In the scope of “marriage and family” issues, one
that has received little attention from our pulpits is the responsibility
of adult children to honor their parents. We tend to read the fifth commandment
(“Honor your father and your mother” [Exodus 20:12]) as pertaining
to small children who are still in the home. What we tend to do when we hear
this commandment is elbow our kids and say, “Now listen up, this is for
you.” Perhaps that is not the whole story. In fact, a fairly good case
can be made that this commandment is really aimed at adults, much in the same
way that Jesus had words for adults who used the law to treat their parents
unjustly (Mark 7:9-13).
This sermon must begin by dealing in general with the biblical
ideals of authority, respect, and honor. There certainly is a word here for
children who are in the home and often struggle with giving appropriate honor
to their parents or with respecting their authority. Submission to authority
is a significant spiritual issue, for if we fail to learn it at home, we likely
struggle with it in our relationship to the Heavenly Father.
That being said, there is an important opportunity in this message
(that is exegetically appropriate) to deal directly with the patterns of adult
children toward their elderly (or even deceased) parents. In our contemporary
culture that places such high value on individual rights and autonomy, the
Christian responsibility to live out the Kingdom values of honor and respect
toward parents is vital.
In 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 his or her 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-year-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” (v. 30). 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” (v. 2). Proverbs 6:20-21 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.
(For the balance of this sermon manuscript, go to www.preachersmagazine.org.)
