Readings:
Jeremiah 20: 7-13;
Psalm 69: 14-20;
Romans 6: 1b-11;
Matthew 10: 24-39

Collect
Faithful Creator, whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you and to your living Word,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Reflection for Fathers’ Day
Matthew 6: 9-13

I’m taking full advantage of the new ‘bubble’ guidelines to make the journey to Hampshire to visit my Dad on Sunday. I’m so looking forward to giving him a hug for the first time since March – and how wonderful that we’ll be doing so on Father’s Day.

But Father’s Day is another one of these occasions when we can be quite cynical – yet another money-spinning exercise dreamed up by commercial interests. And given the complexity of people’s life experiences, as much of a minefield as Mother’s Day. Perhaps more people don’t know their father than don’t know their mother; and plenty have a negative story lurking in the background, even some very damaging experiences. 

Equally, there are fathers who feel they have had the bad end of the deal; dads who have been pressurised into acting or being a particular way; men who have felt pushed out of their kids’ lives by  circumstances, divorce, or even society’s expectations, especially around work. 

And how painful this Sunday will be for those of you who no longer have your father alive to receive your hug, your card, your bottle of whisky. 

As I say, a minefield. 

Yet in the middle of all of this we have the church talking about God as Father!! In fairness, it’s not the church who thought this up. Jesus himself refers to God as his father in heaven. I suppose we can react to this in a couple of ways. 

One way is to imagine the perfect earthly father, maybe the one we had, or the one we wish we had, and project all of those characteristics (and fantasies?) onto God. That’s fine until something rubbish happens in our lives – with this approach we can end up feeling betrayed or abandoned by the one who was supposed to keep us safe.   

Another reaction is to reflect all our negative experiences of being fathered onto the figure of God. Equally fantasy-based, but it means we can find it almost impossible to trust God; we are afraid rather than confident, we spend our time fixed on how we are failing rather than how much we are loved. God is the one we cower before, or expect to let us down, or even the one who hardly notices us.

I wonder if you’ve ever seen the greetings card that says “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad”? I think this silly phrase might actually hold the key to a balanced way to approach God as a heavenly parent (times have changed, it’s OK to think of God as a mother too!) You see, Jesus didn’t just call God ‘Father’. He called God ‘Dad’. The Hebrew word for Father, in the formal, patriarchal sense, is ‘Ab’. The warmer, more intimate term, in Aramaic, is ‘Abba’. It conveys a sense of comfort and protection. The security of home. The safe place. 

Whatever our experiences, we all need a place of safety. Can we allow ourselves to understand God, not as a male (or female) parent as we have known them, but as our refuge, our stronghold, our source of warmth and acceptance? This might help us to “de-gender” our fantasies and images; we can disconnect our negative associations; and we can grow into the security and freedom and maturity we long for. So perhaps the prayer should begin, not ‘Our Father, which art in heaven’ but instead ‘Our refuge in all eternity……’

Sharon Grenham-Thompson