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Beware of Blind Spot
“Why do you honor your sons more than me…”
Teow Seng, 27/06/2010
“Despite
efforts to get Singaporean fathers to be more involved in caring for their
children, the majority of dads do not see themselves in the caregiver role.” (The
Straits Times18.6.2010) The finding reveals that the traditional ideology of
gender roles – that father being the provider and mother being nurturers,
taking charge of domestic affairs – is prevalent among Singaporean households.
However such a mindset needs to be changed with an increase in numbers of
families with dual career couple.
In
last Sunday’s sermon “The Art of Fathering” by Rev. Anthony Ang, we were
reminded that the father is a caregiver who shows love, encourages, comforts
and urges his children (I Thess.
2:8-12). Besides, being the head of the household, he is entrusted with spiritual
responsibility to be a good role model. In my personal reflection on the
role of a father, the tragic end of Eli and his family crossed my mind. Eli was
a priest as well as a judge in his days when the Word of the LORD was rare. (1
Sam. 3:1). Eli, on many counts, was a godly man and a loyal priest. On the
other hand, Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas were sinful. Their deeds were
wicked, contemptuous and show a total disregard of the holiness of God. I
wonder how this happen? How could a godly man go so wrong that the sins of the
sons became the sin of the father? 1 Sam 2:25b and 2:29, reveal that Eli’s
non-action against the sinful deeds of his sons was the cause of them not
heeding his advice. Eli was portrayed as honoring his sons more than honoring
God. David Wong, after studying Eli’s life, concludes: “In one word, the
failure of Eli was indulgence. Such indulgence is fatal. Kindness towards those
we love becomes kindness towards the wrong they do. Kindness turns a blind eye
to sin. We gradually become oblivious to our tolerance of sin, in others and in
ourselves.” When others can see
clearly and we cannot, that is our blind spot.
The recent anti-littering
advertisement conveys a meaningful message to parents: While we have done well
in many areas, is there any area(s) that we have neglected. Let’s constantly
reflect upon our role as Christian parents and pray that God reveals our blind
spot, lest we fail to discharge our spiritual responsibility. What
can we do then? Let us be watchful and remind one another with love so that we
can fulfill our parental responsibility.
Teow Seng
“尽管很多新加坡父亲努力更多的关心孩子，大多数父亲觉得自己不是看护者。”[i]（海峡时报2010年6月18日刊）这一发现表明，性别角色的传统思想——父亲是供应者而母亲是照料家庭事务的养育者——在新加坡的家庭很普遍。然而随着双重工作人士家庭的增多，这种观念需要有所改变。[ii]
上周汪牧师的讲道‘做父亲的艺术’提醒我们，父亲其实是一位给予爱，给予鼓励的看护者，安慰和督促他的孩子（帖前2:8-12）。另外，作为一家之主，父亲也肩负着树立美好属灵榜样的责任。
当我个人思考父亲的角色时，以利和他全家的悲惨下场在我脑海浮现。以利在当时神的话语稀少之日，作以色列的祭司和审判官（撒上3:1）。以利在很多方面是非常敬虔和忠心的祭司。而在另外一方面，他的两个儿子何弗尼和非尼哈却罪孽深重。他们行为邪恶、亵渎，全然无视神的圣洁。我想知道这怎么可能？一个敬虔的人如何偏离到如此地步以致于儿子的罪可以成为父亲的罪？撒上2:25下及2:29揭示了以利对儿子恶劣行径不予干涉是儿子不听从他的原因。以利被形容是尊重儿子过于尊重神。David Wong在研究了以利的生平后得出结论：“总而言之以利的失败在于他的放纵。这种放纵是致命的，善待我们爱的人却变成了宽容他们的罪恶。仁慈的心叫人的眼睛受蒙蔽而犯罪，我们渐渐忘记了我们对别人和自己的罪的容忍。”[iii] 当别人能够清晰的看到而我们自己却不能，那就是我们的盲点。
最近的禁止随意丢垃圾的广告向家长们传达了一个很有意义的信息：当我们在很多地方做得很好时，是否有些地方被我们忽略了。让我们不断反思我们作为基督徒父母的角色，并祷告神揭露我们的盲点，否则我们将不能履行我们属灵的责任。
我们可以怎样行呢？让我们个人儆醒，也借着彼此爱心提醒来一齐尽上父母的责任。
朝圣 | |
Pastor's Desk