A Sunday Sermon - The Fatherhood of God

 

Mountebanks, frauds and imposters such as the current Archbishop of York don't like the word Father applied to God. It's "problematic" for them because of peoples' negative experiences of fatherhood and "patriarchal oppression."

Alas, the all-prevailing, systemic scourge of patriarchal oppression. Quite the blight on our age, such as it is. But leaving aside the inherent apostasy involved in denying Dominical revelation, imagine if you can that the Yorkine prelate has a point, that people do have bad fathers and live in an oppressive, criminal patriarchy.

Think of Hunter Biden's disowned son, not even allowed the family name, while the Big Guy, the Patriarch rakes in millions while sucking down ice cream on vacation in Delaware, wherever that is, and directing the fate of the world. There you have it, bad dad, oppressive patriarch. So can we refer to God as Father or was Jesus wrong?

I'll spare you my homily but here, at the risk of length, is Benedict XVI, addressing the issue:

It is not always easy today to talk about fatherhood, especially in the Western world. Families are broken, the workplace is ever more absorbing, families worry and often struggle to make ends meet and the distracting invasion of the media invades our daily life: these are some of the many factors that can stand in the way of a calm and constructive relationship between father and child. At times communication becomes difficult, trust is lacking and the relationship with the father figure can become problematic; moreover, in this way even imagining God as a father becomes problematic without credible models of reference. It is not easy for those who have experienced an excessively authoritarian and inflexible father or one who was indifferent and lacking in affection, or even absent, to think serenely of God and to entrust themselves to him with confidence.

Yet the revelation in the Bible helps us to overcome these difficulties by speaking to us of a God who shows us what it really means to be “father”; and it is the Gospel, especially, which reveals to us this face of God as a Father who loves, even to the point of giving his own Son for humanity’s salvation. The reference to the father figure thus helps us to understand something of the love of God, which is nevertheless infinitely greater, more faithful, and more total than the love of any man.

“What man of you”, Jesus asks in order to show the disciples the Father’s face, “will give his son a stone if he asks for bread? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt 7:9-11; cf. Lk 11:11-13). God is our Father because he blessed us and chose us before the creation of the world (cf. Eph 1:3-6), he has really made us his children in Jesus (cf. 1 Jn 3:1). And as Father, God accompanies our lives with love, giving us his Word, his teaching, his grace and his Spirit.

As Jesus revealed — he is the Father who feeds the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap, and arrays the flowers of the field in marvellous colours, in robes more beautiful than those of Solomon himself (cf. Mt 6:26-32; Lk 12:24-28); and we, Jesus added, are worth far more than the flowers and the birds of the air! And if he is so good that he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” Mt 5:45), we shall always be able, without fear and with total confidence, to entrust ourselves to his forgiveness as Father whenever we err. God is a good Father who welcomes and embraces his lost but repentant son (cf. Lk 15:11ff.), who gives freely to those who ask him (cf. Mt 18:19; Mk 11:24; Jn 16:23), and offers the bread of heaven and the living water that wells up to eternal life (cf. Jn 6:32, 51, 58).

Thus, although the person praying in Psalm 27 [26] is surrounded by enemies and assailed by evildoers and slanderers, while seeking the Lord’s help he invokes him. The witness he bears is full of faith, as he states: “My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up” (v. 10).

God is a Father who never abandons his children, a loving Father who supports, helps, welcomes, pardons and saves with a faithfulness that surpasses by far that of men and women, opening onto dimensions of eternity. “For his steadfast love endures for ever”, as Psalm 136 [135] repeats in every verse, as in a litany, retracing the history of salvation. The love of God the Father never fails, he does not tire of us; it is a love that gives to the end, even to the sacrifice of his Son. Faith gives us this certainty which becomes a firm rock in the construction of our life: we can face all the moments of difficulty and danger, the experience of the darkness of despair in times of crisis and suffering, sustained by our trust that God does not forsake us and is always close in order to save us and lead us to eternal life.

It is in the Lord Jesus that the benevolent face of the Father, who is in heaven, is fully revealed. It is in knowing him that we may also know the Father (cf. Jn 8:19; 14:7). It is in seeing him that we can see the Father, because he is in the Father and the Father is in him (cf. Jn 14:9,11). He is “the image of the invisible God” and as the hymn of the Letter to the Colossians describes him, he is: “the first-born of all creation... the first-born from the dead”, “in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” and the reconciliation of all things, “whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:13-20).

I can't add to such excellence. In Christ we see the true face of the Father and of fatherhood itself, infinitely powerful and sovereign, and infinitely compassionate and loving. The apostates ironically defraud themselves by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

You'll notice that "these things," the mighty works of God and the nature of our heavenly Father, have been "hidden from the wise and understanding." (Mtt 11:25-30) Yes indeed, and revealed to "babes," to the little children who turn to Christ in purity of heart and humility of spirit.

Take note, imposters, wimmyxn and everyone else, he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, * and hath exalted the humble and meek. (LK 1. 51-52)

In the meanwhile, we'll continue to pray as Jesus taught us.

Pater Noster,

LSP