And Who Is Their Father?

I know of a church that had five pastors in succession, each with one or more sons to their name. Let's talk about the sons first.

The first pastor had two sons. Both sons were known for skimming funds from congregational tithing and for sleeping with the church secretaries.

The second pastor also had two sons. These were known for shady dealings in the community, money and power being never far from their thoughts.

The third pastor produced a son who was upright, godly, the kind of friend to dream of. He risked his life to protect the innocent, and was remembered long after his death as a saint among men.

The fourth pastor had a number of sons, but seemed not to engage in any of their upbringings. One son became a rapist. Another a murderer. Even his most promising son eventually left the faith in later life.

The fifth pastor (son of the fourth pastor) inherited the pulpit from his father. The son of this fifth pastor proved to be a hotheaded idiot, and yet he in his turn succeeded his father as pastor over the church. That was a disaster waiting to happen. Unsurprisingly the church split soon after pastor #6 took the helm.

The fractured church did survive, and other pastors (with sons of their own) presided over the mess that ensued. But enough on that for now.

Four questions.

1) Which of these five men was a good father?

2) Which of these five men would I prefer to have as pastor over my church?

3) Which of these five men most pleased the Lord in this life?

4) Under the leadership of which of these five men did the church flourish best?

Are they different questions? Well, of course they are. But what I really mean is, Should the answers to these four questions be different?

These questions are not academic, for the scenario I paint here is not a hypothetical one. These pastoral were real men, as were their sons.

If we had no other information I suppose we'd all be inclined to plump for pastor #3 as the the best answer to all four questions. What other choice do we have? The apostle Paul would have disqualified the other four pastors from leadership on account of their wayward sons. Hopefully pastor #3, who raised such a gem of a son, will prove to have been the best father, the best pastor, a man after God's own heart, and the head over a thriving church.

But these five church leaders have names, and we know all five of these men well. The name of the third "pastor" is King Saul. His son Jonathan was a jewel. The man himself? Not so much. Amazingly, the man who seemed a good answer to all four question was in fact a lousy answer to at least three of them. Saul was a lousy father, a man who greatly disappointed God, and nobody I'd want for a pastor. And while he wasn't always a bad leader, he didn't exactly take Israel from strength to strength either.

So much for Pastor #3! He's by general consensus taken to be the worst of the bunch.

What of the others? Who are these four poster-boys for poor fathering? They are, respectively, Eli, Samuel, King David and his son Solomon.

God himself indicts Eli for his failure as a father, and Eli wasn't such a hot leader for the "church" Israel. He was kind of a no-go on all four questions. So now we have ruled out #3 and #1...

And the remaining three? History indicts them all for failing to raise upright sons. (David, the only one for whom we know more than the barest of details, was an absolute epic failure as a father.) And yet Samuel, David and Solomon are all still (rightly) remembered for their roles as effective and generally great leaders of the people Israel.

"Church" Israel flourished well under the leadership of David, the adulterer and murderer who didn't have a clue where fathering was concerned.

"Church" Israel flourished best under the leadership of Solomon, a man who raised an idiot for a son, who chased more than a few skirts, and who ended up plonking for polytheism.

So there you have it. The worst of the bunch (King Saul) produced the best son. Among the other four leaders we had one who failed (along with Saul) on pretty much all counts. The three "best of breed" evidenced good leadership punctuated with awful parenting. Only two, on a personal level, began their own lives well and ended them well.

For me this leaves us with a profound mystery. And it's not an academic one. I have two sons. And I'm part of the church, where our leaders are supposed to be good fathers.

One the one hand I see in scriptures the strong indication that fathers are responsible for their children. We have God ripping into Eli for not reining his boys in. We have Paul saying that those in church leadership must first prove their ability to run a family well. And we have our own consciences, reminding us all the time that much is at stake during our few years as head over households with children in them.

But then we have some chief fathers of the faith (irony intended) doing something less than a bang-up job raising their flesh-and-blood sons. The list goes on and on. Esau. Reuben. (Nine of his brothers?) Eli's sons. Samuel's sons. David's sons. Amnon. Absalom. Solomon. Rehoboam... and most of the kings that followed. Finding someone in the Bible noted for raising good sons is a pretty depressing task. (Gotta be one in there somewhere...)

No, these are not academic question. I have two sons. And I belong to the church.

I know I'm not supposed to do the "flip open and read" approach to finding God's voice in the jumble, but I did it a few times this morning. I'm on a slow journey through the Old Testament, and am now in 1 Samuel. I've been wrestling with Eli, Samuel and Saul for several weeks now. Two of my morning flips turned up gold, which isn't a bad ratio out of maybe five flips. God is merciful to those who don't have fleeces but would know what to do with one if it were on hand.

One flip took me to this:

Deuteronomy 24:16
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

Implicit here is perhaps a recognition that sometimes the best and good efforts of fathers do not produce sons who remain on the straight and narrow. Maybe that's too strong a statement. Maybe it's more simply a statement that even failed fathers are not to die for their sons' failures, but rather for their own mortal sins. Be that as it may, (and here I confess that this is a rambling reflection, not intended to be airtight in logic and conclusions, but rather a window into my thoughts) I found even more food for thought in the last flip.

I found myself staring at the word Isaiah in bold, large font. The beginning of the book of Isaiah. So I began to read. The book begins with father's lament over his wayward son.

And the wayward son is?

Israel.

The identity of the mourning father?

God himself.

If ever there was a star witness for the defense of the "It's not entirely Dad's fault" plea, it would be God himself.

Isaiah 1:1-4

The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its master,
the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”
Woe to the sinful nation,
a people whose guilt is great,
a brood of evildoers,
children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the Lord;
they have spurned the Holy One of Israel
and turned their backs on him.

I cannot help but add here that in Jesus' own parable of the Prodigal Son, God himself is the pursuing father of... of... another lost boy. Should we fault God for this prodigal's behavior? And while we are at it, perhaps we should also fault God for the arrogant and icy judgmental ways of the prodigal son's elder brother.

Anyone looking for answers to settle all such questions will not find them here. But I end this reflection with a few observations.

Woe betide us fathers who succeed in "life", but fail our children.

Woe betide us also who judge other fathers too quickly on the basis of how their children turn out. God himself has done all things well, and neither his church nor his chosen people Israel have ever given him (collectively, anyway) the satisfaction of being the father of a stellar child.

[Sidebar comment... a practical application of this thought would be to lay off on Samuel. We don't know why his two sons turned out so poorly. I suspect Samuel was away from home far too much, but that is to go beyond the text. With Samuel we must be cautious before rushing to judgement.]

I might have thought of a third woe, but I have a son nearby waiting to play a game with me. Keeping the first woe in my thoughts, I end this reflection here with some tantalizing verses...

1 Samuel 10:12 (a question asked of King Saul)
"And who is their father?"

1 Samuel 17:55-58
As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is that young man?”
Abner replied, “As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don’t know.”
The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.”
As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine’s head.
58 “Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him.
David said, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”

I'm tempted to say it's a shame we don't know more about Jesse, but in light of Jonathan's relationship to his father Saul, perhaps that is to ask the wrong question.

...And as for what the right question would be... Perhaps in another blog. This one is too long already.