A man reaches maturity when he recognizes that he is not the center of the universe. In our younger years, we tend to think that it’s all about what we want, all about our wishes and our whims. But you are growing up when you recognize that the world is a great deal larger than what you want; it’s a great deal more than what makes you feel good.
For many of us, that moment comes when our first child is born. It comes home to us that we can no longer do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it, because there are now others who depend on us, others whose care we are responsible for. Many of us reach maturity when our children arrive and we discover what it will take to give them what they need.
My daughter and her husband are expecting their first child any day now; last night she said she had gone shopping, despite doctor’s orders to stay in bed. Why would she do such a thing? “We got bored”, she said. Well, I take comfort in the fact that in a few days boredom will be a thing of the past. For the next twenty or so years, no more boredom! She will no longer be able to do what she wants when she wants it.
We reach maturity when we recognize that we are not at the center of the universe, it’s not all about what we want, it’s not about our own wishes and whims. It’s about caring for those who depend on us.
It would be difficult to find a more colorful character than the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Jacob struggled with his brother Esau even while they were in the womb. As a young man he pulled a variety of tricks on his brother and his father. He had to leave home at one point, things got so tense; they sent him out to a relative to work out his aggression – I guess that’s how we would say it today – and even there he got into a complicated situation. He had to work for fourteen years until he could qualify for the bride he wanted. Jacob was many things: Jacob was a mischievous spirit, Jacob was a man hard pressed by injustice, but Jacob was also a man who encountered, face-to-face, the living God, and was forever changed by that encounter. Most of all, Jacob was a man whose maturity was measured by his devotion to his sons.
Robert Hamilton too had a mischievous spirit. He too had an energy that welled up from within and led him to find something fun to do. I heard the story about how he and one of his brothers, as boys, tied a corn cob to the tail of the old farm cat, set that corn cob on fire to see how the cat would respond, but then had to deal with a burning barn! That mischievous spirit! That fun-loving energy! Those unintended consequences! That’s Jacob! That was Robert!
Robert was also a man hard pressed by injustice. He grew up in the Georgia of Jim Crow, the south of segregation. Racism was overt and real in Woodbine in those years. Who could blame anyone for bitterness and hard feelings stemming from those days and those experiences? Who could criticize anyone who would have experienced poverty and discrimination, putdowns and problems, because of America’s longstanding issue? But Robert lived through those years, making friends of men who could have become his oppressors. With no bitterness, with no energy spent on useless recriminations, like Jacob who just worked and worked and kept on working until he got his bride, Robert just worked and worked and kept on working to support his bride and build his home. That’s Jacob! That was Robert!
But Robert, like Jacob, reached his real maturity and his full powers in his relationship with his sons. Robert Hamilton’s five sons, four of whom survived, became his true joy. And like Jacob and Jacob’s twelve sons, Robert and Robert’s four sons became a drama of exceptional proportions. What Robert did was so simple and yet so profound that it must be highlighted, it must be lifted up today. What Robert did for his sons was to understand each one individually, to work with each one on his own terms, and to give to each one the guidance and the counsel each one needed. The results speak for themselves in these men.
And so it should come as no surprise to us that when Robert neared the end of his life, he took each son aside, personally and separately, and shared with each one what was in his heart for that son. Just as the Scripture tells us of Jacob, “and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, blessing each one of them with a suitable blessing”, Robert blessed each of his sons with a suitable blessing. Of course those were private moments, at which I was not present, but can I imagine with you what those special blessings might have been? And can I affirm with you that in each instance:
The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.
I can imagine this father saying to his oldest son, to Robert, who bore his name, that he blessed you for being a healer. That as you have chosen to heal the bodies of the sick, he would want you also to heal their spirits; that as you have been called to bind up the wounded, you should also bind up the broken-hearted. If that is at all close to what he said, then:
The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.
To David, I expect he must have blessed you for being a builder – but not only a builder of structures, but also a builder of men. I expect he must have blessed you for caring about young people – I know what some of those in your Young Adult class are saying about you – you are blessed as a builder of lives, not just of structures. And so, for you too:
The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.
For Isaac – you have a name which belongs in Jacob’s family. We have the generations out of order, for Isaac was the father of Jacob, not his son. But that does not matter. I hear your father blessing you as one who would carry forward the tradition of the family, as one who would perceive and enforce its values. Abraham had to leave his own land and family and begin new ways, new patterns; it was left to his descendants to continue them, to enforce them. If you carry on this family’s ways and patterns, then for you as well:
The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.
And then Joseph – last but by no means least – a special man. You do have the name of one of Jacob’s sons, one of his younger sons, that one who nurtured and supported the family, a very special young man. In fact the words I have been quoting are from Jacob’s blessing for Joseph. You too receive the father’s love and gratitude for all that you are. For you, no less than your brothers:
The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.
Indeed they are. The blessings of your father are stronger than the blessings of the mountains. They are stronger than the bounties of the hills. The blessings of your father are stronger and greater than anything material he could have given you; stronger and greater than the bounties of your professional lives, though he helped you achieve those things; stronger and greater than the bounties of his feeding you and educating you, though he did those things. The blessings of your father are stronger than the bounties of contemporary life, for your possessions may diminish, and your professional lives may wane, but the values your father gave you will last until your own dying day. The blessings of your father are stronger than all bounties.
What was your father’s secret? What is the reason why in his maturity he did more than live out of a mischievous spirit, why in his maturity he did more than resent the racist context of his upbringing? Your father’s secret is that he knew the Lord. He knew the Lord personally, intimately, up close. Like Jacob, who wrestled with the Lord at Bethel and came out of that experience a changed man, so Robert Hamilton wrestled with the Lord every day, and came out of those encounters a changed man. Here is a man whose life in prayer was consistent, profound, intense, and real. Here is a man who would not begin his day without time on his knees, encountering the living God. Here is a man who, like Jacob of old, lived in the presence of the God of his fathers and brought to God’s attention those for whom he was father.
Do you want to see a man who could provide blessings greater than the bounties? Do you want to hear of a father who could bless his sons, each one with a suitable blessing? Look no further than the altar of prayer Robert made each morning. Look no further than Bethel, where, like Jacob, he envisioned the God who would be with him and keep him wherever he should go. Look no further than home, where, like Jacob laboring in patience for his bride Rachel, Robert labored for his bride Julia. Look no further than Peniel, where like Jacob wrestling the night long with God and not letting Him go without a blessing, Robert wrestled in prayer. Look no further than Egypt, a place far distant from the land and the ways of his boyhood, where Jacob’s sons rose to success; Washington, where Robert’s sons rose to success. What explains it? Where does it come from? Look no further than the altar of prayer each morning. This man’s blessings, this father’s blessings are greater than the bounties of earth.
So today, can you see that the blessings of our heavenly Father are greater too than the blessings of mere bounties? The blessings of our heavenly Father are greater than settled years on Aspen Street. The blessings of our heavenly Father are stronger even the blessings of peaceful years with Mrs. Hamilton, with sons and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The blessings of our heavenly Father are given to Robert Hamilton today, suitable for him. Just right for him. Because he trusted in this God of love and mercy, today there is a place prepared for Robert. Because he knew so intimately and so personally this God of life, today Robert Hamilton is blessed with the blessing of life eternal.
And I would hazard the guess that the Father has not given him a carbon-copy, boiler-plate, ordinary eternal life! I would guess that the Father who knows each of us individually has blessed Robert with Robert’s suitable blessing. And I would not guess, for I know, that the blessings of the Father, founded in the resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, are indeed “stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, [greater] than the bounties of the everlasting hills.”
