Service after the Sale

Praying for the men called to be fathers

06/20/2021

Mark 4:35-41 On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples: “Let us cross to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” They were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

Everyone loves to create something, but not everyone cares for what they create. This truth especially applies to men on this Father’s Day weekend. How so? Well, a husband can create a “house,” but it takes a father to convert a house into a “home.” Grammatically speaking, we might say the word “father” is not only a noun, but it is also a verb. The verb “to father,” therefore, means not only to create a family but to care for that family that he brings into creation. Only a father can transform a house into a home, and by the way, fathering is the harder part of being a man. Any man can be a husband; it takes a real man to be a father.

A couple of humorous examples may illustrate the difference between a husband and a father. After a young couple brought their new baby home, the wife suggested that her husband should try his hand at changing diapers. “I’m busy,” he said, and added: “I’ll do the next one.” The next time came around and she asked again. The husband looked puzzled and answered, “Oh! I didn’t mean the next diaper; I meant the next baby!” It is easy "to husband" to bring a baby into the world; it is much harder "to father" and to change his poopy diapers.

Here is the second example. A man and his wife were sitting in their living room and discussing a “living will.” The man said boldly, “Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug!” His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all the beer. Do you ladies know any men who are in a virtually vegetative state at home? Such a man may become a husband, but he would never reach the high standards of a faithful father.

Our scripture readings today speak of how God is not only the Creator of all, but he is also the Father of all. That is, he cares for the creation he brings into being. In the first reading the book of Job applies “fatherly language” God, who not only creates but cares for his creation. We read: “The Lord answered Job out of the storm and said: ‘Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made the clouds its garments and thick darkness its swaddling bands?” Swaddling clothes are baby clothes. Remember how the baby Jesus was wrapped in “swaddling clothes” in Lk 2:12? Even though some husbands do not want to touch dirty diapers, God the Father cares for his creation by providing “swaddling bands,” the clouds and darkness that are the “diapers” of the deep sea.

In the gospel today Jesus imitates his heavenly Father, because “like father, like son.” St. Mark explains how when a violent squall came up and began tossing their boat around, Jesus who was asleep awakes and commands the sea with the same authority of the Creator, saying: “Quiet! Be Still!” And what happened? “The wind ceased and there was a great calm.” Jesus did not remain in the vegetative state of sleep like husbands on life-support of TV and beer, but awoke to care for his sons, the apostles.

To be sure, Jesus has come as the Husband all humanity, to marry his Bride, the Church. But he also “fathers” his family, like God the Father. That is why when Philip asked Jesus to “show us the Father,” he answered in Jn 14:9, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.” In Jesus, therefore, we find both the holy Husband and the faithful Father, the Creator and the One who cares for his creation, the ideal Man.

On this Father’s Day, let me invite all the men here (indeed all of us) to catch the difference between being a husband and being a father, between merely building a house and manly building a home. I am convinced that it is a fundamental failure in fatherhood that has made abortion such a scourge on our society. Men are as responsible for every abortion as women are (maybe more so). Why? Well, because “it takes two to tango.” And often it is because the woman is left alone to shoulder the burden of the unplanned pregnancy that abortion appears as an appealing or maybe the only alternative. Abortion exists to a large degree because so many men are in a hurry to be husbands but failures at being fathers.

Another aspect of fathering that goes far beyond husbanding is fathering a family spiritually, that is, being the spiritual leader. Yesterday I celebrated the baptism of Sophie Higgenbotham. She is the baby daughter of a couple I married 9 years ago. When I baptize a baby of a couple I married, I call that “service after the sale.” At the end of the baptism, the priest blesses the father saying: “May [God] bless the father of this child. He and his wife will be the first teachers of their child in the ways of faith. May they also be the best of teachers.” In other words, what makes a father different from a husband is precisely “service after the sale.” That is, after your wife has “bought” what you are selling (she married you), you must provide tireless service for your family, especially in being a spiritual leader. To be a father, you must be the first and best teacher in the ways of faith.

On this Father’s Day, we thank God for all the men who have hit a homerun in being not only husbands but also fathers. But we also pray for those men who seem to strike out, those who struggle and stumble to live up to that high calling. Any man can be a husband; it takes a real man to be a father. After all, to be a father means to say, a little like Jesus said to Philip: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!