Father’s Day isn’t nearly as big as Mother’s Day. Have you noticed that? The florist doesn’t do as much business, Hallmark doesn’t sell as many cards and church attendance doesn’t skyrocket on Father’s Day. On Mother’s Day the minister usually praises moms for their daily sacrifices and everyone gets teary-eyed. But on Father’s Day preachers are more inclined to scold dad for being poor role models.
Dads often walk away from church services feeling guilty. One father summed up his mood after getting beat up by another negative Father’s Day sermon, “Calling this Father’s Day is like calling the first day of Duck hunting season, “Duck’s Day! I’ve been shot at all morning!”
Dads don’t get much respect. That’s not just true in church but in the media. Have you noticed the number of ads on television that portray dad as totally incompetent? My son Rusty used to call them, “Stupid Dad ads.” For example, a few years ago an ad for Capital One portrayed a father taking his family on a Ski vacation in the Rockies in midsummer in order to save money. The vacation is a disaster because there is no snow. After trying to ski down a dry slope and hitting a rock the disgusted son asks, “What’s in your wallet?” The dad looks to be a fool.
A more recent Geico commercial has a dad substituting a possum for a puppy as a birthday present in order to save money. What a numbskull! Remember the movie, “National Lampoon’s Vacation”? Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, drives his family from Illinois to California to visit Wallyworld only to discover the theme park is closed. He was too dumb to check before he left.
You seldom see mothers ridiculed as idiotic but it’s open season on fathers. We hear about absentee dads and deadbeat dads but never about missing mothers or messy moms. That wouldn’t be politically correct. However, it’s okay to make dad a buffoon and the target of ridicule. We’ve fallen a long way from “Father Knows Best” to Homer Simpson.
A few years ago Newsweek Magazine ran an editorial titled, “Overdue Thank You To My Dad.” It admitted the media portrayals of fathers were so often negative that we forget to pay tribute to many good dads. Maybe it’s significant that Newsweek folded in December of 2012, not long after that editorial was printed.
The fourth commandment begins, “Honor your father…” God ordained three institutions for the building of a stable society: the family, the government and the church. The family is first. It’s the basic building block of everything else. If the family falls apart, everything else crumbles. The Bible asks, “If the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do?”
Proverbs 4:1 reads, “Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding.” God intended the father to be respected and the source of security and learning in the home. That’s why it’s so alarming to see marriage redefined and the family falling apart. It seems Satan is doing his best to destroy the foundation by undermining the credibility of dads.
One of my favorite movie scenes occurs in the 1962 movie, To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck), a lawyer in the Depression-era South, attempts to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, against an undeserved rape charge. Atticus Finch’s two little children watch the trial proceedings through the railing in the balcony. His client is found guilty and Finch is harassed for doing what was right.
When Atticus Finch leaves the courtroom, a black preacher, Rev. Sykes who is tending to the children, says to Finch’s little daughter, “Jean Louise! Stand up…your father’s passing.” Her father had just lost the case but since he had given his best he merited their total respect.
Maybe your father wasn’t perfect but he did a lot of things right and he merits your respect, not your ridicule. Stand up in honor of your dad today. That may mean sending a thank you card, making a personal visit, texting a special message or attending church with him. Maybe, it’s jumping in his lap or just hugging him and saying, “I love you, Dad. Thanks for all you mean to me.”
Find some way to pay him tribute because he must have done his job pretty well, otherwise how could you be so special?
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