Scripture: Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5: 16; Matthew 15: 1-9
Sermon: Honor Your Mother and your Father
Topics: Abuse, Honor, Orphans
October 16, 2016 AM Ten Commandments Series Woodlawn CRC
Rev. Mike Abma
Exodus 20:12
12 Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 5: 16
16 Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Matthew 15: 1-9
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,2‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.’
3He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?4For God said, “Honour your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 5But you say that whoever tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God”, then that person need not honour the father.6So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
8 “This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.” ’
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION
Here is something I read this week about the fifth commandment from someone who does family counselling:
“From my experience and observation,
No text has done more damage to abused children than the words,
‘Honor your father and your mother.”
No command has done more damage…..
It raises the question,
Do children still need to honor parents
When these parent neglect them rather than nurture them;
When these parents abuse them rather than adore them?
That is a big question, and a deep question.
And I will get back to it later in the sermon… I promise.
But do you mind if I ask another question:
To whom is this command primarily addressed?
I. PRIMARY AUDIENCE OF THE 5th COMMANDMENT
If you are anything like me, you have lived with the assumption that this commandment is mainly addressed to young children and mainly is about how they should relate to their parents.
But here is the thing that dawned on me while looking closely at this commandment:
This commandment is not so much aimed at how young children relate to their parents.
This commandment is much more concerned that adult children make sure their aging parents are well-cared for.
The primary audience of this commandment is not little kids.
The primary audience is mature adults.
We can see this concern in that exchange between the Pharisees and Jesus in Matthew 15. What is that passage about?
Well, the Pharisees are trying to accuse Jesus as being loose and lax on matters of the law. Just look at those disciples of yours, they don’t even wash their hands before they eat!
But Jesus turns that argument against them by reminding them that the whole hand-washing thing was simply a human tradition, where they were letting lots of people out-and-out break the 5th commandment.
How was that happening?
Jesus points out a Pharisee-approved loophole.
Adult children who did not want to support their aging parents
Simply had to make a Temple-approved oath swearing that
They were dedicating all they owned as an offering to the Lord.
That way if an aging and struggling mom and dad asked for a little help,
You could say, “Sorry, but all my assets have been spoken for.
They are all tied up in a designated religious fund.”
Clearly Jesus is not impressed with this religious sleight-of-hand.
Jesus forcefully reminds these Pharisees that the command is to
Honor your mother and father
And not to try weasel out of that obligation
with some pious sounding promise.
Honor your father and your mother.
Honor.
The word “honor” means to give weight to.
It means to make them a priority.
The opposite of honoring is neglecting.
If there is one place in the Old Testament that I think conveys the beauty and the power and the ultimate blessing of the fifth commandment, it is the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi.
You know that story, right?
Naomi is a widow.
Ruth, her daughter-in-law, is a widow.
They are both living in Moab.
Naomi decides to return to her home country in Bethlehem.
Ruth, decides to leave her home country of Moab to go with Naomi.
Naomi gives Ruth all kinds of room to stay in Moab.
But Ruth will not let Naomi go.
Ruth will not abandon her.
She will not make Naomi fend by herself.
Here is the 5th commandment in action,
showing that it is not about blood or biology.
It is about the deep bonds of family.
II. THE PROMISE — CYCLES OF HONOR vs CYCLES OF DISHONOR
The fifth commandment is a commandment with a promise:
Honor your father and mother
And your days will be long
and it will go well with you in the land the Lord is giving you.
In other words, living the 5th commandment sets in motion
a generational cycle of honor:
the sons and daughters who honor their mothers and fathers
become the fathers and mothers who are honored by their sons and
daughters.
And so it goes, generation after generation,
honor gives birth to honor.
The social stability of that culture depended on that cycle of honor:
Family was the school;
Clan was the Social Security;
Tribe was the police force.
The cycle of honor provided order, stability, and justice
so that it went well in the land the Lord gave.
This basic need for order, and stability and justice
Is why the Heidelberg Catechism
As well as the whole Reformed tradition
Sees in the 5th commandment
not simply a command to honor one’s parents,
but also a command to honor all those in authority over us:
all those charged with keeping
order, justice, and stability in the land – yes, I am talking about
police officers and politicians, among others.
The truth is, honor gives birth to honor.
But the opposite is also true.
Dishonor gives birth to dishonor.
There is an old story that helps illustrate this:
Once upon a time
there was a little old man.
His eyes blinked, and his hands shook,
And even the simplest tasks had become difficult for him — like eating food.
He could hardly hold a spoon.
He could hardly find his mouth.
He often made something of a mess.
This little old man lived with his son and daughter-in-law
for he had nowhere else to live.
One day the daughter-in-law said, “I can’t have anymore of this!”
So she and her husband set the little old man in a corner of the house far from everyone else.
But try as he might, the little old man still shook, still spilled still made something of a mess.
“That’s it,” said the son, and he and his wife moved him outside,
where they made a trough for him to eat out of.
This couple had a 5-year old boy.
One day they found the boy busily making something with a piece of wood.
“What are you making, son?” they asked.
“I am making a trough for when the two of you get old.”
The husband and wife looked at each other.
There was silence.
Then they went outside,
Brought the little old man back to the dinner table,
Gave him a good chair,
Put before him a nice plate, a knife, a fork, a spoon.
And from that day forward they did not complain again.
Honor gives birth to honor.
Dishonor gives birth to dishonor.[1]
III. THE QUESTION – WHAT ABOUT DISHONORABLE PARENTS?
But now, finally, what about the question from the beginning?
What about parents who neglect their children rather than nurture them?
Who abuse their children rather than adore them?
Must children, young or old, honor such dishonorable parents?
I read Christian Baker Kline’s novel Orphan Train not so long ago.
This is the story of orphans in the 1920’s and 1930’s
who were loaded up on trains in big cities like New York,
then taken west to states like Minnesota.
This is no Anne of Green Gables story.
This is no story of orphans taken in and cherished.
This is a heart-breaking story of children desperate for love,
yet being treated like disposable slave labor.
It is the story of children
who cared deeply for those
who hardly cared for them,
and who tried to honor those
who neglected them.
Why?
Because they honored what fatherhood and motherhood were supposed to be,
even though their actual fathers and mothers failed so miserably.
Blessed are all those who
Struggle to honor those parents who have hurt them;
Who struggle to be a blessing to the very ones
Who never gave them a blessed word of praise while growing up.
But here is one thing about honoring.
Honoring is not the same as obeying.
The generation that gets this command in Deuteronomy
is told very clearly not to follow in the footsteps of their parents —
that first generation who ended up dying in the desert.
Honoring is not the same as obeying.
That is why in the New Testament it says
Children, obey your parents in the Lord (Ephesians 6:1)
The “in the Lord” is key.
If it is a battle between
following our parents or following the Lord,
the Lord is ultimately the one we must obey.
CONCLUSION — SO MANY ORPHANS
A while back I met Kenny – Kenny Kontny, the friend of Jeff Burgraeff,
who used to shuffle into our vesper services.
Kenny was something of an orphan in the world.
He had nowhere he could call home,
no family,
no place to belong.
Like all orphans,
He was hungry for people to honor and respect,
And yearning for people who might love and care for him.
We knew Kenny had silbings once upon a time,
but when Kenny died,
try as we might, we could find no one – not even one.
There are lots of Kenny’s in the world.
Lots of people estranged from family,
But isn’t it true that in one sense we are all orphans,
for one day we will all lose our mom, our dad.
That is why we are a Church.
All of us here are called to be part of God’s family:
Called to be adopted sons and daughters of God;
Called to be brothers and sisters in Christ,
Called to be fathers and mothers of one another,
Called to be a home for the homeless,
and a family for the familyless.
Called to honor, to love, to care for people
who hardly know what that feels like.
The church is called to break all those cycles of
shame and dishonor and distrust,
And, in Jesus Christ,
to create a new family, a new home, a new culture
of acceptance,
of honor
of love
that is simply a foretaste of that land,
that Promise Land,
where we will live very, very long
and where it will go very, very well with us.
Amen
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A Brothers Grimm story ↑
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