Zion’s Hill anniversary & Fathers’ Day
Psalm 92: 1-4, 11-14 1 Corinthians 10: 31-11:1
Today is Fathers’ Day. Some of us might have had the chance to give cards and presents; others of us might be remembering our fathers. All of us might feel a mixture of gratitude, appreciation, reality and exasperation.
A little story about my father might help you see what I mean about a mixture of wanting to say ‘thank you’ for our fathers and wanting to say “oh, dad!”.
My dad died 7 years ago, so he’s not in a position to complain about this story.
When I was 10 I joined the Guides, which met down in town. At the end of the Guide meeting many parents used to come and pick us up. My dad would drive down from our house and pick me up in the car: so far, so normal. But then we would drive past our house and carry on up the hill to the garage, which was about a 10 minute walk from the house.
I would have to jump out and open the doors, dad would drive the car in and lock up the garage - then we would walk the 10 minutes back down the hill to home. Everyone else’s dad just drove their daughter home from Guides. I would get a weird lift to ‘not-quite-home’ and walk the rest of the way. Even in the rain.
But I think, looking back, that Dad and I used to talk as we walked…and I sort of enjoyed that time with him.
Even the best human father is not perfect. And yet at their best fathers show us something of what God is like.
(So let me ask you – what is or was the best thing about your father?..)
The Psalm we heard had a few things to say about how God is like a Father – like the best Father we can imagine.
We give thanks to God, we sing God’s praises, we appreciate God’s love and faithfulness (God sticks with us). God can make us happy and we love looking at this things God has made. We can call God our ‘Rock – the one we can always depend on.
Psalm 92 also talks about how good people are blessed by God – this tells us how God can help our fathers (or help you, if you are a father) to be even better at being fathers.
It says that with God’s help people can be upright, like a palm tree; and produce good things – almost like the fruit on a fruit tree – loving and caring and helping other people.
Fathers can help us think about God as our Father.
God as the best Father, the only perfect father, can help us all to be better in the lives we lead – including human fathers.
But on Fathers’ Day we do not just remember our actual fathers, who gave us half our DNA – we say thank you for the many people who might have a fatherly, loving role in our lives.
We think on Fathers’ Day of those who are our role models: teachers, neighbours, uncles, bosses at work… We thank God that we can know caring, fatherly figures of all sorts in our lives.
Today is also the 201st anniversary of this Chapel – we remember and give thanks for those who came before us here. These are people we might call our fathers and mothers in God.
The name of Thomas Skeel features a lot in the history of the foundation of the chapel, along with William Evans.
They must have been amazing characters.
I love the fact that the foundation stone was laid on June 25th 1823, and the chapel opened on October 16th 1823 – under four months!
We are grateful for the vision, dedication, and determination of the founder members and of all the people whose names we might not know, as well as those we remember well, through the years.
Most of all we give thanks for the ways that, like good fathers, the people of our past show us something of the nature of God and show us how, when we live in the right way, we are blessed by God.
We heard a snippet from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, when he says
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”
On this anniversary Sunday we think of the father and mother-figures of the past and we follow them in following Jesus.
Saint Paul also says – whatever you do , do it for the glory of God.
We may not be as many in number as in past years, we may not feel we have as much impact on the life of our neighbours, we may feel a pale reflection of what this chapel once was, but we can still do what we do to the glory of God.
We celebrate fathers today,
we thank God for his fatherly love,
and we eat and drink at the communion table so that we can be strengthened by the living Lord Jesus to follow his example to live for others, to the glory of God. Amen.
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