"'Honour Your Father and Mother' -- What For?"
Father's Day, June 16/02
Mt.15:1-9; Eph.6:1-4
"It Runs in Our Family"
A pastor was talking with some children in a Sunday School class. He asked them, "Why do you love God?" He got a variety of answers, but the one he liked best was from a lad who replied, "I guess it just runs in our family."
Now, that answer may not win any theology awards, but it says a lot for the boy's parents. He picked up on the fact that they genuinely loved God. It wasn't something fake or phoney or kept a secret; they were open about the importance of their daily walk with God. As a result, their son was tapping into a wonderful inheritance.
This is Father's Day - a time set aside to honour our dads, if we're blessed to have them still living. But why do we need to bother? Is it just an excuse to keep the greeting card companies in business? Our postmodern age celebrates individualism and independence, discovering your own identity, branching out from old family patterns. Why should we obey the dusty old commandment to "honour your father and mother"?
Why Honour Parents? 1) God commands it
The Bible is very insistent about this. Exodus 20:12 is the original version in the Ten Commandments which tells us, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." The NIV Study Bible notes this means to "prize highly", to "care for", "show respect for", and "obey". Deut.5:16 repeats the fifth commandment, adding, "so that...it may go well with you..." This implies much more than just doing what they say. John Calvin commented that "we are to look up to those whom the Lord has set over us, yielding them honour, gratitude, and obedience." John Wesley would include having "inward esteem" of our parents; "obedience to their lawful commands...submission to their rebukes...disposing of [our]selves with the advice, direction, and consent of parents...endeavouring in everything to be the comfort of [our] parents, and to make their old age easy to them..."
This command isn't just found in the Old Testament; several New Testament passages carry it forward into the church's life. In Mt.15(4-6) Jesus reminded the Pharisees and law-teachers that "God said, 'Honour your father and mother'" and criticized them for "nullifying the word of God" by their own man-made interpretations. Four chapters later he includes this in his list of commands that are essential for eternal life (Mt.19:19). And the apostle Paul teaches obedience for parents on the same basis in Eph.6(1-3) and Col.3(20). So, repeatedly, Scripture emphasizes we are to honour our parents.
Ideally, that should be enough justification - to declare "the Bible says so" - case closed. But to have our parents or anyone in authority justify their orders with "because I say so" is never a really satisfying answer to our stubborn, resistant human spirits. Thankfully God offers a handful of other good reasons to honour our parents.
2) To Avoid Punishment
The Old Testament records some strong negative deterrents for situations when children might be tempted to disobey or despise their parents. In Deut.21:18-21 we read: "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious.He will not obey us.He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.You must purge the evil from among you.All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." What strong punishment! Exodus 21(15,17) adds, "Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death...Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death." They weren't messing around: disrespect for parents was dealt with harshly.
John Calvin notes that violators of the command were put to death, "unworthy of the light in paying no deference to those to whom they are indebted for beholding it."
The New Testament doesn't go so far as the death penalty, but still implies there is a role for parents to punish bad behaviour. Hebrews 12(19) says, "we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it." Those accepted as sons can expect to be punished for wrong actions. So, on the negative side, we're motivated to honour parents in order to avoid punishment.
3) To Enjoy Promised Benefits
Paul notes in Eph.6(2) that this command is the first one to offer a special promise - "that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you". Somehow God offers benefits to those who learn to obey their parents.
Research has documented the positive effects of heeding parents. Take chores, for instance: who hasn't grumbled about having to do the dishes or help with yardwork? One 40-year study followed the lives of 45 teenage boys from inner-city Boston, many from impoverished or broken homes. When they were compared at middle age, one fact stood out: those who had worked as boys, even at simple household chores, enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not.
Picture it this way. When Jimmy and Sam were growing up, other kids felt sorry for them. Their parents always had them doing chores: weeding the garden, running errands, carrying out the trash. When they grew older, they delivered newspapers or mowed lawns. Sometimes other parents shook their heads and remarked that all work and no play made a dull boy. But when the boys reached adulthood, they were better off than their childhood playmates who had been less industrious. They earned more money and had more job satisfaction. They had better marriages and closer relationships with their children. They were healthier and lived longer. Most of all, they were happier; far happier. The fifth command's promise of "long life" and it "going well with you" was coming true.
4) Out of Desire to Please God
Besides the positive motivation of physical blessing, Scripture suggests we will want to keep this command out of a desire to please God. Paul writes in Col.3:20, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord."
In Jesus' life, we see Him motivated to honour God His Heavenly Father as a way of maintaining the love-relationship. He says in John 14(31) and 15(10), "...the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me...If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love." Jesus delighted to do the Father's will; it brought Him joy to see God's purposes achieved. When you love someone, you want to please them; that's a much higher motivation than just trying to avoid punishment.
5) Because It's Right
Eph.6:1 says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." It's just, it's fair, we "owe it to them". Prov.23(22) says, "Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old." They gave us life and birth, they made sacrifices to feed, clothe, and educate us; unless they were very bad parents, they went to some trouble to teach us right from wrong. It's only right to honour those who've invested so much of their time and treasure in us.
Martin Luther, back in the 1500s, quotes a saying in Latin that was already old in his time: "To God, to parents, and to teachers we can never render sufficient gratitude and compensation." Commenting on Paul's phrase "this is right", John Wesley adds, "it is what we owe to them, for the very being which we have received from them." We owe our parents honour.
One day as a young businessman was stepping off the elevator he heard the elderly elevator attendant say, "Have a good day, son." The young fellow, a little edgy, retorted, "Why'd you call me 'son'? I'm not related to you." As the doors were shutting, the older attendant just smiled a bit and said, "I brought you up, didn't I?"
Our parents have quite a bit more claim on us than the attendant; we owe them honour for getting us launched in life.
6) Vital to Stability in Society
The family, not any other institution, is the basic building block in society. As the family goes, so goes the culture. Family is a microcosm of the whole country. So, from beyond a purely personal view, it's important that children learn to honour their elders at home, otherwise chaos and anarchy will develop in the community as the years go by. The second part of Deut.5:16 says, "so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land..." The "you" isn't limited to one person; everybody is in view, the integrity and security of the group. Deut.21:21 states the penalty of death for a rebellious son, then explains, "You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." The soundness of the nation depends on the respect fostered at home. The severe penalty isn't administered for a casual caustic comment, but for repeated acts of stubbornness and rebellion; the son just won't listen to his parents, but is "profligate" (or glutton / pleasure-lover), a drunkard, exhibiting flagrant moral disregard.
In the time before there was a king in Israel, lawlessness abounded; it's described in Judges 17(6) and 21(25) with the words, "all the people did what was right in their own eyes." Martin Luther in the Larger Catechism asked, "Why, think you, is the world now so full of unfaithfulness, disgrace, calamity, and murder, but because every one desires to be his own master and free from the emperor, to care nothing for any one, and do what pleases him?" Stubborn rebellion and disregard for authority make for anarchy; rejection of enforced standards leads to chaos as sinful desire reigns. Laws are for the good of society, but they only work if people's parents have developed in them a regard for external authority.
I have spoken with schoolteachers who despaired of the future of some kids in their class because there was no discipline at home. The children developed poor work habits and the parents didn't care; the teacher's warnings fell on deaf parental ears. Maybe the parents figured they were being kind to the kids by not getting involved, but it's cruelty in the long run, severely limiting the child's potential that might have been developed with a little encouragement and discipline. Today's classroom is tomorrow's community: respect for elders in the home will make tomorrow's world a safer and saner place to live.
7) Training-ground for Adult Faith
The parent-child relationship is a training ground for the grown individual's later relationship with God. When Mom and Dad are no longer a necessary feature in the person's life, the habit of giving honour they hopefully have developed in Junior can be appropriately transferred to God, our invisible Father through faith in Jesus. Inspired Scripture picks up the terminology of father-son and applies it as pertinent symbolic language for the God-human encounter. In Malachi 1(6) God asks, "'A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?' says the LORD Almighty." God's desire is for the honour and respect a child has for their parent to some day be transferred to Him as the true Everlasting Father.
One of the unique things about Christianity is that our Founder expected his followers to call God "Papa", Daddy, as He did. This offended the religious Jews of Jesus' day who thought this far too informal; John 5(18) records that they tried to kill Jesus because "he was even calling God his own Father..." Even though it infuriated His enemies and posed a risk to his life, Jesus picked up the earth-bound metaphor of father-son terminology, using it regularly Himself and recommending it to His followers in the Lord's Prayer. Not all the baggage we each associate with the word "father" from our past is likely good, but the practice assumes that there's a bit of love and respect from our family situation that can be transferred to our spiritual walk with God.
Luther wrote that children "regard their parents as in God's stead...God has assigned this estate the highest place, yea, has set it up in His own stead, upon earth." Calvin said, "The submission yielded to them [parents] should be a step in our ascent to the Supreme Parent." And Wesley advised parents, "Bow down their [children's] wills from the very first dawn of reason; and by habituating them to your will, prepare them for submitting to the will of their Father which is in heaven." So it's important that there be honour and respect in the parent-child relationship, as a training ground for the children's later relationship with God, whose role in their lives will hopefully increase and take over as the parents' role grows less.
8) Jesus Modeled Moment-by-moment Obedience
Not only does Scripture command us to honour our parents; Jesus lived it out, He's our example, our model. After Joseph and Mary took Him to the temple at age 12, Luke records, "he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them" (Lk.2:51). Right through to the end of His life, Jesus honoured His parents, providing a new home at John's for his mother when He Himself was being crucified (Jn.19:26f).
But Jesus' special Messianic mission of preaching God's Kingdom and healing broken lives gradually took Him beyond the authority of the carpenter shop. Yet He didn't rejoice that He was out from under His parents' thumbs, but yielded every moment to the will of His Heavenly Father. In all He did: "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does..." (John 5:19-20) In all He said: "For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say." (John 12:49-50) Christ honoured God so much, put His desire first, so that He was absolutely one with the Father: "Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work." (John 14:10) Hand in glove. When I mature through childhood, ideally my parents will have succeeded in taming and training my independent spirit with God's help so that I've developed enough humility and self-control to be constantly making myself available to God for His use. And not bitterly or resentfully, but cheerfully, with anticipation. A very fundamental aspect of Christ's character is submission and sensitivity, giving priority to those whom God has put in authority over us. Yieldedness, surrender, setting oneself aside for the Lord's words and actions through me.
John Calvin wrote, "this command to submit is very repugnant to the perversity of the human mind (which, puffed up with ambitious longings will scarcely allow itself to be subject)..." Mark Twain encountered a ruthless businessman from Boston during his travels who boasted that nobody ever got in his way once he determined to do something. He spouted, "Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I'm gonna climb Mount Sinai. And when I'm up there I'm gonna read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top of my voice!" Unimpressed, Twain responded, "I got a better idea.Stay in Boston and keep 'em."
What's It Look Like?
Honouring our parents doesn't mean we constantly bow our forehead to the floor in front of them. Remember those synonyms from the NIV Study Bible: "Prize highly", "care for", "show respect for", "obey". Honouring will take many different forms depending upon where we and our parents are at in the life cycle.
I know of one dad in his 70s, not from this area, who recently suffered a painful back compression fracture. This made it excruciatingly painful for him to do even the simplest yard work. Since it happened, his son, in his 40s, has been coming from a distance over an hour away to keep the lawn mowed. Nothing that will get written up in the newspaper, just a genuine act of caring that shows honour and thoughtfulness.
One day not long ago while enjoying a meal at a restaurant nearby, I noticed a familiar face from my past a few tables away. This widow in her late 70s or early 80s was the mother of my schoolmate, and lived only a couple of miles from our home farm in Hibbert Township. Stopping to say hello on the way out, I discovered her daughter, now an operating room nurse living in Burlington, had come up for the weekend and was treating her mom out for a meal. Another example of a kind sacrifice made to honour one's parent.
God's plan is for parents to significantly impact their children's character development, for good. By learning to obey our parents and respect them, we become godly citizens in the world at large. Chuck Swindoll recalls:
I remember stealing 6 softballs when I was working as a stock boy in a five-and-dime store in my early years in high school. And I remember trying to find a place to hide them when I got home. I don't know what in the world I planned to do with six softballs. To this day it just baffles me, the logic of it. But I stuck them in the back of my drawer and my mother found them. My father presented himself to me and told me that we were going to make a trip back to the store where I was going to talk to the owner and I was going to confess.
I will never forget his instruction on the way. I mean, I was sitting there just dying thinking about it...Well, I stood [in front of my employer] and told him what I'd done. My dad was waiting in the car. He didn't go in with me. And I heard my boss say, "You're fired."
I stumbled back out to the car and sat down. I was as low as I could remember ever being. On the way, I remember my dad beginning to rebuild my emotions. I had done wrong, and I had learned an incredible lesson. He didn't overdo it, but he drilled into me that when you steal, you get fired. And if you don't get fired at the moment, you lose something that can't be bought with any price, and that's your self-respect. I remember, too, we got on the subject of what in the world I was gonna do with those six softballs.
But there was something about the ornament of grace that care around my neck from my father who before we went in the house took the time to put his arms around me and to understand. This teenage kid was most concerned about my father's not telling my friends. And as far as I know, he took that story to his grave and never told on me.
Love - honesty - accountability - support...So we learn to honour our parents; and in the process, become honourable citizens, pleasing our Heavenly Father. Let's pray.