Ten Commandments for Today
08/11/2002 - Honor Mom & Dad
Today we continue our series on the Ten Commandments called Ten Commandments for Today. And how timely it is that on this day of family dedication we'll be looking at the fifth commandment found in Exodus 20. If you have your Bible turn to Exodus 20:12. Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
It's no secret that the American family is in trouble these days. The average marriage in this country lasts 7 ½ years. Sixty percent of all second marriages fail and every thirty seconds a couple gets divorced. In the last decade, households headed by single mothers increased by 25% and those led by single fathers grew by almost 62%. For the first time ever, nuclear families, that's a mother and a father and children of their own, dropped below 25%of all households. That's less than one in four.
One third of all babies born in this country are born to unwed mothers and since 1960 the number of couples living together outside of marriage has ballooned by 1000%, prompting one expert to say, "We are moving toward a post-family society."
And in a climate like that children are always the first to suffer, because children thrive on stability. And when families are ripped apart it causes deep, long lasting emotional wounds. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead writes, "All this uncertainty can be devastating to children. Anyone who knows children knows that they are deeply conservative creatures. They like things to stay the same. So pronounced is this tendency that certain children have been known to request the same peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch for years on end. Children are particularly set in their ways when it comes to family, friends, neighborhoods, and schools. Yet when a family breaks up, all these things may change. Novelist Pat Conroy has observed that 'each divorce is the death of a small civilization.' No one feels this more acutely than children." Many of us here know that pain first hand.
God designed the family to be the backbone of a society. It's the place where we learn to honor, obey, and respect authority. It's the place where we learn to love and be loved. It's the place where we learn how to relate to one another. So it shouldn't surprise us that God's first commandment about human relationships is focused on the family. Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
If you had a list of the Ten Commandments evenly spaced on a sheet of paper and folded that sheet in half, top to bottom, the fifth commandment would be right at the fold. That's because family relationships are so important to God that he puts them dead center on the list. And just like the fifth commandment would appear at the fold of that piece of paper, so it appears at the fold of our lives. In many ways, our lives hinge on how we respond to this commandment. It determines the destiny of our life. It affects our future. It affects how we process the past. It affects the quality of our lives right here, right now.
With the fifth commandment God makes a shift in the Ten Commandments. The first four had to do with our vertical relationship with God. Put God first. Don't reduce God. Refuse to misuse God's name. Honor the Sabbath Day. God is the focus in the first four. But in the last six commandments the focus is horizontal and on our relationships with one another. The order is not accidental, because the success of our relationships with one another depends first on our relationship with God. We can't be rightly related to one another until we're rightly related to God.
Our relationship with God gives us moral courage and relational sensitivity. It gives us the ability to trust one another, to be real with one another, to submit to one another, to confess to one another, to correct one another. It gives us the courage to come into community with each other in our marriages, in our families, in our friendships, in our church, in ways that we could never come into community unless we are rightly related to God.
The fifth commandment is the only one with a promise attached to it. Honor your father and your mother so that you might live a long and fruitful life. Certainly listening to our parents as kids can keep us from doing a lot of foolish things that can threaten our life. "Stay out of the street. Don't touch a hot stove. Don't play with matches. Don't drink from any of the cleaning bottles under the sink. Don't talk to strangers. Don't play with guns. Don't take drugs. Stay with the group. Don't wander off by yourself. Don't drink and drive." Parents have lists of things designed to keep their children safe and alive for a long time.
But there are other ways that our lives can be cut short by not honoring our father and our mother. And that's to be eaten up on the inside by anger and bitterness and unforgiveness for all the ways that our parents failed us. None of us had perfect parents and none of us will be perfect parents. We've all been hurt by our parents to one degree or another. God knows that. Yet he still says, "Honor your father and your mother as imperfect as they are, because if you do, I will honor your life. I will bless your life. I will extend your life. But if you don't, the very fabric of your life will be ripped apart." This is another tender commandment of God.
Some of you had wonderful parents. They were your heroes growing up, your examples, your models. They were honorable parents and you have no trouble buying in to this command. You love your mom and dad and look for ways to esteem them. That's a gift! But some of you didn't have parents worthy of honor. You might be thinking, "How can I do this? Bruce, you have no idea what my parents were like. You don't know the pain I've been through. I was one of those statistics that you mentioned earlier." You might feel like the woman who wrote me a letter a few years ago after I taught on this same passage in another church.
This is what she said, "Since becoming a Christian eleven years ago I had had a continual struggle in the area of showing love and respect to my father. My dad was an alcoholic for all my growing up years. They were hellish times and so often I hated him for the pain he brought into my life. After I accepted Christ I was never able to have victory over the bad feelings that I had toward him. Before my parents would come for a visit I would pray and pray that God would remove the bitterness I felt. But always in the back of my mind, I was thinking, 'But, God you don't know my father.' I felt sort of justified in holding back forgiveness toward him. After all, he ruined most of my life and now that I was an adult he could still reduce me to nothing by just a look or a word. I was civil toward my father and outwardly nobody would have known the torment inside. But the struggle just never ended."
Maybe a version of that could be your story today. I'm sure some of you could talk about parents who were alcoholics or workaholics or drug addicts or harsh or abusive or uncaring, parents who caused you deep pain and disappointment. If that's your situation, how in the world can you honor your mom and dad?
Is God asking you to put on a happy face and act like everything is fine? Is he asking you to bury your pain and not feel it or face it? Does he want you to pretend to honor your parents in some inauthentic way? How you respond to this commandment of God can radically change your life. Today your life can change.
Let's take a closer look at what God is saying here. At first pass we might think, "Why did we dismiss the kid's today? Get them back in here. This is the verse they need to hear!" You're right. Our kids do need to hear this verse. It was the first one we had our kid's memorize. But we need to hear it too, because this command was not originally given to children. It was given to adults, to parents who where exiting Egypt and parading into the Promised Land.
The Hebrew word for honor literally means "to attach weight to, to hold in high regard, to publicly esteem." It's a broad word and actually takes on different meanings as we move through the different stages of our life. When we're children living at home with our parents, "to honor" them means one thing. When we're out of the house and living on our own, independent of our parents, "to honor" them means another thing. And when we're in mid-life and our parents are moving through retirement and towards the end of their lives, "to honor" them means still something else.
So first let's see what this commandment means when we're kids or teenagers living at home under the authority of our parents. In Ephesians 6:1-3 the apostle Paul writes, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother" which is the first commandment with a promise 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
At the end of Paul's letter to the Ephesians he takes Christianity home from church and focuses on family roles and responsibilities. He says wives are to submit to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives and children are to obey their parents. To honor our parents when we're children means to obey them.
The word obey means "to obey, do what they say." I wish I could find a loophole for kids from the Greek or the Hebrew but I can't. In fact in Colossians 3:20 Paul ups the bar and says, Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. The only loophole the Scriptures give us for disobedience is when our parents or any other authority command us to disobey God.
In Acts 4, when the apostles are forbidden to speak about Jesus they say, "We can't obey that. We have to speak about Jesus. We must obey God rather than men." The only loophole for disobedience to authority is when that authority commands us to disobey God. Otherwise, our obedience is to be complete.
This week I read about a little boy who was riding his tricycle furiously around the block over and over again. Finally, a police officer stopped him and asked him why he was going around and around. The little boy said he was running away from home. The officer said, "Why are you just going around the block?" The boy said, "Because my mom said I wasn't allowed to cross the street."
There's something inside all of us that's just like that little boy. We want to rebel and run away from authority. We don't like to be told what to do. Yet at the same time there's a part of us that wants so much to obey and please those who are in authority over us. And for kids that means obeying their parents.
I'm convinced that as parents one of the best things we can do for our children is to teach them how to obey. That means communicating our expectations clearly, instructing them, motivating them, rewarding them when they succeed, and disciplining them when they fail to obey. Our children will stand a much better chance of obeying God if they first learn to obey us. Someone has well said, "Every great person has first learned how to obey, whom to obey, and when to obey."
As a boy, Jesus kept the fifth commandment perfectly. He never once disobeyed his parents. Even though Joseph and Mary weren't perfect. In fact, at one point they lost Jesus for three days. They couldn't find him. Can you imagine losing the Son of God? It's one thing to lose your car keys or forget where you left your wallet, but to lose the Messiah! How irresponsible! Yet still Jesus obeyed them in everything.
So as a child to honor mom and dad means to obey them. As long as we're in their home under their authority we're to obey. But when we leave the nest and go out on our own to work or to college or to get married honoring them takes a different form.
In Leviticus 19:3 we read, Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.
To honor our parents when we're adults means to respect them. This same word for respecting our parents is also used in other passages of Scripture for respecting God. To show "respect" for our parents is to show respect for God.
When we get out on our own we realize how expensive life is and we realize how much our parents did for us and gave to us and sacrificed for us. And one way we respect them is by communicating with them. Getting together with them. Staying in touch with them on the phone, through e-mail, writing letters, sending pictures if you live at a distance. When you do that you say, "I'm thinking of you. I respect you. I want you to stay involved in my life."
We respect them by seeking their advice and counsel on things. It was very important to me as a young adult to have my parent's blessing on my decision to go to seminary and to enter the ministry and to get married and to have kids and to purchase a home and to start a church. I wanted their support. I wanted their prayers. I wanted their input. I wanted their blessing.
We respect them by speaking well of them. Our parents aren't perfect, but we don't show respect for them when we focus on their failures, lie on the couch and blame them for everything that's wrong in our life and constantly run them down. Proverbs 20:20 says, If you curse your father or mother, the lamp of your life will be snuffed out. (NLT)
You may be thinking, "Bruce, I wish I could respect my parents, but I can't. They didn't earn my respect. If only you knew how weak they were, how selfish they were, how much hurt they caused in my life. They just don't deserve it." And that may be true.
And if it is let me remind you that somebody changed your diaper. And whoever did that for you deserves respect. Somebody cared for you when you were weak and selfish and not real pretty. Somebody gave you life and then kept you alive. Maybe you think they're unworthy now, but you were pretty unworthy then. My kids are getting old enough now to learn how much things cost. This month I told them how much our electric bill was for the month of July. And they couldn't believe it! And I said, "That's just to keep you cool!" Somebody paid the bills to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter and clothed and fed and educated. And that person deserves some respect.
Obey your parents as a child. Respect them as an adult. And when they grow old support them financially. To honor our parents when they grow old means to support them financially.
In Mark 7:9-13 Jesus had a heated discussion with the religious big wigs of his day who were breaking the fifth commandment. And he said to them, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death.' 11 But you say that if anyone says to father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
Let me tell you what's going here. The Pharisees had a custom called Corban. It started out as a good idea, like most customs do. If a godly Jewish man owned two acres of ground and only needed one acre to live off of, he could dedicate all the produce from the second acre to God. So that second acre became Corban and all the produce went to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Now, let's say one day his father comes to him for help. His field was wiped out by a frost and he needs his son's financial help. The son wants to help his dad, he wants to obey the fifth commandment, but the priest says he can't. He can't give his dad produce from the second field because it's Corban and committed to the Temple. And this is where Jesus blows a gasket. "What are doing nullifying the word of God for the sake of your tradition! You're first priority is not to the Temple it's to your parents."
That would be like saying to a parent in need today, "I can't help you out financially, because I've committed all my giving to the church." Jesus says that's wrong.
In 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul writes, Anyone who does not provide for relatives, and especially for immediate family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. We often use this passage to talk about providing for our children, but in the context of widows and the elderly Paul's talking about supporting our aging parents. Not to do so, he says, is to act worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:4 says, But if a widow has children or grandchildren these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. We really should get the kids in here shouldn't we! That repayment could run into some bucks. I read this week that it cost $250,000 to raise a child to adulthood!
So as our parents get too old to care for themselves we honor them by seeing that they're cared for financially. In Bible times there was no social security, health insurance, pension plans or 401(k)s. Today many of our parents are well cared for financially. But if they're not, even before we give money to the church, our resources are to go to them. That may mean having them move in with us or moving them into a nursing facility. Every case is different, but the command is the same. Honor them by making sure their financial needs are met.
It's interesting to me that even from the cross, Jesus made financial provision for his mother. Most scholars believe that his father, Joseph, was dead by this time. And so as the oldest son Jesus looked at his mother and said, Dear woman, here is your son. And then looked at the apostle John, his best friend on earth and said, Here is your mother. From that time on, the disciple took her into his home. She became John's responsibility the rest of her life. So that's how we're to honor our parents all through life. First by obeying them. Then by respecting them. And finally by supporting them.
If thinking about honoring your parents causes you great pain let me encourage you to do two things. First, don't ignore the pain. Don't stuff the pain. Let yourself feel the pain as hard as that is. We've all been hurt to some degree by our parents and it's important for us to admit that and own it and feel it and grieve over it. That can happen in a moment of intense emotion or it can take months to process. But you'll never be free from it until you've grieved it.
And second discuss the disappointment with somebody. Discuss your pain with a spouse, or a trusted a friend, or a trained counselor. Discuss it with your parents if they're still alive and you feel the need to. That's hard, but God can give you the courage and it will set you free. Sometimes writing a letter to a parent is a purging experience, even if you choose not to send it. You won't be able to press on into the future, until you've been set free from the past. And that's what this commandment is designed to do.
And all the while remember that there is only one perfect parent in the universe. And that's our perfect heavenly Father. David says in Psalm 27:10, Even though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. Knowing that we are deeply loved and accepted by our heavenly Father just the way we are can help us handle the worst treatment and rejection by our earthly parents.
The woman who wrote me that letter I shared with you concluded it with these words. "Last summer when we found out that my dad had cancer I was stunned. The next months went quickly and then in September he died. For the two months of his illness, I was totally unglued by the work that God performed in my heart. I realized finally that God had given me the exact father that was in his plan for me to have. If I had been given a choice, I would have wanted someone so different-someone easy to love. But God knew what was best for me. Now my strong, rock hard father was weak. He was small and scared and my heart broke because it was the first time that I ever realized that he was a human being with feelings. God was dealing with me in the most difficult area of my life."
"When he was so weak he could barely speak he told me that he loved me for the first time in my life. My insides were flooded with love and regret that I had stubbornly refused to love him over all those years. At his funeral I met so many of his friends who told me how he was so proud of me and talked about me and my sisters all the time. That just boggled my mind!"
"When you taught the fifth commandment it brought all the years of wrestling with my problem to mind. I realize that if I had heard the same message last year I probably would have sat smugly thinking, 'But he doesn't know my father." But God knew my father and he knew me and he caused all the turmoil to become calm in the end."
That's what God can do for everyone of us when he authentically honor our father and our mother.