Printer Friendly VersionIn the space of my lifetime we have gone from Opie Taylor to
Bart Simpson. Will somebody please explain to me what happened? How could
we move so quickly from models of parent-child relationship characterized
by respect and dignity to models characterized by insolence and chaos?
When I was watching Opie Taylor it was a reflection of the kind
of respect I was being taught in my own home--a place where the roles of adult
and child were clear. Now it seems that the most common model is a situation
where parents are portrayed as bumbling idiots and the children as the intelligent
and usually manipulative heroes. Something has changed.
All you have to do in order to see that is look around our society.
Was it just me, or were you taught to address your elders as "Mr. Jones"
or "Mrs. Smith?" Now we have children calling their parents by first
names as if that's somehow liberated. Was it just me, or were you taught to
answer adults with a "yes sir" or "yes ma'am" rather than
the now popular "huh?" Was it just me or were you taught that in
a crowded room a younger person is to yield their seat to an older person?
That a man should stand when a lady enters the room? That authority is to
be honored, whether parents, teachers, police officers, whomever? That a hat
should be removed inside a building? That "please" and "thank
you" should be a vital part of my vocabulary?
You're probably saying, "Boy, our young pastor is sounding
very archaic this morning." Maybe so. I just want to know, “How
did we get from Opie Taylor to Bart Simpson? Some would call it progress.
I don't think so. Some would call it more realistic. I don't think so. Oh,
it might an accurate reflection of our culture, but that doesn't make it right.
Respect and honor have fallen on rather hard times in our culture.
And what i hope we will see this morning is that those issues lie at the very
heart of this fifth commandment.
There is a lot of talk these days about family values. It's
a politically correct subject but we don't seem to have the foggiest notion
of what it means. It needs to be talked about. For we live in a society rife
with parents abusing children and children despising parents. We even have
children divorcing their parents. Not to mention the atrocious treatment of
the elderly in our culture.
What has happened? We seem to be recovering the idea that the
health of the family is directly related to the health of the nation and of
society in general. But we are living in a time when the God-ordained roles
of father and mothers and children have become so blurred we aren't sure what
is really happening.
If you don't believe that, just go spend some time in the grocery
store observing parents with their children. It's astounding to watch how
parents will buy off their children in a desperate attempt to achieve some
kind of cooperation. It would be amusing if it weren't so tragic. “We
have these little people who are in total control of their parents and they
know it. They know exactly which buttons to push. These little grocery store
tyrants riding around in their chariots - holding the whole place for ransom
if their demands are not met.”
The parents are miserable, the children are miserable and so
is everyone else around. Once when I took one of my children to the pediatrician's
office, I was sharing the waiting room with a mother and her little two or
three old son. This kid was completely out of control. He was literally bouncing
off the walls. And the mother just sat there staring at the floor, looking
totally defeated.
Finally when the little kid came crashing down with a toy box
on top of him, I guess she noticed my mouth hanging open, and she shrugged
her shoulders and said, "I just don't know what to do with him."
I wanted to say, "Lady I've got an idea or two." What is happening?
I want to suggest to you this morning that much of the disrespect, cynicism,
even the violence in our culture can be traced to a breakdown in the proper
and God-ordered relationship between children and parents.
Now that's not a big secret to most of you. I suspect that most
of you would agree that in terms of healthy family systems, we have a real
problem in this country. But beyond the societal realities there are significant
spiritual realities that surround all of that and those things are the focus
of this fifth commandment.
The principle here is the principle of paying respect to whom
respect is due and honor to whom honor is due. And in the learning of that
spiritual principle, parenthood is a divinely delegated authority. You cannot
reverence God if you do not reverence your parents. There is something basic
about our relationship with God that can only be learned and modeled in family.
There is something so vital, so basic about children learning
to live with respect toward their parents, that God places it among the most
serious of offenses when it doesn't happen. Lest we think this fifth commandment
really isn't all that important, we should remember that the penalty among
the people of Israel for dishonoring your parents was death.
In Romans chapter 1 Paul is listing the evidence of the sinfulness
and falleness of humanity. Right in the middle of the list: "they disobey
their parents." Second Timothy 3 talks about the condition of people
in the last days. Again right in the middle of the list: "disobedient
to their parents." Proverbs 6:20 says, "My son, keep your father's
commands and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Bind them upon your heart
forever; fasten them around your neck."
Do you get the idea that God takes this very seriously? Somehow
the health of our relationship with our parents is directly related to the
health of our relationship with God.
Now there's a very important question we need to deal with at
this point. "Who is this commandment for?" To whom are these words
really being directed? You see, as adults, what we tend to do when we hear
this commandment is elbow our kids and say "Now listen up, this is for
you." I don't think so. In fact I would suggest to you that this commandment
is really aimed at adults every bit as much as it is intended for children.
The truth is we never cease to be children of parents. That's
true whether or not your parents are still living. You are still their children
and there are still issues of honor that need to be thought about. Now the
reason I say that this command is aimed at adults as well as children is this:
the center of this command is not on the issue of obedience. There is lots
of biblical instruction about obedience, like Ephesians 6:1: "Children
obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."
This command, however, does not center on obedience but on honor--or
to use the word I've been using this morning, respect. The word means to esteem,
to reverence, to glory in, to take seriously, to value, to regard, to admire.
You see there is no one specific behavior that is commanded. It's a mind-set,
an attitude, a way of relating. In fact the promise that is attached to this
command is not conditional but proverbial. It's not a condition: "If
you honor your parents, then you will live long." It's proverbial, an
observation of how things work. That when honor characterizes that relationship,
prosperity and health normally follow.
Now we need to acknowledge here that the responsibility of this
command cuts all ways. Certainly there is responsibility placed upon children
to honor their parents. But there is also responsibility placed on adult children
to continue to honor their parents. In fact it may be that the care of elderly
parents is primarily what is in mind here. And that begins to say something
very significant to our culture. In some ways we are doing a shameful job
of taking care of our elderly. Thousands have been dumped in institutions--out
of sight and out of mind--so we can get on with our lives.
But what should we expect. Do we really think that children
who have been dumped off for someone else to care for them the first six years
of their lives, are suddenly going to care for those parents the last six
years of their lives? What did we teach them? We are committed to youth and
productivity. The pursuit of the American dream. We can't allow the elderly
to bog us down.
How can we expect our children to learn honor and respect if
as adult children we are not modeling it toward our parents? There are a lot
of non-Christian cultures without the Bible that do a much better job (practically)
of taking care of elders than we do. I believe one of the primary reasons
Judaism (the people to whom this command was originally given) has survived
for centuries is precisely because of its family structure. The Jews survived
the holocaust and thousands of years of anti-Semitism because the Jewish family
had a sense of identity and a sense of order.
It doesn't matter where the family is on Sabbath, when Sabbath
comes they stop and worship. It didn't matter what Hitler and all the power
of Nazism said, when Passover came it was time tell the story. Even if the
family was gathered in a concentration camp and there were no candles to light.
There was a sense of order and identity that gave them roots and strength
and perspective and discipline.
And at the heart of that family structure was a reverence for
parents, a high regard, a respect, an esteem for the older members of the
family. The elderly were honored and cared for.
God created the family structure to work in that way because
he knew it would be the way to learn what it means to love God with all your
heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. So the responsibility of the
command is not only to young children but to adult children. But that's not
all. There is an implied responsibility here of parents to children.
Parents can enable their children's disobedience, like that
mother in the doctor's office. When parents refuse to take up their God-ordained
role and exercise the authority of that sacred office with love and grace,
they enable their children's disrespect. And I might also add here that when
there is disrespect and dishonor between a husband and a wife you can't very
well expect your children to learn the honor called for in this commandment.
Husbands, don't you expect your children to respect their mother unless it
is obvious to them that you hold her in high respect and honor.
Now there's a practical question we have to deal with here and
then we'll be through. If indeed God is calling us to honor in our families--in
our relationship with our parents--wherever we are in the life journey, how
is that honor displayed?
Some preachers think that you shouldn't give personal illustrations
from the pulpit. I've never believed that because I believe part of my responsibility
as your pastor is to let you see how I'm trying to live these things out.
So I'd like simply to share with you how I try to display honor to my parents.
And I share this with a heightened sense of vulnerability because these are
intensely personal matters.
So I pray that you will receive what I say in the spirit in
which it is intended. As I thought about how I show honor and respect to my
parents I identified four things:
The first is that I honor their position in my family. I teach
my children that their grandparents are people to be respected and valued.
They have things to teach my children that I never could. I tell them the
stories of our family and how faithfulness to God has been and should remain
a multi-generational commitment.
Second, I try to honor my parents by living productively. By
making a contribution to society and more importantly to the kingdom of God.
By living out the values that they tried to instill in me. By embracing the
faith that they so carefully handed off to me.
Third, I honor my parents by offering them forgiveness for their
shortcomings. If you've heard me talk much at all you know I hold my parents
in very high regard. But they were not perfect. Nobody is. I am not a perfect
parent. We are human and subject to failure. Consequently, I need to be willing
to offer forgiveness to people including (and perhaps especially) those closest
to me. This way of respect speaks to those whose relationship with your parents
was or is difficult.
You see one of the questions that always comes up around this
commandment is, "What if my parents were abusive? What if my parents
abandoned me, how can you tell me that I should honor that kind of parent?"
It's a fair question. And it is true that some of you have experienced great
pain at the hands of your parents. God knows that and he will judge that.
And for you to say to that kind of an abusive parent, "I
honor you and respect you as my mom or my dad" would not be right. If
that's your situation, there is still a way for you to obey the fifth commandment.
Forgive them. That may be the only measure of respect that you will ever be
able to give your parents but if that's all, by God's grace it will be enough.
If they have hurt you, forgive them--as God has forgiven you. When you didn't
deserve it, when you didn't ask for it, when you didn't acknowledge it--while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. Forgive them. Forgiveness
does not mean what they did was right. It means that you give up the role
of judge and trust that issue to God.
Finally, I will honor my parents by caring for them in every way I possibly can until they go to meet the Lord. I will make them a part of my life and my family. I will tell them how much I love them and thank them for what they have done for me. I will open my home to them, I will meet their physical needs. I will refuse to assign their care to a stranger until I have done everything possible to care for them myself. They met my every need when I was totally dependent on them and would have died without them.
And by God's grace I will meet their needs when they become
dependent on me.
The fifth commandment is a line drawn against the brutality
of a culture that forgets where it came from. How are you doing at honoring
your father and your mother? Even if your parents are no longer living, you
honor them or dishonor them in how you hold their memory and reputation to
those who come behind.
You cannot reverence God if you do not honor your parents. What do you need to do to bring your life in line with this commandment?
