The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

On Tuesday, my two boys, Nicholas and Kevin, left with Feliciana for Guatemala to spend a month with los abuelitos, grandma and grandpa. I am a wreck. The first day was the worst. I have left them a couple of times for a few days, and a couple of times for a week or ten days. Feliciana has left the boys and me at home to visit Guatemala. But this is the first time all three of them have left me to go on a scary adventure. Feliciana’s parents live in a little village on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, by our standards a very impoverished place riddled with all the diseases and threats of campesino life in the tropics. Of course, I am also happy to know they will get to spend good time with their grandparents, speak Spanish, and learn the valuable lesson that it is possible to live without Play Station 2. They will learn to honor the life of their mother, and her mother and father.

The house is very quiet. I need quiet some of the time, but I like coming home knowing they are there, or soon to be. Usually, when I get home, Kevin is hiding behind the door or the couch waiting to pounce on me like a kitten practicing the hunt. Kevin is nine, and Nick ten, and at this age their most frequent show of affection is punching, poking, or jumping on me.

My sweetest memories are when they were warm little bundles of baby, asleep on my chest. Or around two to four years of age, having newly discovered themselves and the great big world, walking hand in hand with Dad. I still remember walking hand in hand with my Dad, or riding on his shoulders. There is something powerful and sweet about that simple image, a big old hand reaching down, and a new little one reaching up.

This image of God as father is well known in Christian theology. Powerful metaphors are easy to idolize, and we have to be careful not to box God into a little package. We may be tempted to avoid this problem by leaving God as Spirit. And in our individual and cultural maturity, the image of God as Great Father in the Sky may seem irreconcilable with our rational, independent mind. Even God wants us to grow up. Still, the image of the father/child and mother/child relationship invites us into an intimacy and trust with the Divine Spirit. I sense there is something deep and true in this calling

Powerful images almost always evoke both hope and pain. This image of the father/child relationship seems to hold the blessing and curse, the hope and anxiety, the joy and the grief of the whole world. For our memory may be filled with loss, or with what wasn’t, or with what will not be. The pain of what we have known of our father or mother may inhibit this positive value of the image of God, but I would hope the image may help carry us through that pain. May God succeed where our parents have failed, where we have failed.

I vividly remember when I met with my daughter for the first time as a grown up, after she learned I was her father. Her mother and step father never told her; she found her birth certificate when she was fourteen. I made attempts to see her, but it was difficult. In the year two thousand, after locating their telephone number, I got as far as to plan a meeting one afternoon with her and her mother, in a park near their home. For some reason they never showed up. Shamed, I sat waiting in the park for hours, crying blasphemic prayers at God. Not long after, my daughter moved from her home to live with her aunt in San Jose. They called me and we made arrangements to meet at the lighthouse in Santa Cruz.

Even as an adult I was scared to death. I can only imagine what Amy must have felt. When I saw her I was totally surprised at how she looked. All these years I imagined she looked like her mother. She looks like me. At first we shook hands, and then we hugged. It was one of the most painful moments of my life, and it was one of the most beautiful. How different this embrace was from the embrace of my boys. How much I had missed. Here I was, the father who was not there. The father who let her be raised by a bad man. The father who had so little relationship with her, that even her bad relationship with her stepfather was more important and valuable to her life. The intimacy of our touch highlighted a vacuum left by all the touch and intimacy that had been missed, and could never really be made up.

But here we were, reaching out for one another through a painful embrace, a moment of profound grace and hope. Hesitant and afraid of my own weakness, I reached up my hand, and God led me to her. Her hug was also a hug from God. I felt like I was the God’s prodigal son; after having been gone so long, I was embraced. Despite all that had been, what had not been, and what could never be, we were moving forward.

I pray that somehow Amy may be guided by the Father in Heaven beyond the sin of her stepfather and father, to be a strong and successful woman, a healthy mother, and develop truly loving and intimate relationships with men. May she hate the mistakes of her father and mother enough that she will not repeat them, but instead grow beyond them with God. May she see that growing beyond our father and mother is a way of honoring them.

I pray today that all of us may be guided by the hand of God through the pain that leads to growth and deeper love. May we feel the intimate grace that forgives us for our failures and what we cannot change. It is possible that you may have relationships that are damaged beyond repair. But let that knowledge and God’s guiding hand move us into a new commitment to healthy relationships from this moment onward. May we have the strength and courage to stop avoiding the pain necessary for our spiritual growth. This is the cross Jesus calls us to bear.

As men, I pray we use our relationship with God as father to reflect on how we ought to use our creative powers. May we use them to promote health and not sickness, trust and not mistrust, joy and not sorrow, free reciprocal service and not dependence or slavery. Tomorrow is the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. In many cosmologies the sun reflects the Father God. Me we find an organic balance that promotes life. May we be close enough to others to give warmth, but not so that close that they burn up. May those in our presence flower and not wither. As men, let us act as good fathers to all children, especially to those whose biological father is absent. May we embody strength that creates gifts for living, protects the innocent, stands for justice, and sacrifices for peace. May we honor our mothers, sisters and daughters as created in your image, Mother and Father of us all.

Most of all, I give thanks for the beautiful blessing of life and love. Thank you, God, for the good times and the relatively healthy people in our lives. Thank you for those moments when, despite their many faults and mistakes, someone has managed to do the loving thing. Thank you for moments of grace, for the love we have received. Thank you for the love we have been able to share. Thank you for loving us like a father. You bring us joy and hope. God of love, you are the one who was, who is, and is to come. Thank you. Amen