We have an epidemic of father hunger in our society. Psychologists define father hunger as craving for approval and affection and love from an absent father, a father who was physically and emotionally absent from their children when they were young. Father hunger has to do with the lack of a father, or father figure, to discipline and encourage them, assess and blessed them; the lack of someone with authority to ‘name’ them and give them some sense of who they are as men and women. They therefore long for affirmation and direction from a male authority figure, someone they respect, someone who can say ‘no’ to them in their behaviour because they also say ‘yes’ to them as people of worth.
Psychologists say that the lack of a father’s blessing can have a devastating effect on people. It results in an uncertain identity and obsession with gaining and retaining approval. It can lead to obsessive, compulsive behaviour. It often contributes to eating disorders and emotional disorder, sexual confusion and marital instability, substance abuse and other forms of addiction. Worst of all, it fuels rage against authority as well as a fascination with powerful personalities.
Now I don’t know whether all this is true or not, but I do know that we all suffer from a kind of spiritual father hunger that no human father can satisfy. We were all born as slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe and controlled by powers that threaten our sense of self, discount our sense of worth, and rob us of our identity. So we all need someone to prove us and to approve of us. We need someone to judge and to justify us, someone to assess us and to bless us, someone to advise and affirm us. We therefore desire and require someone to father us spiritually and give us a secure identity by their approval of us.
In the second reading for today Paul tells us what God has done to meet that need by the human birth and human life of his Son: when the time had fully come God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
In the First World War two British soldiers joined the same unit and served together in the trenches of Flanders. Even though they were not related to each other, they looked so alike that the other soldiers thought that they were identical twins.
The first soldier came from a good family with loving parents as well as a brother and sister. He was well-educated and had good prospects because his parents owned a very profitable business. He had lovely young wife whom he had married just before he had enlisted: she had given birth to a son that he had never met.
The second soldier came from the slums of London where he grew up with next to nothing. He was an illegitimate child who had never known his father. He had been brought up by his unmarried mother who went from one abusive relationship to another. After a haphazard education he had left home as soon as he was fourteen to get work on the docks in the port of London. He joined the army as a substitute for the family he never had and he flourished in it because of its order and discipline and its recognition of him. Since he had no family of his own, he loved to hear stories about the family and home of his friend.
The first man who had been so privileged with his family got so close to his disadvantaged mate that he told him he should take over his identity if he should happen to be killed in battle. And that’s what happened in one of the bloody battles of the war. He swapped places with his dead friend and took on his identity. He received a new father and mother, a wife and child, a brother and a sister, a home and a business by the death of his friend. In that way he became a son and an heir in a close, loving family.
Well that’s something like what Jesus does for us and gives to us. He swaps places with us. He takes our place here and earth so that we can take his place with his heavenly Father. By his human life Jesus joins us and stands in our shoes. He takes on our life and our death, our sin and our impurity. Then in baptism he gives us his own status as God’s Son. We therefore are now able to ‘impersonate’ him and share in his sonship as much loved, adopted children of his heavenly Father. We take on his identity, dressed up, as it were, in him and as him. So, since we are clothed in Christ, we have the same status that Jesus has as God’s Son and heir. Since we are sons together with Jesus we are coheirs with him.
Paul therefore declares: So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. Everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to us: his sonship, his life, and his blessings. Best of all, we have his Spirit, the Spirit that gives us confidence in our heavenly Father and our worth as God’s children, the Spirit that prompts us to pray to him like a little child to its dear father, the Spirit that assures us that we are children of God. So Paul says: Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!
Dear children of God, you have been richly blessed indeed. Though your union with Jesus in baptism you have his Father as your royal Father. He gives you new name, an eternal name, a secure identity that depends on your relationship with him rather than on yourself and your achievements. You have the same status and privileges, the same inheritance and responsibilities as Jesus. You share in his sonship and in the Father’s love for him. You have the same access to him in prayer as Jesus does.
When you come to church and whenever you pray, God the Father looks at you and treats you as if you were Jesus. He is as pleased with you as he is with Jesus. He is pleased to hear from you and see you. He says to each of you, “You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well-pleased.” He himself satisfies your father hunger with its need for approval and blessing, affirmation and encouragement, direction and protection, stability and safety.
That’s what God the Father offers to Bowie and you through baptism! What could be better than that! Enjoy the benefits of your adoption and cherish your spiritual inheritance as a member of God’s royal family. Take pride in it as you sing:
We are heirs of the Father,
We are joint-heirs with the Son,
We are children of the kingdom,
We are family, we are one.
