Father's Day

The other day I had a conversation with my 21 year old daughter. “Speak soon then,” I said to her. “Well we’ll speak on Sunday because it’s Father’s Day,” she said in a wonderfully innocent way.
The cynic in me was completely disarmed. I was unwittingly reassured that the marketing nonsense of greetings cards, cheap bottles of supermarket whisky and boxed DVD sets isn’t really what Father’s Day is all about. Her reassurance of a simple phone call tomorrow gave me a temporary selfish glow that I hadn’t got being a father completely wrong.
This week I heard about a new film called the evolution of dad. Based around a series of interviews with fathers, it suggests that men have travelled a long way towards parity with women when it comes to parenthood, earning potential and forward planning. Such equality may be anathema in some countries and frowned on in others but in Britain and the United States the father’s role within the context of the family has changed and is changing.
All of this means a fundamental reassessment of the role of men and women in British society from an anthropological and sociological point of view. But I want to argue that it doesn’t fundamentally change anything theologically.
The spiritual notion of Fatherhood in the Christian tradition is rooted in the concept of God himself. If the Old Testament is a fascinating concoction of how the father deals with his erring creation, the New Testament brings the notion of fatherhood to a new level.
Many modern theologians have argued that God is as much mother as he is father. I am happy to consider that as long as it in no way diminishes the impressive explanations of Jesus throughout his ministry as to how God as Father introduces us to vulnerability and openness; to responsibility and love.
Vulnerability - because a Father can only go so far in directing his children: the rest is up to them:
Openness – because true Fatherhood seems to be rooted in the notions of honesty and giving direction without control or condition
Responsibility because, well what is being a parent, if it’s not ultimately being responsible?
And Love – because love is where it starts, and also where it ends.
These notions of Fatherhood are both my experience as a Christian and my aim as a dad. They are not always easy to achieve.
If ministry has taught me anything, it has underlined the diversity of human relationships right across the social spectrum. Some are wonderful. Others found wanting. Whilst many people are truly happy, others sense only failure and rejection. And how such relationships are, partly conditions the type of person we become.
Devoid of tacky cards and exorbitant gifts, Father’s Day is a true opportunity, first, to think of yourself as someone’s child and especially this weekend, for all who are fathers, not to take for granted the unique, and they are unique, opportunities which the gift of fatherhood brings.