With this commandment, we experience a shift in focus now. The first
four commandments were directed toward our relationship with God. In
this positively-stated commandment to honor our fathers and mothers,
we shift to the horizontal relationships around us, to the ones
closest to us first, and then generally to our relationships in
society.
To honor one's father and mother is taken from the Hebrew word,
"to weigh them heavy; to give weight to their role in my
life." To honor means to weigh heavy, to honor, to respect, to
care for, to consider as great importance. It is a command of God for
us to recognize the great worth of our parents. It is the first
commandment with a promise, as we are reminded in Ephesians. It is
the first of the commandments that says, "If you do this, things
will go well with you." Now I know parents have said that to
their children many times: "If you follow my direction, things
will go well for you. If you don't..." you can fill in the
blank. But God said this because God understood that this
relationship between parent and child, from generation to generation,
is a key, the glue, that holds people together. Children's ability to
respect God-given authority in their lives brings blessing not only
to themselves but to all of our society.
In practical terms though, what does it mean to honor our father and
mother? I believe that over our lifetimes we progress through a
continuum of relationship with our parents.
Early on, our relationship with our parents is defined by obedience.
For a long time, it seemed like blind obedience. And if our parents
were good parents and consistent in their discipline, we learned
through obeying them how to obey God, whom they represent.
We also learn how to manage and respond to authority in our lives.
The Scriptures say that obedience is right, "in the Lord,"
which means that we recognize at this early stage that our parents
are standing in for God. They are not God, and they are not to be
worshipped as God, but they are standing in for God and giving us
their children the opportunity to practice deference. It is
this respect and deference that will be transferred and related to
God as we grow older.
As we grew older, and adolescence and adulthood came upon us, our
relationship with our parents "morphed" into respect. It is
really sad when there's a gap between periods of obedience and
respect, and this is what we experience sometimes in the teenage years.
But the idea is that we grow from obedience to respect, which is a
deference to our parents without having to take each of their wishes
as our commands. With respect we give them the home-court
advantage in input, not being overtly rebellious or ridiculing, but
showing honor in our attitudes towards them.
And then as they get older, and we get older on the continuum, our
relationship, while retaining the respect, also entails care. Taking
responsibility for the care of our parents in their old age, and how
we give that care, is character-shaping for our own lives and is
instructive to our own children.
So on that continuum we have obedience, respect and care. I'd
like to take a few minutes and look at each one of those carefully.
Obedience first. In Ephesians 6:1, the Apostle Paul admonishes
the Christians at Ephesus to live godly lives in their particular
roles. He says to children, "Obey your parents in the Lord, for
this is right." Why is it important for children to obey their
parents? First of all, parents stand in as God's representative, as I
said before. The first Christian instruction comes from parents to
their children. But early on, as children are nurtured in the
church, they gain an understanding of what "in the Lord"
means. They learn the Word of God. They learn what is God's law and
God's way of living, what God's will is. They learn how that
translates in their families into an understanding and an
appreciation of what their parents are passing onto them in the Lord.
As children get older (of course, they start testing this at age
two), they might question more if your actions on their behalf are
really "in the Lord." That's always a very fun conversation
for parents to have with their children, how their demand or
requirement at the moment is consistent with God's will and God's way
Secondly, the reason why we obey our parents is that parents
generally speaking, have their children's well-being and their best
interest at heart. How often we have said to our children, "I
know you can't see the whole picture, but you've got to trust me.
This is for your own good." Am I right? It gets a little
nauseating after a while, doesn't it? "This is for your
own good. This hurts you more than it hurts me." All those great
lines, remember? But generally speaking, Jesus in his parables
assumed that parents wanted the best for their children and told many
stories based on that assumption.
We obey our parents because children really have very few short years
in which to learn from their parents. Whether we fully realize it our
not, our parents are two gold mines of wisdom and experience. Yes,
they are flawed human beings, but they learned from some of their
mistakes, and they really don't want us to make the same ones. We
have a very few years where we are under their tutelage. It is
something that gives us patience, and parents who do that right are
those who equip their children for decision-making as time goes on.
The most important reason to obey our parents is to follow the
example of Jesus, who obeyed his parents. We have the account of
Jesus going to Jerusalem with his parents at age 12. He ditched
his parents and ended up teaching the elders in the temple.
Meanwhile, his parents were frantic for three days looking for him.
They didn't think to look for him there. They finally found him and
gave him the what-for in front of everybody, and what did Jesus say?
"Did you not know that I must be about my father's
business?" which was helping them to know what "in the
Lord" meant at that moment. But then the Scripture says, "He
obediently left with his parents and he grew in wisdom and stature
in the Lord."
So Jesus obeyed his parents, even later on, when we get some
indication that Jesus' mother is getting worried about him, like he's
not eating enough. He's not resting enough, and she comes and
intrudes on his ministry. And he says some things that, on the face
of it, look very disrespectful, almost like he's ignoring her.
I think he was giving a message that his primary responsibility now
was not to please his mother (I mean, he's 30, after all) but to
please his heavenly Father. Nevertheless, at the end of his life in
that poignant scene in the Gospel of John, what does he say to the
disciple? "Behold your mother. Here, please take care of my
mother for me." His respect and his care for her continued as he
approached his own death. So the most important reason for children
to obey their parents is that Jesus did. We're following in his
example, and therefore, because he was faithful in this area, he
gives us the power to follow in his footsteps.
Then Respect. But now as we get older, the picture
changes. What is added to obedience is respect. At this point we
might not be obeying our parents as they give specific instructions
for every aspect of our life, but when we are home with them,
honoring our father and mother means honoring the rules of the home.
It wouldn't be reasonable for a child to expect mom and dad to bend
the rules that have been there for the last thirty years in order to
do something at home that was not permitted before. That would be
disrespectful of mom and dad. Respect shows deference. Respect defers
to the wishes of another, and respect in that case means, "Even
though we might disagree with one another, mom and dad, when I am
with you, when I am in your presence, when I'm in your home, and even
if I speak publicly about you, I am going to do that with respect and
gratitude in my attitude." This is very key. We'll talk in a
minute about what makes that difficult. But respect for a person is
giving dignity and honor based on being created in God's image.
Loving someone as a child of God, even one's own parents, is a way to
show respect and to confer dignity upon that person.
And Care. Time passes and our parents get older and they
need more help from us. Some have written on the subject of
role reversal where, as mom gets really old, I become mom and she
becomes more like my child in that very tender period of life towards
the end. Our calling as children is to give care and concern to and
for our parents. We do that by showing kindness. We do that by giving
care when it is needed, arranging for care in a loving and
compassionate way, by letting it matter to us what happens to our
parents. One of the things that can be frustrating in one's
relationship with parents is when they so completely and carefully
plan their lives, over decades of time they give the message that
they don't ever want to be a burden on their children. Such a value
in our society has been placed on independence, that some parents
don't ever want to depend on their children for care in later years.
That's hard, because many children would like to. We would find joy
in that. But if they say they don't need us, it would be
disrespectful at this point to say, "Mom and Dad, you need
us." Right? So those are some of the dilemmas that we face.
But there does come a point where such care is absolutely required.
In the biblical picture, this was a sacred duty of sons and daughters
to take care of parents in their old age, and it is a privilege for
us. I bet some of you picked your mate based on how well that
potential candidate for marriage treated his or her mother and dad.
It says something about a person's character if he or she has
patience and compassion for the one who has given them nurture
through a lifetime. So that's what I think honoring means: moving
through this continuum with Jesus Christ at the center of it with our
heavenly Father very firmly planted in our hearts, giving deference
to our parents in age-appropriate ways that honor them and lift them
up and foster that family relationship
How well we honor our parents affects the quality of our own lives
the Scripture says. It says, "So that you may live long in the
land God is giving you." I ran across one of Grimm's Fairy
Tales in this connection and I'd like to read it to you
Once upon a time there was a little old man. His eyes blinked and his
hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware
distressingly, missed his mouth with a spoon as often as not, and
dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his
married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son's wife was a
modern young woman who knew that in-laws should not be tolerated in a
woman's home.
"I can't have this," she said. "It interferes with a
woman's right to happiness."
So she and her husband took the little old man gently but firmly by
the arm and led him to a corner of the kitchen. There they set him on
a stool and gave him his food, what there was of it, in an
earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking
at the table with wistful eyes.
One day his hands trembled rather more than usual, and the
earthenware bowl fell and broke.
"Well, if you are going to be a pig," said the daughter
in-law, "you must eat out of a trough." So they made him a
little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.
Now these people had a four-year-old son of whom they were very fond.
One supper-time the young man noticed his boy playing intently with
some bits of wood and asked what he was doing.
"I'm making a trough," he said, smiling up for approval,
"to feed you and Mamma out of when I get big."
The man and his wife looked at each other for a while and didn't say
anything. Then they cried a little. Then they went to the corner and
took the little old man by the arm and led him back to the table.
They sat him in a comfortable chair and gave him his food on a plate,
and from then on nobody ever scolded when he clattered or spilled or
broke things.
Now, the moral of that story is this: If I decide to curse my
parents, it has the effect of a boomerang. That story teaches us that
we should honor our parents lest our children dishonor us. It's all
about the example that we give: doing what's right, doing what's
required, doing it with a proper attitude. This is what we are
teaching our children by giving respect and honor, "giving
weight, "weighing heavy," our parents
Now I know some of you are asking this question: But what if my
parents don't deserve honor? Our society has been more than
open about the possibility and the reality that some, relatively few,
but some fathers and mothers can blow it badly. We read accounts of
abuse, of abandonment, of neglect, of poor judgment. At the hands of
some parents like these, children suffer. They would be the ones who
would have the hardest time honoring their fathers and mothers.
But the interesting thing about this commandment is that it gives no
out to such children. There is no excuse or exemption given to
children of parents who have blown it badly. Respecting and showing
concern for our parents is an obligation all children have to their
parents. The fact that parents don't deserve it only illustrates for
us one more time the grace and mercy that God has poured out on us as
God's children.
You might have read in the paper in the last couple of months that
President Bush has a thing. His thing is this: that when you come
into the Oval Office, you shall wear a coat and tie or appropriate
business attire. Apparently, he didn't like the informality of the
Clinton White House and wanted to make sure the new ones coming in
would show respect. You may not agree with President Bush's politics,
but what he saying is, by dressing appropriately, you are giving
tribute to the Presidential Office.
Showing respect for the Office of Parent is what this commandment is
about. You may not agree with what your folks say; they in fact may
have hurt you; you may not feel their judgment is very good. But God
says you have to show respect for the office of parent.
You should show respect in several different ways.
First of all, we do that by recognizing the God-given status our
parents have by virtue of their position. God placed them in that
role in our lives. That is by divine appointment that those
particular two people are the ones that ended up being your parents
and my parents. That is given by God. So when we grapple with that
relationship, part of our tussle is with God himself. We keep that in
mind.
Secondly, we show respect by understanding the context in which our
parents function, including their own upbringing, including
situations caused by world events and personality types they were
born with. It is so much more helpful to learn how to understand our
parents and how they are wired before we are critical or
disrespectful of them. In fact, you can gain some incredible insight
into your parents by identifying where they were and what they were
doing and what the world situation was like the year they turned ten.
Studies show that the year you turned ten, the things going on around
you have a profound effect on your outlook and on how you view the
world. So if you turned ten in 1929, let's say, the day the stock
market crashed, that's going to have an effect on how you view money
and security. If you turned ten in 1941 or '42, after Pearl Harbor
during the Second World War; if you turned ten during the Vietnam
era, those are events and times and places that shape a person's
outlook. We get an appreciation of that from Tom Brokaw book, "The
Greatest Generation", getting a sense of the mindset of men
and women shaped by world events. It's been helpful to understand
that I turned ten in the mid-60's, just months before Kennedy was
shot. In those next few years, the incredible upheaval of attitude
toward authority shaped some of my views about institutions - even
the church - views that would be incredibly different from my parents
who turned ten during the Great Depression
We can show respect also, thirdly, by releasing our parents from our
expectation that they be perfect and accepting the fact that they
come with significant deficits themselves that we cannot change. I
know it's a hard truth to swallow, but our parents are not perfect. I
know you'd like them to be, but they never will be
Fourth, we show respect by assuming that they have been motivated by
love at some fundamental level, even if they have had a damaged way
of showing it.
And then we show respect to our parents by loving them in the ways
they feel loved. What helps them to know that you love them? If you
can say "yes" in some of those areas that show respect, it
means you're listening and wanting to be with them
Now having said all this - that showing respect is required even when
our parents don't deserve it - God has not released the younger
generation from its responsibility to learn from the mistakes of
their parents. The commandment does not release us from the
responsibility to make our own choices about how to live. But our
lives will be better focused if we build them on the strengths of our
parents rather than be driven to reactivity by the negative stuff.
A wise person once told me "Become the kind of parent you know
God wants you to be, and the failures of your own parents will be in
a sense redeemed." By honoring our parents and holding that
view, we can pass a blessing to the next generation.
While we strive to treat our parents well, we should also consider
how weighty or valuable our own parenting is. And that's one of the
challenges of this day. It's very hard to know at the moment how our
parenting will result later. Although the Scriptures tell that if we
love and give good discipline to our children now, they will not
depart from it later. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it."
Some of us are waiting for our children to get older.
For some of us, this is only an article of faith at this present
moment, as we anguish over the choices our children are making. We
pray that God will protect them through their mistakes and learning
by trial and error. No matter what our children do - despite
what our kids do - we have a calling to stay the course of honorable
parenting.
I heard a fascinating lecture recently by a Fuller Seminary School of
Psychology faculty member. She made the observation that goals
of parenthood have shifted in the last 100 years. At the
beginning of the 20th Century, parents hoped their kids would grow up
to be honorable. By the late 1950's, we begin to see
sociologically a shift. Parents were articulating their hope that
their children would be successful. And by the end of
the 90's, what was the mantra that parents were chanting? What did we
want for our offspring? That they would be happy.
Hoping our children are merely happy does not prepare them to be
honorable. How will our culture reclaim the value of honor and
respect for parents unless we honor and respect our parents and
become honorable parents to our children?
This is why the ministry of the church is so important to families.
Every person here is a surrogate grandmother, mother, child,
grandchild. We practice with one another. God put many wonderful
women in my life over the last 25 years to nurture me in ways that I
needed nurturing, that enabled me to be a parent and to be a good
daughter, I hope.
The church's ministry to families is important since in our culture
the concepts of discipline, respect for elders, and deference to
authority have slipped precipitously. So it is up to the church
family to demonstrate the love and the boundaries that foster
respectful relationships between all the generations. When we do
things together, it is it for a purpose, to give generations time
with one another. That's why our All-Church Picnic on June 3rd is so
important. That isn't just for families. It's for the church
family, for all of us of all ages, to hug one-another's children, to
listen to the stories, to play games together, to celebrate something
really important and to practice among ourselves what we are called
to apply in our own homes: love, respect, obedience, care, and
compassion for the family that God has given us.
Amen.