Father's Day and the Summer Solstice

Today we have a variety of holidays to celebrate. People who have good relationships with their fathers, or people who have children, may be celebrating Father's Day. Others may be observing the Summer Solstice, in any variety of ways. Some of us will go to church, as we normally do.I will be preaching, but at this moment, my sermon doesn't mention Father's Day. The Gospel for today is Matthew 10: 24-39, the text about Jesus coming to bring not peace, but a sword, to divide families. So I'm taking a long view of all the summer liberation holidays: from June 6 to Juneteenth to July 4. Once I've finished the revisions, I'll give a link to the sermon which I always post on my theology blog.Because it's Father's Day, my social media feeds will be full of people talking about their fathers. I do feel lucky to have gotten the father that I did. The older I get, the more impressed I am with how well he did as a father. My dad was born in 1937, so again, I'm lucky that my father learned to…