Happy Father's Day
I got to preach today. My wife was away at our every-four-year Synod gathering so she asked if I would sub for her. Sure. Especially since it was Father's Day. The Gospel lesson was about planting seeds and letting them grow. Well, actually, we can't do anything to MAKE them grow so why try. In any case, here's the end of the sermon as I put it all together as a pastor, counselor, and father.

Despite us, the seed grows. We don’t know how. We love to think we do. Hence the flood of publications about how to grow the Church; hence all our "mission action plans", and the like — but really we haven’t a clue. It’s all a great mystery.

To admit that is not a cop-out. It is to heed the word of the Lord, who teaches us that the Kingdom and the manner of its growth are precisely that — a mystery (Mark 4.10). I reflect on 30 years of Christian ministry, and I recognize that any good that has come of it bears scant relation to anything planned.

What I have done is I have spent my adult life planting seeds.

Pastors do that. Sunday after Sunday pastors preach. We look out across a sea of faces filled with stories and needs and faith and at times doubts. What is it that I can say this morning that will touch someone right where they need to hear it? So I scatter the seeds of God’s grace and know that God is doing the real work- taking them where they are most needed. Zinzendorf once said that the Holy Spirit would go ahead of the missionaries preparing the souls for the seeds to be planted. That pretty well describes it.

Counselors do the same. Every week I work with anywhere between 15 and 30 people in groups. When I walk into that group room at 6:00 each evening I know that the odds are against me. People bring issues and worries and anger and resentments and expect me to change their mind, fix them, or just to plain leave them alone. So I plant seeds. I present to them the options, the counseling version of what Jesus was doing with renewed life and hope in the Kingdom. I plant the seeds and only God knows why it works.

Fathers, too, are seed planters.

In my 25+ years of being a Dad I have come to the humbling realization that I have far less control than I think I do. I have often wanted to control, direct, push, prod, require, force, and many other words. Just to make sure that my daughter grew up the way I wanted her to. I wanted, just like I am sure God wants, for my daughter to have a happy life. I wanted for her to avoid pain and problems. I didn’t want her to feel hurt and sadness and anxiety. I wanted her to do what I wanted her to do- after all I am the wise one, blessed with maturity and years.

But then I look at God and God’s pattern of parenting me and I am brought up short. God has not treated me that way. God has done exactly what Jesus says the Kingdom is all about- planting seeds. God wants me to do the same. God has not coerced me, forced me, punished me into believing or acting a certain way. God has watched as I have made my very abundant share of mistakes. While he calmly waited, his hand reaching out, right there in front of me, steady and loving until I was willing to see it and reach out.

Today when I think of Father’s Day I think of God the Father and his patient watching and persistent waiting. I think of the Kingdom- perhaps the Fatherhood of God- which is nothing more- and nothing less than letting go of our control and discovering the full and amazing life available to us today and forever.