Fathers' Day

So what? Very many voices declare that fatherhood is simply a poorer version of motherhood which is where true parenting happens. A man - maybe even two men - who behave like a mother are ‘supportive assets’ to children but so might be a single mum’s circle of friends. Parenting and supportive assets are in, fatherhood is history.

History perhaps, but also divine history. In the Bible’s world the pinnacle of relationships was that of a father with his son and it is one of the key pictures of God’s internal being.
What does fatherhood do? A father-son relationship always has a generational future and past whereas a marriage belongs only to one generation. Where there is true fatherhood and sonship these are the questions that are more often and widely asked; ‘How can I shape the future?’, ‘What can I learn from your experience?’. A world where these questions are asked less is a lesser world.

Fathering lacks the bodily intimacy that creation grants to marriage and motherhood. But fatherly love is manifested, among other ways, in a wide and wise strategic interest. At every strategic high point in Christ’s ministry a father’s voice is heard: This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. It sounds to us like a joke but it was a profound old saying that while mother and daughter work in the kitchen, father and son look out of the window. If no relationship gazes beyond, many journeys will never begin.

Mayor

Wycombe has little to distinguish it from any other English town these days. Except that it weighs the Mayor!

The idea is that by being weighed at the beginning and end of the year it can be established whether he/she has become fat at the expense of the townsfolk.

It's a fun tradition.

Yet there was a king who was weighed by God.

The writing was certainly on the wall for Belshazzar! And Daniel explained it.

Tekel: You are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting.

For all of us who lead, for all of us who live, that's not funny at all.

Scripture

This month we celebrate the translation of New Testament into the language of the Gabri people in southern Chad.

Our church has sponsored this translation by supporting the couple who have devoted ten years to the task. 138,000 words later the people of Kimri and its surrounds can now read, in their own tongue, the ancient words that resound with God's own heart, words of life, words of hope.

Ten

Today is the Tenth Anniversary of my first Sunday as Pastor in my current church. Alarmingly this is my second Tenth Anniversary! But time is not the issue, is it?

A few days ago I heard an interview with a professor who had researched the effects of trees on the human spirit. Apparantly the good professor’s research revealed that if you drive down a tree-lined highway you arrive more relaxed, less stressed, than you do if surrounded by concrete. This effect is more pronounced in heavy traffic. And it works in walking too.

But the interviewer came up with a devastating question, "Do trees have the same effect when their leaves fall off?"

And the answer was no. Without their leaves they are essentially useless to changing the passer-by. Like the Christian church really. It doesn’t do any traceable good by just being there. It must be seen to be alive..

I have come, said Jesus, that they might have life, and have it more abundantly..