Father of the year

I have great kids.

I know that you would be surprised to hear me say anything different than that, but I really do. Jack, Harry and Penelope are three of God’s greatest blessings in my life. Every day they find surprising ways to bring joy and beauty into my life and if for some twisted reason my mind ever wanders into that dangerous “what if” territory where I hypothesise what life might be like without them – it always ends with tears and an emotional exhaustion just from considering the possibility.

Now that I’ve told you what you expected to read let me tell you the whole truth.

Spoiler alert: Parenthood is hard, and some days I’m not entirely sure that I’m any good at it. There are days when I feel like the worst father in the world. Some days my kids are unruly or irresponsible or just plain defiant and I feel like I can’t take them anywhere. On those days I wonder if I’ve invested the time and energy required in properly disciplining them so that they have the guidance that they will need to grow to be respectful and well mannered adults; on the other hand, some days I feel like I’m nothing but an ogre who yells at them for spilling the milk and has no patience for their nattering questions and clumsy steps toward self-discovery and independence. On those days, after my blood pressure lowers, I often sit and wonder if they know that I love them at all.

Perhaps some of you can relate.

Lately I have been reading 1 Samuel in my devotional time and along with a friend who is reading through the book with me, we have been focusing on the character of Eli. Eli was a man who I share a lot in common with: we were/are both in vocational ministry, we both led/lead people in worship of God, and we both had/have two sons, and we were/are both somewhat defined by our excess rotundity (not sure if that is an actual word but it seems to fit the bill).  And as I have been reading his story I have been profoundly struck by how his story is a story about fatherhood.

Eli is identified as having two sons, both men who have followed in their father’s footsteps into the priesthood; Hophni and Phinehas. From the first time we are introduced to them in 1Samuel 2 it is made clear by the narrator that these two priests are absolutely awful men. They abuse their position as priests of the Most High God to satiate their own gluttonous desires for meat and to satisfy their own lustful desires for sex. They are hedonists dressed up in priestly garb and God is not amused.

I could probably do a whole study just on these two characters and come up with a whole host of dire applications for people who go into vocational ministry without bringing the sinful nature under the Lordship of Christ – but Hophni and Phinehas are not the topic of this post – they only serve as symptoms of the root sickness that I think lies with their father. Because not only did Eli raise these two wicked men (and thus in some way is responsible for who they became) but he also knew about their indiscretions, and had the authority to do something about them (both as their father and as the Judge of Israel) but opted not to. His son’s sin became his sin and God ultimately cut down his legacy as a result of his ambivalence.

But no matter how awful his sons were and how God judged Eli for their behaviour – Eli is always more closely associated with another young man – a man who did not stray from the path laid out for him by God – the man who would go onto succeed Eli as the leader of Israel: Samuel the prophet.

In the first part of 1 Samuel we see the story of Samuel’s conception (well not THAT story, but the part about God intervening and blessing a barren woman with a son) as well as the story of Samuel’s dedication, and his calling. Samuel was entrusted to Eli by his parents to be given to the ministry of God and that call to ministry that he received while under Eli’s tutelage is probably the most well known story about Eli in the scriptures.

Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. One day Eli, whose eyes had grown so weak he was unable to see, was lying down in his room. God’s lamp hadn’t gone out yet, and Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s chest was. The Lord called to Samuel. “I’m here,” he said. Samuel hurried to Eli and said, “I’m here. You called me?” “I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go lie down.” So he did. Again the Lord called Samuel, so Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?” “I didn’t call, my son,” Eli replied. “Go and lie down.” (Now Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord, and the Lord’s word hadn’t yet been revealed to him.) A third time the Lord called Samuel. He got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?” Then Eli realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy. So Eli said to Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down where he’d been. Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.”

1 Samuel 3:1-10 CEB

Eli is commonly associated with the type of mentorship of the young Samuel that guides him onto the will of God and helps him become the great leader that he ends up as – however most of our Sunday school/popular Christian retellings of Eli and Samuel end at verse 10. Rarely have I heard about what the Lord says to young Samuel. Rarely do our flannel graphs have pre-cut scenes for the word of destruction and judgment that the young boy is tasked with delivering to his mentor. God is not happy with Eli, and his stewardship of his sons and so God is going to cut them off.

The Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of all who hear it tingle! On that day, I will bring to pass against Eli everything I said about his household—every last bit of it! I told him that I would punish his family forever because of the wrongdoing he knew about—how his sons were cursing God, but he wouldn’t stop them. Because of that I swore about Eli’s household that his family’s wrongdoing will never be reconciled by sacrifice or by offering.”

1 Samuel 3:11-14 CEB

And so I come back to idea that the story of Eli is a version of my story.

In Eli I see exemplified my own weaknesses and my own proclivities even as we work in similar professions with the goal of serving God.

In Eli I see a man who struggled with self-control and his own personal demons. A man who was eventually killed by his own excessive obesity which perhaps gives us insight into his broader disposition – a man who was unwilling to get off his hind-quarters to do what he knew needed to be done. A man who was excessively lazy.

In Eli I see a man who gave his whole life to his call to ministry – rising to the position of Judge over Israel and high priest of Shiloh – yet all the while we see evidence that he did so at the cost of abandoning his higher calling to the sons he was entrusted with by God.

In Eli I see a man who knew how to teach someone to follow God. A man who was a worthy mentor for the greatest of the Israelite judges and a good steward of the future ruler of Israel – yet he was also a man who didn’t give that type of mentorship to his sons. Samuel received the love and guidance from Eli that should have rightfully been for Hophni and Phinehas and as a result the whole family was judged harshly by The Lord.

Eli is my cautionary tale.

Eli is God’s reminder to me that there is more to my life than what happens within the sandbox of church ministry. Eli is a warning that I will be judged by how my children turn out – not that I have the power alone to determine their fate (even the greatest parents sometimes raise children who turn into terrible adults), but that how I parent them does matter and that intentionality, patience, love, affirmation and discipline are not things that I am allowed to be too tired to give them at the end of a long and difficult ministry day. Eli is the embodiment of the lesson that no matter what I accomplish in building into the lives of the people I minister to as a pastor – if I’m not at least equally invested in building into the lives of my children that I have failed.

And make no mistake, no matter what you learned on the flannel graph growing up, Eli failed.

And so today I’m choosing to learn from Eli’s example. Today I’m choosing to go home from work and love my kids with every ounce of my energy and love. Praising them, listening to them, working with them and yes, even disciplining them, because they, along with their mother, are God’s greatest calling upon my life; because they deserve better than I have so often given them and because the story of Eli frightens the crap out of me. I only pray that after living this way tonight, I’ll have the energy, the drive and the will to live the same way tomorrow.

Or I could simply sit around on my fat rear-end like Eli.

The choice is mine.

Thanks for listening.