Father's Day Sermon Idea
This is my dad speaking to his Sunday School class at his 90th birthday party. On this Fathers' Day I am departing from the revised common lectionary reading for this Sunday. Instead, I'm preaching from Genesis 26:18 NIV --
18 Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.
The title for the message is "Re-digging Our Fathers' Wells." The story from Genesis is that Isaac reopened wells that his father, Abraham, had previously dug, which were filled up by the Philistines. Of course, the Philistines were sea-faring people who realized that if they cut off access to water, they cut off the lives of their enemies.
The big idea of the message is that we need to reopen the wells that served as a source of life for our fathers, and which can serve as our life-source today. I'm going to examine the wells dug by our biological fathers, our denominational fathers, and our spiritual fathers.
Of course, I recognize that this is a "spiritualization" of this passage, but Fathers' Day is a Sunday for remembering the contribution that our fathers have made to our lives, appreciating their examples, and learning from them. I'll probably post the sermon text on Saturday. If you're a pastor, what are you planning to preach on this Fathers' Day?
