Community Church Sermons

June 18, 2006

The Second Sunday after Pentecost

Father’s Day

“To Be A Man”

Psalm 8: 1 - 9

Ephesians 4: 11-16

Rev. Dr. Robert M. Puckett

Rufus Jones, the Quaker mystic, tells a story which sets the tone for what I want to say this morning. His widowed mother went into town to shop, leaving her young son, Rufus, to do some chores. The boy fully intended to obey his mother, but the temptation to go fishing instead was too strong. The hour of reckoning came when his mother returned. Young Rufus was sure that he was in for severe punishment. Instead, his mother, her voice heavy with disappointment, called him into her bedroom. She had him get down on his knees and she knelt beside him. Then with her arm around his shoulder and tears in her eyes, she prayed, “Lord, make a man out of him.”

Dr. Jones said that this incident did more to guide his life in a positive direction than any punishment could have done.

These days, however, it seems that there is a great deal of confusion about what it takes to make a man out of anyone.

About twenty years ago Dr. Charles Trentham and I helped Dr. Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King International Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, to develop a college of ministers program jointly sponsored by the chapel and the International Council of Community Churches. On the opening night Charles said that we were the best looking white people present. That might have been because we were the only white people present. Other white clergy did show up later.

The theme that first year was “The Crisis of the Black Male” but it actually turned out to be about the identity crisis of white males as well, because they also struggle with some of the same pressures that our black brothers do. Male identity struggles affects our whole society.

One of the speakers was Dr. Dexter Wise who calls himself “The Rappin’ Reverend”. I can’t do it the way he did, but here is part of what he said:

Every little boy wants to be a man,

shave every day as soon as he can,

drive a fast car,

make the women go wild,

turn all their heads as he bops down the aisle.

The problem is to know what kind of man you ought to be,

you don’t get much help from just watching TV.

All of those models can get a fellow mixed up.

Which is the true model of being grown up?

Batman, Spiderman, Pakman, He-man, Macho man,

six million dollar man, G.I. Joe, Larry, Curly and Moe,

Popeye, the Great American Hero,

If you want to be a man,

Let me tell you. It’s not easy but you can.

Don’t blindly accept what you see on TV

As being what manhood is in reality.

You must do more than just style and profile,

turn off that tube and listen here a while,

If you want to be a man,

it’s not easy but you can.

It’s supposed to be sexy to have hair on your chest,

but a brain in your head is by far the best.

Lifting weights can develop your muscle,

but in order to provide, you’ve got to work and hustle.

Poppin’ pills and love to fight, how can you expect

to win when you’re high as a kite?

Lots of women in your book

with their names on your pad?

Build up your ego

Make you think you bad?

It’s not how many women you can leave and make sad,

It’s all about learning how to make just one woman glad.

Making a baby doesn’t make you grown,

bragging about the wild oats you’ve sown,

Being a man means responsibility,

A father, a husband, and supporting a family.

Want to be a man?

It’s not easy but you can.

I agree with The Rappin’ Reverend that television does not give us a clear image of what a real man is like.

The Moronic Model of Manhood

One of the dominant models of manhood depicted on television is the moronic model. Many of the sitcoms make men out to be bumbling idiots. They are evidence of the dumbing down of America. Many of the television commercials also make men out to be stupid. I wish someone would tell me why the people who write television commercials think they have to make 95% of all the people who appear in them look stupid.

If you want to know what it means to be a real man today, you will surely have to look somewhere else beside what you see on TV.

The Macho Model of Manhood

Another dominant model of manhood in American culture today is that of the Macho model of manhood.

I am deeply offended by two of the recruitment commercials for military service seen on TV.

One shows a father saying to his son, “There is something different about you. You’re a changed man. You looked me in the eye and shook my hand. Where did that come from?” The implication being that being in the army made a man out of him.

The other one has a black young man telling his mother that he found someone who will help him go to college. He says that they will give him training in any field he wants. And he ends by saying, “And it’s time for me to be the man”

It is true that some boys became men while serving in the military, but it is not necessarily true that serving in the military will make a man out of you.

Military service crushes some, leaves others broken and maimed for life, and still others dead on the field of battle.

There are some very good reasons to enlist in the military. Love of country, or the preservation of freedom, for example. But it will not necessarily make a man out of you.

My father served in the first World War and was hit with mustard gas on the battle field in France. It left him with broken health, a bitter spirit, and frustration that he had to depend on my mother to support our family. He was a graduate of Georgia Tech as an Electrical engineer, but he was never able to pursue that career because he spent portions of most years for the rest of his life in veterans’ hospitals. It left him angry at God and the government, and discouraged with life itself.

He was opposed to my entering the ministry and refused to hear me preach until years later when I came back to my home church to preach. Tim was about three years old and he had wrapped my father around his little finger. So on the first night when we got ready to go to church he took my father’s hand and said “Let’s go Pop,” and to my complete surprise he went. On the second night he was the first one ready to go and on that night he turned to Christ and I had the privilege of baptizing him later in the week. Unfortunately, he did not live long after that.

Joining the military in order to become a man is often unfortunately a desire to become a man according to the macho model. And sometimes that leads to misconduct in the line of duty. For others it leads to sad disappointment. Last year 87 of our soldiers committed suicide. Military service did not make men of them, it crushed their will to live.

The macho model leads to other serious problems as well, such as spousal abuse, and gross insensitivity to other human beings.

One of my cousins recently sent me an email about a plane that passed through a severe storm. The turbulence was awful and things went from bad to worse. When one wing was struck by lightening, one woman lost it completely. She stood up in front of the plane and screamed, “I’m too young to die. I want my last minutes on earth to be memorable. Is there anyone on this plane who can make me feel like a WOMAN?”

For a moment there was silence. Everyone just stared at the desperate woman. Then a Marine stood up in the rear of the plane. He was handsome, tall, well built with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Slowly, he started to walk up the aisle, unbuttoning his shirt as he went, one button at a time. As he removed his shirt his muscles rippled across his chest, and the woman gasped.

Then he spoke as he thrust his shirt forward and said, “Iron this, and then get me a beer!” The macho model of manhood!

Are better models possible? I think so.

The Moral Model of Manhood

The moral model of manhood is a far better model of manhood.

One of the most famous stories of the gifted Southern writer, Flannery O’Connor, was entitled “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

One of her characters remarks, “A good man is hard to find. Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day when you could go off and leave the screen door unlatched. Not any more.”

As time goes on, it seems that the truth expressed in that statement becomes more affirmed by the shape our world is in these days.

A good man is hard to find.

Many people look for one without success.

Where can you find a good man in our world today?

Judges want to know.

Welfare mothers want to know.

Bright women want to know.

Little fatherless boys want to know.

Abandoned wives want to know.

Where are the good men when they are needed most?

Some are so absorbed in sports that there is room for nothing else. Some are living in the fast lane and cannot slow down long enough to discover lasting values. Some are possessed by their possessions. Some are spaced out on alcohol or drugs. Some are in jail and too many are already in the cemetery.

God said to the prophet Jeremiah, “See if you can find a man, who does justice and seeks truth.” (Jeremiah 5:1)

What is it like when you do find a good man?

You will find him mentoring and nurturing young men and boys (girls too). He will be about the work of being good a father or grandfather. You will find him working to make a better world for future generations. He will be concerned about sustaining the environment so that there will still be a fit habitation for their children and grandchildren. You will find him working for justice.

As another prophet, Micah announced, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

The Mature Model of Manhood

Above all there is the mature model of manhood. St. Paul describes this model in his letter to the Ephesians. He described it as “building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” He goes on to say that “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4: 13 - 14)

Paul gives us a description of the mature model of manhood. It could also be called Christian maturity.

Christian maturity is not primarily about going to heaven when you die. It is about finding eternal values here on earth, and learning to trust God with whatever future there may be. Jesus Christ is our best source for discovering those eternal values.

Paul also said, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. All this is from God, who reconciles us to himself through Christ...God was in Christ reconciling this world to himself.” (II Corinthians 5”17 - 19)

Mature Christians put eternal values into practice by loving this world as God loves it, and by loving our neighbors as ourselves. It means loving enemies and forgiving others just as Jesus forgave those who nailed him to the cross. It means welcoming strangers and showing hospitality to people who are different. It means caring about the poor, feeding the hungry, and acting with kindness toward all he meets.

I had a maiden Aunt named Minnie. I was about the only member of the family that she got along with, but I was just a kid. She lived with my grandparents until they died and then she would move from one to another of her eleven siblings until they couldn’t stand to have her around any more. She once got mad at my father and put salt in his gas tank and threw the car keys out into the woods. It took it two days to find the keys. When there was no longer welcome for her with any member of the family, they put her in the county old folks home where she had to share a room with a lady who was so crippled by rheumatoid arthritis that she could not dress herself, feed herself or do anything for herself, and was confined to a wheel chair.

But that was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to Aunt Minnie! She took care of the lady. She fed her, dressed her, and pushed her around in the wheel chair, and it made a man out of her! For the first time in her whole life she became a whole, loving human being and stopped being angry at the world.

Loving compassion is the primary character of the best man who ever lived, and living in His Spirit can make a real man or woman out of you. You don’t necessarily have to join the army or become a marine to be a man! Jesus is the person in whom the voice of God is heard. God’s voice is heard in him and God’s being is lived out in him. He calls us beyond tribe, gender and even religion into a mature humanity!

Living every day in the spirit of Jesus Christ is the way to be all that you can be. It enables you to be a mature person as God intends you to be! Mature men (women too) live simply, love generously, care deeply, and speak kindly.