"Parental Paradox," the senior sermon of Philip Shaw, of the Diocese of Arizona, given on March 21, 2007, in Christ Chapel

John 5:19-29

About three weeks ago, I was studying the readings for today, thinking that Psalm 145 offered a safe and familiar text for developing a senior sermon. It’s a beautiful Psalm full of comfortable and comforting words — much easier to get a handle on than -- say the reading from the fifth chapter of John’s gospel.

As I studied, I was interrupted by a phone call from my son. There is nothing unusual in Chris calling me, really. He calls every now and then to make sure I’m keeping up with my homework, not partying too much. But the reason that most recent conversation sticks in my mind is that after seven months and four days — but who’s counting -- of being geographically single, I was feeling a bit homesick and that call from Chris really lifted my spirits even as it put me in a somber mood. Because, you see, the day Chris called me was the eighth anniversary of my dad’s death. Though my son and I have a good relationship now, there were years when we were both closer to Dad than we were to each other.

A half hour of talking with my son really got me thinking about this young man who is my son and about the old man who was my father. When I went back to studying, the reading from John seemed to be calling me into its reflection on the relationship of Father to Son, parent to child, and so I left the comfortable language of the Psalm for another day.

In May of 1972 when I called my parents to tell them that they were grandparents for the first time, my Dad said in his wry way, “I hope that boy is just like you.” I wasn’t sure just what he meant by that, so I let it slide. Truthfully, though, there have been more than a few times over the years when I have feared that Dad may have gotten his wish, often to the chagrin of all involved parties. My wife and my mother both contend that there is a red-haired chef in Portland, Oregon, whose stubbornness can only be compared to mine. All of you men know that you might win an argument with your wife, and you can occasionally win an argument with your mother. Good sense keeps us from arguing with the tag team of wife and mother. So, I reluctantly admit that he is a lot like me.

Like all parents and children, Chris and I have a relationship that has evolved over the past 35 years. In that time there have been a number of identifiable phases. The first, which lasted through infancy until about the time my son started school, was characterized by an unflagging devotion of son to father and father to son. This sprang I suspect from a conspiracy between my wife and our child. I refuse to accept as coincidental the fact that never once when he was teething or he had an earache or there was a monster under the bed did Chris wake up and call for his mother. He yelled “Da!” to the top of his powerful lungs, and if I did not respond quickly enough his coconspirator would plant an elbow in my ribs and say, “Your son is calling you.”

The next phase involved perhaps less devotion, but more fun. Through his elementary and middle school years, my son and I enjoyed hiking and nature, music and movies together. My previous career as a Landscape Architect appealed to him during this phase, as he developed a love for plants and the environment that is one of our strongest bonds to this day. It was during this phase in our growth together that I reached my peak as a father. I was the parent who took the church youth group to U2 and Grateful Dead concerts. That was when I became the Really Cool Dad.

And then, a great darkness settled upon the earth. Christopher turned sixteen and Really Cool Dad morphed into a cross between Darth Vader and Saruman. It was horrible thing to witness. Possibly the worst aspect of this period was its length. It seemed like forever that whenever Chris and I were in the same room, his mother wore a striped shirt and a whistle and frequently sent both of us off to the penalty box for various infractions against domestic tranquility.

It was during this phase in my life as a parent that my father reminded me that we had gone through parallel phases and that we could speak civilly to one another by the time I was in my early 20’s. I should just give it time. Then he laid a bit of parental wisdom upon me. “You’ve done all you can,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, he’s grown up. You’ve raised him right. He’ll do the right things. That’s all we parents can hope for.”

By the time our conversation was over that night at the end of February, I realized that Chris and I had moved into another phase of our relationship. It was not all that many years ago that I was a young professional calling him when he was away at school to make sure that he was keeping up with his studies and not partying too much. The whole parent–child dynamic seemed paradoxical to me. Which role belongs to whom? Who leads and who follows?

When I reread John 5:19-29, it struck me that I was not the first person to have paradoxical feelings about the parent-child relationship. Even Jesus, at least in the fourth evangelist’s account of this monologue expresses some rather contradictory, or at least not completely congruent, ideas about the roles of the Father and the Son in God’s plan for humankind.

Of course, we are accustomed to encountering cryptic language in the Gospel of John. We are accustomed to Jesus making speeches that leave us with more questions than answers, because the Jesus we encounter is John is not the compassionate teacher who gets his message across using parables and very quotable stories. John’s Jesus is more given to lectures and convoluted answers that set his critics, most frequently the religious establishment, back on their heels. That is certainly the Jesus we encounter is today’s reading from the Gospel of John.

Today’s reading is part of a long discussion between Jesus and a group identified only as the Jews, though from context, we can easily assume that there were Pharisees and priests in the crowd. In the section of the fourth gospel that precedes our reading, Jesus offers a glimpse of his dedication to doing his appointed work even in the face of threats and persecution, as happens when he heals the crippled man at the pool on the Sabbath. Following our section Jesus calls upon four witnesses to his deeds, in accordance with Hebrew law, to prove and validate his actions and the claims made about him. The ten verses appointed for today are the center third of this long discussion with his critics in which he seeks to enlighten the elders as to his relationship with his father, and frankly his explanation as found in the gospel is about as clear as any parent-child relationship then or now.

In five short verses, Jesus identifies himself both as “the Son of God” and the “Son of Man.” He says that the Son does only what the Father does, and then he claims that the power of judgment has been passed from the Father to be the sole province of the Son. And the judgment Jesus talks about here is not a simple declaration of righteousness or unrighteousness of a life lived. No, this is a judgment that involves nothing less than condemnation for eternity.

Can you imagine the mindset of his critics upon hearing this? This man, this Jesus, is claiming both humanity and divinity. He is claiming for himself the right to condemn the unrighteous, and he is making these claims as the Son of the Almighty God. Is it any wonder the religious leaders wanted him dead?

To ask a simpler question, did the people have any chance of understanding Jesus’ relationship with God? They came into this conversation much as you or I would. The Pharisees were probably son of Pharisees; the priests, sons of priests. I am the son of an Air Force Master Sergeant, and I am the father of a chef. What did they or we know about being the Son of God? How could anyone even claim such a thing?

Well, I know one thing they did not know. I know that I am also a son of God. Oh, yes, I am a son of the living God; we are all daughters and sons of the living God.

We Twenty-first Century Christians have an advantage the First Century Jews did not have — the three-legged stool of scripture, tradition and reason. We know now what Jesus meant when he talked in paradoxical language about his relationship with his Father. As Episcopalian Christians, we know that Jesus the son was “true God from true God, begotten not made.” We know with sure certainty that when we take part in the Holy Eucharist we “unite [ourselves] to [God’s] Son in His sacrifice.” We know these things because our faith is built on the strong foundation of those who have gone before us, not only the saints and the martyrs but also our own mothers and fathers, friends and sponsors, those who brought us into the light of Christ’s Holy Church. As my Dad said, they have raised us well so that we can do what is right

Our baptism has gained for us a seat at the family table. Our celebrations at that table reinforce our membership in the family of God. And as Jesus told his critics, “The hour that is coming now is.” Through our faith, faith built on the faith of our fathers and mothers, the same faith that is the foundation for the faith of our children and loved ones and even strangers on the street — in fact anyone we come into contact with, we live the eternal life now, and that life is the gift of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen