14). Religious rituals -- dietary laws, observance of certain festivals, and the like -- "are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (v. 17). "Do not let anyone disqualify you" for being in relationship with Christ; he is the head of the body, which is all that matters (v. 18).
The Gospel
Luke 11:1-13
Persistence In Prayer
"Lord, teach us to pray," asks one of the disciples, and Jesus responds by sharing the Lord's Prayer (vv. 1-4). The text of this version is different than the slightly longer version in Matthew 6:9-13. The phrase, "in heaven" is missing from Luke's version (his text simply opens with "Our Father"). "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" is also missing. Luke's version ends with "do not bring us to the time of trial," omitting "but rescue us from the evil one." Neither version includes the closing ascription, "For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever," which was a later liturgical addition by the church -- although some later manuscripts of Matthew do include it. After teaching his disciples this simple prayer, Jesus goes on to encourage them to be persistent in prayer. He tells a parable of a man who has unexpected guests at midnight, and bangs on a neighbor's door to ask for some bread to give to them. The neighbor will respond eventually, Jesus teaches, but not because the person asking is his friend; he will do it because of the insistent knocking (vv. 5-8). "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you" (v. 9). No one would give a child asking for food a snake or a scorpion; in the same way, God -- who regards us as beloved children -- will give us whatever we need (vv. 11-13).
Preaching Possibilities
The Lord's Prayer has been called the most perfect prayer ever written. Just 64 words in length in the most traditional English version, its familiar phrases are intoned, on a given day, by more people around the world than perhaps any other statement of comparable length, of any kind.
"Lord, teach us to pray," the disciples plead, in today's reading from Luke. Jesus answers them with the gift of this simple prayer. Matthew includes the Lord's Prayer in his gospel, too, but he places it in a slightly different context. In Matthew, the Lord's Prayer appears in the Sermon on the Mount, as one part of a larger discourse on how to pray.
Every once in a while, it is a good idea for congregations to study this prayer; to carefully scrutinize it, word by word. So familiar has the Lord's Prayer become, that many have learned long ago to say it without thinking, to allow its phrases to flow out as thoughtlessly as respiration. Yet there is an incredible amount of wisdom packed into these 64 words. These words can teach more about the Christian life than perhaps any other statement in scripture.
Even the first line of this famous prayer can open up a wealth of meaning: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name...." Most people think the first word of the prayer is "Our," but in fact it's not. The first word of the Lord's Prayer, in the original Greek, is "Father." This is true in both Matthew's and Luke's versions. In Matthew's, because the Greek word order is literally "Father of ours, in heaven," and in Luke's because he doesn't include either the possessive pronoun, "our," or the phrase, "in heaven." In Luke, the Lord's Prayer begins simply, "Father, hallowed be your name...."
In both cases, the prayer begins with the word "Father." Now that may seem utterly routine to some, but in the time of Jesus it was shocking and provocative. Very few first-century Jews would have been so audacious as to address God as "Father." They might have employed a euphemism like "the Almighty," or "the Most High" -- as some do, even today. Or, they might have used a generic substitute like "Lord."
The use of "Lord" -- Adonai, in Hebrew -- goes way back in Judaism. The ancient Jews believed that to even pronounce God's proper name of Yahweh could bring catastrophe. They inserted a kind of neutral counter to stand in for the name-that-cannot-be-uttered. Even to this day, many faithful Jews routinely substitute Adonai for Yahweh -- and when the modern scribes who laboriously copy the Torah scrolls by hand come upon that troublesome word, they will write the consonants alone, with no vowel points, so there's no chance anyone might slip and utter the name of God by accident.
For Jesus to begin his model prayer, "Father," is audacious to the point of blasphemy. It's audacious because the God of Israel is not the sort of God you can cozy up to. The God of Israel is a hurler of thunderbolts and a giver of earthquakes. He is most emphatically not your friend.
More than that, it's likely that the Aramaic word Jesus used, which is translated by the Greek word for "father," is the little word Abba. Abba is a childhood diminutive, the equivalent of our words, "Daddy" or "Papa." In his model prayer, Jesus is getting very intimate with God indeed -- something that would have made some of the religious authorities angry to no end.
There are three places in all of scripture where this Aramaic word Abba occurs: one of them is in Mark's account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prays, "Abba, Father, with you all things are possible, remove this cup from me...." The other two are in the letters of Paul.
One of these is Galatians 4:6: "... because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!" Paul, here, is remembering Jesus as the one who addressed the Lord as Abba. More than that, this passage from Galatians helps explain how it is that Jesus could use such an intimate form of address to refer to God, and how we, following in his tradition, can be so bold as to do the same.
Because of Christ, says Paul, we are considered "Abraham's offspring, heirs according to his purpose." Once we were orphans, but now we're adopted. That word "offspring" he uses in that Galatians passage is very interesting. In the Greek, it's sperma, and it means "seed." From the sound of the word, we can also recognize that it refers to the male "seed." What Paul is claiming, here, is quite extraordinary. He's claiming that, because of Christ, our spiritual DNA is altered. We're not just adopted, not simply living with a host family -- we have actually been transformed into part of that family. We have been made, because of the blood of the cross, a blood-relative of God.
For Christians who take seriously the insights of feminist theology, the whole notion of the fatherhood of God can seem problematic. Just as Jesus' use of the word Abba made many people of his own day angry, there are some today who become angry whenever anyone uses male language to describe God. There are very good reasons for this. A heavy handed use of male imagery for God may convey to young girls that males are superior to females. Also, using exclusively male -- and especially fatherly -- language for God may create difficulties for those who are continuing to come to terms with abuse or neglect by their own fathers.
Truly, as many modern theologians are quick to point out, God is neither male nor female. In the immortal words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable." The book of Genesis tells how "God created humankind in his image ... male and female he created them." While we may choose to refer to God as "he" (or "she" for that matter), because personal pronouns in English have to reflect one gender or the other, the "immortal, invisible God only wise" cannot be confined within such an earthbound reality as sexual identity.
Actually, fatherhood is just one of many metaphors for the vast and incomprehensible God, "whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts." There is, for example, the rich metaphor of the motherhood of God -- as used in the book of Isaiah, where God asks, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).
There also happen to be numerous places in scripture where God is referred to as a "rock" or a "fortress." No one worries much about confusing God with a rock or a castle. These alternative images for God make our language repertoire all the richer. None of these metaphors can begin to comprise the total reality of God. All they can do is point.
When Jesus addresses God as Abba, it's not so much the maleness of the title that's important, as it is the word's innocent, childlike character. The title Abba says as much about the one saying it as it says about the one to whom it's directed. That was what was revolutionary in Jesus' own day. And that, too, is what continues to be revolutionary about the fatherhood-of-God language -- truly understood -- today.
There are many in our world who, perversely, prefer a God of wrath to a God of love. There are many who prefer a God of judgment to a God of grace. Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer, in part, so we can approach God with confidence -- in the same innocent, trusting way that children go running to the loving embrace of their Abba.
Prayer For The Day
"Our Father" -- those words we sometimes say, O God -- they bear such weight for us. For in that word "father" is the accumulated weight of years of living: of absence and presence, of intimacy and distance, of love and failure of love. Teach us of true fatherhood, and true motherhood, as well. Teach us that you are all these things to us, and more! Amen.
To Illustrate
One of best illustrations of this concept of God as Abba comes from Jesus himself. When he tells his famous Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father in the story -- the one who waits faithfully at home while his crazy son is sowing his wild oats and squandering his fortune -- is not so much a stern, unforgiving patriarch as he is the kind and welcoming Abba. Remember how the unfaithful son in the parable sits off at the hog farm in the far country, planning out that formal speech, in which he begs his father's forgiveness, and begs for employment as a hired hand? Yet his father will have none of this. For this is not "Father," after all. This is not the family patriarch. This is Abba.
Abba does a most uncharacteristic thing, for a Near-Eastern father. As soon as he sees his son coming, he immediately runs out and greets him. In a land of long robes, this means that, in order to run, the father must hike up his robe and show his ankles -- maybe even his calves! For a patriarch, this is most undignified. Yet for Abba -- for Papa rather than Father -- it is a matter of no consequence. For the one thing that matters most to Abba is that moment when he and his son come together once again, in a loving embrace.
***
We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us. That's the truth of our lives. [God says] "I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother's womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at ever step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brothers, your sister, your lover and your spouse ... yes, even your child ... wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen, from Life of the Beloved (New York: Crossroad, 2002)
***
There is something Fatherly, Far-away:
in still nights,
as by the breath of a star,
my soul grew small and clear again.
Here in life I am alone
and apart from me there is only one Other,
and I am afraid, because I am farther
away from him than he from me.
-- Rainier Maria Rilke
***
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have about the birds and the bees, or about nothing at all -- simply feeling his breath, heartbeat, presence. As a boy, I used to sit on the front porch watching the cars roll by, imagining that one day one would park and the man getting out would be my daddy. But it never happened.
When I was eighteen, I could find no tears that Alabama winter's evening in January 1979, as I stood finally -- face-to-face -- with my father lying cold in a casket, his eyes sealed, his heart no longer beating, his breath forever stilled. Killed in a car accident, he died drunk, leaving me hobbled by the sorrow of years of fatherlessness.
By then, it had been years since Mama had summoned the police to our apartment that night, fearing that Daddy might hurt her -- hit her -- again. Finally, his alcoholism consumed what good there was of him until it swallowed him whole.
It wasn't until many years later, standing over my father's grave for a long overdue conversation, that my tears flowed. I told him about the man I had become. I told him about how much I wished he had been in my life. And I realized fully that in his absence, I had found another. Or that He -- God, the Father, God, my Father -- had found me.
-- John W. Fountain, "The God Who Embraced Me," from a reminiscence broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, November 28, 2005
