Who Is Your Father?

Years ago, right after I was married, I went to work for my father. My dad was, at that time, the charcoal man of Memphis. A day when Memphis BBQ was king, and there were more BBQ places than hamburger joints. When Teri and I got married, I sat out of seminary for a year before I went back, so I sold charcoal. I remember seeing a new BBQ place opening up and went in to see if I could interest him in some real charcoal. We talked for a few minutes, and then he stopped me and said, “What did you say your name was?” I told him, and he grinned and said, “Oh, I know your daddy, he’s good people, if it’s his charcoal it must be good.” And just like that, he placed his order. I learned years ago, living in the Deep South, that the first question upon meeting a stranger was not, “What do you do?” But rather, “Who is your father?” The logic was sort of, if I know who your father is, I know a lot about you. Right or wrong, that was just the way of things. We have something similar in our text this week, the real question Jesus will tell his audience is simple: " Who is your father?” It is a long passage that moves from a fickle belief in Jesus, to first insults and then stones. It reminds me of something C. S. Lewis said in one of his essays, “[Jesus] produced mainly three effects—Hatred—Terror—Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.” Our text certainly bears that out. We will talk about it on Sunday.