Fatherhood
There are pitfalls in talking about fathers and fatherhood as if we all know what fathering means. Social patterns of parenting and gender roles, the high proportion of absent fathers, attitudes to patriarchy, marriage and male heirs, make the loving fatherhood of God a complex issue. Yet on a more day-to-day level, most of us have some role model, some ideal type of father in the data bank of our imagination and memory, which helps us understand what this is about.
Here, we can see that this Father is not indulgent, not absent, not unknown, nor abusive, although at first reading there is a severity that does not quite fit our easy-going 'dad' image. He knows us and judges us. He treats us, his children, impartially. He has no favourites. He tells us how to live and expects us to obey. His authority does not lessen as we mature. He continues to discipline us. 'My child, do not despise the Lord's discipline and be weary of his rebuke, for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as parents the children they delight in', says Proverbs 3:11 and 12, quoted in Hebrews 12. Adults, as well as children, need the boundaries set by wise authority.
So all our rich traditions and experiences of good parenting help us to glimpse the width and depth and height of the loving fatherhood of God. And we are called, supremely in our own parenting, but also in our relationships with those over whom we have authority, to model this kind of care.
But that is not the whole story. This verse goes on to imply that the consequence of the impartial authority of God, our Father, is that we cannot look to any other authority or any other judge. We fear and worship him alone. In this we, parents, children and all humanity, are all equal - all disobedient children - needing forgiveness and the on-going guidance of the Holy Spirit. Those of us who do belong to him and have been redeemed by him cannot look to the cultural and social patterns around us for guidance. We are strangers in a fallen world.
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