Statistics have long heralded a crisis in families because many fathers are “missing in action.” Volumes of books have been written telling us what we already instinctively know: the fallout from an “MIA” father reaches into the lives children for many years.

In fact, psychology and psychiatry have created whole fields of study and counseling to help survivors of the dysfunctional family and the wound that extends to the second and even third generation.

God set things up right when He established the family as the building block of a healthy society. No wonder the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians that the Lord’s Church was really a family (see Ephesians 5 & 6).

This spiritual insight was brought home to me anew when we celebrated the ordination of my co-worker, Spiro Bobotas, to the deaconate recently. I was struck by the powerful truth that we, as a Church, weren’t making Spiro into something he was not, but we were recognizing and making visible what already was occurring in the life of our community. Spiro was already a “father” among us; we were adding our “Amen” to the clear work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

But that is what the Church does. We make visible the invisible and we reveal hidden reality. That means sometimes we reveal beauty, and sometimes we reveal just the opposite. We are never to hide even our flaws, because they should be, for our own good, revealed so that they can be healed. Our Lord called us “the light of the world,” and that means we don’t shun the hard work of revelation or honesty to serve our comfort. We say the hard things, we do the hard work, we walk the hard path, and we never forfeit our freedom from darkness by making peace with mediocrity.

One way we reveal this faithful commitment to the light is our refusal to emulate the system of the world in our churches. We use the model of “family” rather than the more popular “business” model that seems to be so in vogue nowadays. The Orthodox faith insists on the need for “fathers” in our midst to “convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” (2 Timothy 2:4)

This commitment to authentic spiritual “fathers” is much more involved and complex than the model of a pastor as a dynamic and charismatic CEO managing a religious corporation, but this more difficult way produces a much more mature and effective disciple of our Lord Jesus.

Here are three advantages to spiritual “fathers” as the heads of parish life.

First, The ICON Advantage. Jesus commanded us to “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) St. Paul told the Corinthians to imitate him, “just as I also imitate Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1) As Orthodox Christians, we are used to seeing icons in our churches, but when we cultivate the vision of authentic spiritual fathers in our midst, they provide us a living icon of the one, true Father in heaven. Our Church teaches that there is really only one “Father,” and all other “fathers” are meant to be an extension of that one Father’s paternal love and ministry. So, our natural fathers are meant to reflect the Fatherhood of God and our spiritual fathers are meant to do the same, but there will always only be one, true Father.

Second, The WISDOM Advantage. St. John wrote “I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning.” (1 John 2:13) There is something about the passing of years and the lessons learned in the school of hard knocks that make the wise words of mature fathers so valuable to all of us. The gray hairs are a sign of time spent living life and that wisdom is preserved and honored when we have spiritual “fathers” among us rather than a mere professional clergy class.

Finally, The ACCOUNTABILITY Advantage. St. Paul said “For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 4:15) While we may have many people who teach us about religious things, we are spiritually accountable to our “fathers” in the faith. This healthy sense of accountability serves all of us well in calling us to an authentic communion and a constant calling to spiritual maturity and integrity.

I wish I could tell you that every priest lives up to these lofty ideals. I wish I could tell you I invariably live up to these wonderful truths, but, try as I might, I don’t. Even so, this wisdom established by God in the founding of His Church as His eternal Family, gives us the goal and the best model for spiritual maturity. That wisdom hasn’t been improved upon in 2000 years. Even with all our flaws, the model of “fathers” in the Church is the best and most difficult path to consistent communion with the One, True, Father in heaven. May God grant us “fathers” in our midst!

Father Chris Metropulos

source: http://www.receive.org/