Our Father...so begins the best-known, most beloved prayer in all of Christendom. And the one great full statement of faith that all Christians agree on and recite: I Believe on God - the Father Almighty. There you have it - the single most consistent image for God for Christians is that of a Father. True, and wisely probably, other images of God are emerging and being used in reverent ways. In our modern Church, the imagery of God as Father is more and more called into a question by special groups, but, still, it is a good image. Admittedly not perfect, for us to conceive of God as any kind of actual human is inadequate, and not really accurate. But if you are going to conceive of God as a being that we can try to understand, can speak of, can love, it is for us humans necessary, it seems, to think of him in human terms. God as Father speaks well and wonderfully, about God as a source of truth, as someone we can trust, as someone who will guide us and lead us and take care of us, but will also train us and correct us and discipline us. As Scripture says "for our own good, for what father does not discipline his son and train him up in righteousness?"

But during that training in righteousness, with our heavenly as well as earthly fathers, there is sometimes a struggle. All of us to some extent or other went thorough periods struggling against our fathers, likely when we were fiery young teenagers, seeking to establish our own God-given identity, to make ourselves the full person with the autonomy and independence that God, and our own fathers, intended for us. But the struggle was real and it was a way to grow up, and a patient and loving father supported that and quietly fostered it and encouraged it. They saw that it was necessary, as we learned to our own way in the world. But just as there were limits with our fathers when the search for independence and self-esteem took a wrong turn and just become ugly misbehavior, so sometimes we will deserve and need God's reproof and his scolding.

By now perhaps, we can understand more of what was going on and why and see our fathers' patience and restraint, and understand and accept the limits they set. There can be a lesson in all of that regarding what we can expect and desire from God. And someday treasure when we see how well it all turned out for us.

I know full well that we did not all have earthly fathers who were a great and holy image of God. And I realize that some of us were raised and loved and cared for by men other than our own original biological father, and there is lesson in that too. When many of us all gather together as we do in church, we need to speak to each other in basic generalities, and then we, as individuals, must re-interpret that, translate it, so that what we hear and speak of in common can also fit us individually.

So it is with our human understand of God. The Church, the Bible, the preachers of the Church, the received wisdom of our fellow Christians, may not always fit our own particular case. We know and believe how wonderful fathers are, but we may be missing one, or never knew one, or had the unbelievable tragedy of experiencing a bad one. And so in our human lives, we often need to see the goodness and love and care and truth of real fatherhood in other people who are not our actual fathers - a single mother instead, or a grandfather, an uncle, an older member of the family. Somewhere we will see, and have known the good image of father preserved, and helping and comforting and challenging us. So it may be in your Christian pilgrimage within the Church, You may need to find other images, other understandings of God, than the ones so widely shared by so many of your fellow Christians. And that is fine, and devout. Your experience may be different, so different that your images, the language helpful to you is different, re-interpreted. All our needs from religion and belief are and always will be unique, and you may need to adapt your understanding of God and his fatherly care, and the sources and manner of that care and love in a way that others around you may not have to use.

And final comparison between an earthly father that we honor today, and a heavenly Father that we worship every day. And that is that surely no wise or loving father wants his children to be afraid him. He rightly wants their respect and devotion. And while we realize that wickedness will be, and should be corrected, often quite directly, despite the often willful and stubborn protests we make. Many of us, probably most of us heard as youngsters, that final closing to our endless whining wrangling: "Because I said so, and I am your Father!" Not always a welcome comment, but always decisive, final, and now looking back, also wise and right. And, genuinely loving. Sometimes God gives us a similar command: "Because I am God, and I said so!" Good enough for me. Has to be!

I find great beauty and a reassurance passing anything any of us could deserve in conceiving and speaking of God as Father, Almighty yes, but also loving and tender and caring. Our Father who art in heaven, yes, in heaven, but also near at hand with us always. So Father's Day - a day to celebrate the great gift of our fathers, and wonder and rejoice at the grace and glory of God Almighty as our Father.