Honoring Parents
Biblical Study
God Of Justice
A Look at the Ten Commandments for the 21st Century
Object:
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
-- Mark 7:1-13
The family. The "basic building block of society" they call it. We are born into families, cared for by family, until we can begin to take care of ourselves. We share the same roof, the same table, even the same faith. Nothing unusual there. It is expected; despite the differences of individual personalities, interests, and abilities that are gathered into the family unit, it is a unit -- the basic building block of society.
The joy I have in living with my wife and children I would not have were it not for the institution of the family, and now that we are "empty-nesters," those times when the kids come home are all the more precious. I shared wonderful times with my parents, my sisters, and my brother as we grew up, times that would have been missed except for the family. The family is special, even though we often take it very much for granted.
But being so closely knit, there are problems that are unique to families. As the song goes, "You always hurt the one you love/the one you shouldn't hurt at all." Siblings have their rivalries and sometimes have to be dragged off one another, kicking and screaming. Often, the only time the brothers and sisters are on the same side of anything is when they are united in opposition to their parents.
Grandparents are a problem from the other end. Gramps comes in and sees his little angel, starts fishing around in his pocket, and says, "Let's see if we have some money in here for you." But years before, when you went to him for a nickel, you got the story of how he had to get up at three o'clock in the morning when he was seven years old, walk ten miles in the dark to milk 100 cows. The farmer had no bucket, so he had to squirt the milk into his little hand then travel another eight miles to the nearest milk can, and all for ten cents a week. Forget that nickel. Someone has said the reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have common enemies ... Mommy and Daddy.
Despite the fact that those relationships can be great sources of good fun, too often things do work out that other way -- as enemies. From time immemorial there have been tensions between generations -- one expects deference because "I'm the father and I said so"; the next is convinced that nothing really important happened in the history of the world until I came along. Tension. God says be careful. "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."1 And be aware, this commandment is directed at adult children; this is not aimed at rebellious children who never clean up their rooms.
Why should such a commandment be necessary? To be blunt, in the ancient world, it was dangerous to grow old. In some of the cultures that surrounded the newly freed nation of Israel, aged parents were sent off to die of starvation and exposure in the desert. They had, quite literally, outlived their usefulness. In giving the commandment, God was insisting that the Israelites not pick up this horrible habit of their pagan neighbors. If, at their heart, these Ten Commandments are God's outline for establishing a just society, then this fifth commandment is the "Social Security" legislation. Just societies take care of those who are vulnerable, and that includes aged parents.
So saying, we should note that more than mere tolerance of parents is required here, more than simply allowing them to continue to live. God says, "Honor" your mother and father. The Hebrew term (kabod) includes among its definitions "be heavy," suggesting the sense of "give weight to ... gravity ... importance." In other words, treat parents with appropriate seriousness.
How does that play out? If we take someone seriously, we listen to what he or she has to say. We may not automatically agree, but we do listen. For the nation of Israel, one generation listening to the previous generation was crucial -- this was the way the culture and the faith were (and still are) passed on. Note the way the instruction is recorded in Deuteronomy. Moses speaks:
Now this is the commandment -- the statutes and the ordinances -- that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long [Sound familiar?] ... Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise....
-- Deuteronomy 6:1-7 (NRSV)
"Honor your father and your mother...." Take them seriously. Listen to them. They and their generation are the ones who teach you what is ultimately important.
A certain part of "honor" is support. I cannot imagine the ancient world allowing Mom and Dad to just die when no longer commercially useful, but they did. I cannot imagine a child knowingly allowing a parent to do without the necessities of life, but they do. Even in the church.
It was a problem in Jesus' day, too. In Mark's gospel, Jesus condemns the religious leaders who tried to avoid providing for their aging parents by declaring that all their own worldly goods were dedicated to God, corban, as it was called. Corban in Hebrew means "gift." By declaring property corban, it was considered to have already been laid on the altar and therefore, was no longer available for any secular use ... even the care of needy parents. The scribal legalists of the day said this was legitimate. Jesus said this was nuts. Physical support is a part of honor.
No question, problems arise. One more mouth to feed can be a financial burden. Inconvenience? Sometimes aging parents need help in caring for themselves. In Grimm's Fairy Tales there is the story of a man who had taken his elderly father into his home. It distressed the son to have to do it and disturbed him that Dad was not as physically capable as he thought the father ought to be. He could not even eat his meals without spilling on the table. The son finally got exasperated and built a trough from which the father was forced to eat to make sure the rest of the table would be spared his lack of coordination. One day the man went into his workshop to find his young son very busy. He asked the boy what he was building. The youngster, with a smile of pride and accomplishment, replied, "Look, Dad, I have made you a trough to eat from when you get old." Honor your father and mother, indeed!
From an emotional standpoint, when parents encounter times of stress, the support of children can make a tremendous difference. My mother said many times after my father died, that one of the things that got her through those difficult days, and still helps even today, is the support she feels from her children. Often, aging parents, even though their physical needs are taken care of, feel useless, left out, like a "fifth wheel." Health and physical limitations do not allow them to do everything, so now they feel they are worth nothing. I have no idea how many times I have heard while visiting elderly parishioners, "I wish God would take me; I am only a burden; I just want to die." The children can help -- show the parents that they are worth something, that their life has meaning and purpose. That kind of emotional support is a part of honor.
Of course, honor implies respect. In the case of parents, respect involves a certain regard for their position in the family; they were here first, after all. They should be able to expect certain things: to be addressed respectfully, not to be held up to ridicule in the eyes of others, even to be obeyed. Obedience might seem an outmoded concept these days, but the scripture is very clear: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Ephesians 6:1). Nowhere is that ever contradicted. A certain wisdom generally comes with age that should not be ignored. When it is, society suffers. Honor and respect for parents make sense.
That good sense resulted in the promise that God made a part of this fifth commandment: "... so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." To be truthful, it could have read, "... that your days may not be hastily shortened." In many ancient cultures, parents had the power of life and death over their children. Even in Israel, the penalty for a child cursing his or her parents was death (Leviticus 20:9; Deuteronomy 21:18-21). A father could say to a recalcitrant son, in the Hebrew equivalent of Bill Cosby's words, "Listen, boy, I brought you into this world; I can take you out."
But this commandment was not a threat; it was a promise. For the individual, the sound teachings of the parents -- the good habits, the intelligent care of body and mind, the proper approach to spiritual things -- would all tend to promise a longer and more productive life than if those early precepts were ignored. For society, proper honor to parents would serve as a good rule to maintain order and stability in the nation.
One thing should not be ignored: even though this commandment is particularly directed toward the responsibility of adult children, there is an equally important responsibility for parents to act in a way that allows the commandment to be faithfully kept. Honor is not automatic -- in business, politics, religion, or even parenthood. Some parents, even good church folk, are atrocious, abusing their children physically and emotionally. Honor that mother or father? Mom, Dad, get your honor the "old-fashioned way" -- earn it!
The apostle Paul writes, "Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21). Yes, children need discipline and parents ought to provide it. But Paul's message is to not do it so harshly that you break a child's spirit. Martin Luther, all his life, had a difficult time calling God "Father," not because of any pre-modern sensitivity to inclusive language, but because his own father had treated him so sternly while he was growing up. Luther could not identify the loving God that he had come to know in the scripture with what he knew of "father" in his own home. Support has to be a two-way street.
Honor to parents means respect, but respect is something that must be warranted. The obedience that parents get should not be the obedience that is given grudgingly to a dictator. It should come from a realization that what the parents ask is reasonable and, ultimately, for the child's good. It means a consistency of care and concern that begins in the child's infancy and continues forever. Parents should be respected, but they should respect their children enough to want to deserve it.
Parents need to remember one thing more to be worthy of the honor that the fifth commandment calls for. Parents must give their children a proper spiritual framework for life at an early age, or they may never hear that this commandment even exists. In the sacrament of baptism, we promise to raise our youngsters "in the knowledge and love of God." That means we take a vow to train them in God's precepts and to bring them up knowing the love God has shown us in Jesus Christ. We promise to raise them in the church, and the church promises to help us do it. Christian children will be proud to honor mothers and fathers who fulfill those vows, moms and dads who talk the talk and walk the walk.
Every parent knows that children are a tremendous commitment. They change our lives. Children require real work, real dedication, real patience. But we know the real joy they can bring. And what a joy it will be to face our Lord one day and, seeing the godly lives of our children, be able to hear, "Well done."
"Family values" is a phrase often heard in our land these days. Sadly, it is most frequently used in an effort to deny basic rights to a certain segment of our community. But if we want to see how the truly just society that God intends for us understands family values, we simply reread this fifth commandment. "Honor your father and mother" -- this is the commandment of God. And the nation that does that will find, "that you [will] live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."
Study Questions
1. If this commandment is ancient Israel's "Social Security" legislation, how does that inform Social Security in our day?
2. How do we honor the elderly?
3. What happens when a society denigrates the elderly?
4. Social science insists that our past helps form us. What happens if we try to ignore it or pretend it is of no importance?
5. How can those who have been damaged by their family of origin overcome the hurt?
6. Think of some of the families we encounter in the Bible -- what are the strengths and weaknesses we find?
____________
1. See Exodus 21:15; Leviticus 19:3a; and Deuteronomy 27:6 for the penal code equivalent of this commandment.
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
-- Mark 7:1-13
The family. The "basic building block of society" they call it. We are born into families, cared for by family, until we can begin to take care of ourselves. We share the same roof, the same table, even the same faith. Nothing unusual there. It is expected; despite the differences of individual personalities, interests, and abilities that are gathered into the family unit, it is a unit -- the basic building block of society.
The joy I have in living with my wife and children I would not have were it not for the institution of the family, and now that we are "empty-nesters," those times when the kids come home are all the more precious. I shared wonderful times with my parents, my sisters, and my brother as we grew up, times that would have been missed except for the family. The family is special, even though we often take it very much for granted.
But being so closely knit, there are problems that are unique to families. As the song goes, "You always hurt the one you love/the one you shouldn't hurt at all." Siblings have their rivalries and sometimes have to be dragged off one another, kicking and screaming. Often, the only time the brothers and sisters are on the same side of anything is when they are united in opposition to their parents.
Grandparents are a problem from the other end. Gramps comes in and sees his little angel, starts fishing around in his pocket, and says, "Let's see if we have some money in here for you." But years before, when you went to him for a nickel, you got the story of how he had to get up at three o'clock in the morning when he was seven years old, walk ten miles in the dark to milk 100 cows. The farmer had no bucket, so he had to squirt the milk into his little hand then travel another eight miles to the nearest milk can, and all for ten cents a week. Forget that nickel. Someone has said the reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have common enemies ... Mommy and Daddy.
Despite the fact that those relationships can be great sources of good fun, too often things do work out that other way -- as enemies. From time immemorial there have been tensions between generations -- one expects deference because "I'm the father and I said so"; the next is convinced that nothing really important happened in the history of the world until I came along. Tension. God says be careful. "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."1 And be aware, this commandment is directed at adult children; this is not aimed at rebellious children who never clean up their rooms.
Why should such a commandment be necessary? To be blunt, in the ancient world, it was dangerous to grow old. In some of the cultures that surrounded the newly freed nation of Israel, aged parents were sent off to die of starvation and exposure in the desert. They had, quite literally, outlived their usefulness. In giving the commandment, God was insisting that the Israelites not pick up this horrible habit of their pagan neighbors. If, at their heart, these Ten Commandments are God's outline for establishing a just society, then this fifth commandment is the "Social Security" legislation. Just societies take care of those who are vulnerable, and that includes aged parents.
So saying, we should note that more than mere tolerance of parents is required here, more than simply allowing them to continue to live. God says, "Honor" your mother and father. The Hebrew term (kabod) includes among its definitions "be heavy," suggesting the sense of "give weight to ... gravity ... importance." In other words, treat parents with appropriate seriousness.
How does that play out? If we take someone seriously, we listen to what he or she has to say. We may not automatically agree, but we do listen. For the nation of Israel, one generation listening to the previous generation was crucial -- this was the way the culture and the faith were (and still are) passed on. Note the way the instruction is recorded in Deuteronomy. Moses speaks:
Now this is the commandment -- the statutes and the ordinances -- that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long [Sound familiar?] ... Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise....
-- Deuteronomy 6:1-7 (NRSV)
"Honor your father and your mother...." Take them seriously. Listen to them. They and their generation are the ones who teach you what is ultimately important.
A certain part of "honor" is support. I cannot imagine the ancient world allowing Mom and Dad to just die when no longer commercially useful, but they did. I cannot imagine a child knowingly allowing a parent to do without the necessities of life, but they do. Even in the church.
It was a problem in Jesus' day, too. In Mark's gospel, Jesus condemns the religious leaders who tried to avoid providing for their aging parents by declaring that all their own worldly goods were dedicated to God, corban, as it was called. Corban in Hebrew means "gift." By declaring property corban, it was considered to have already been laid on the altar and therefore, was no longer available for any secular use ... even the care of needy parents. The scribal legalists of the day said this was legitimate. Jesus said this was nuts. Physical support is a part of honor.
No question, problems arise. One more mouth to feed can be a financial burden. Inconvenience? Sometimes aging parents need help in caring for themselves. In Grimm's Fairy Tales there is the story of a man who had taken his elderly father into his home. It distressed the son to have to do it and disturbed him that Dad was not as physically capable as he thought the father ought to be. He could not even eat his meals without spilling on the table. The son finally got exasperated and built a trough from which the father was forced to eat to make sure the rest of the table would be spared his lack of coordination. One day the man went into his workshop to find his young son very busy. He asked the boy what he was building. The youngster, with a smile of pride and accomplishment, replied, "Look, Dad, I have made you a trough to eat from when you get old." Honor your father and mother, indeed!
From an emotional standpoint, when parents encounter times of stress, the support of children can make a tremendous difference. My mother said many times after my father died, that one of the things that got her through those difficult days, and still helps even today, is the support she feels from her children. Often, aging parents, even though their physical needs are taken care of, feel useless, left out, like a "fifth wheel." Health and physical limitations do not allow them to do everything, so now they feel they are worth nothing. I have no idea how many times I have heard while visiting elderly parishioners, "I wish God would take me; I am only a burden; I just want to die." The children can help -- show the parents that they are worth something, that their life has meaning and purpose. That kind of emotional support is a part of honor.
Of course, honor implies respect. In the case of parents, respect involves a certain regard for their position in the family; they were here first, after all. They should be able to expect certain things: to be addressed respectfully, not to be held up to ridicule in the eyes of others, even to be obeyed. Obedience might seem an outmoded concept these days, but the scripture is very clear: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Ephesians 6:1). Nowhere is that ever contradicted. A certain wisdom generally comes with age that should not be ignored. When it is, society suffers. Honor and respect for parents make sense.
That good sense resulted in the promise that God made a part of this fifth commandment: "... so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." To be truthful, it could have read, "... that your days may not be hastily shortened." In many ancient cultures, parents had the power of life and death over their children. Even in Israel, the penalty for a child cursing his or her parents was death (Leviticus 20:9; Deuteronomy 21:18-21). A father could say to a recalcitrant son, in the Hebrew equivalent of Bill Cosby's words, "Listen, boy, I brought you into this world; I can take you out."
But this commandment was not a threat; it was a promise. For the individual, the sound teachings of the parents -- the good habits, the intelligent care of body and mind, the proper approach to spiritual things -- would all tend to promise a longer and more productive life than if those early precepts were ignored. For society, proper honor to parents would serve as a good rule to maintain order and stability in the nation.
One thing should not be ignored: even though this commandment is particularly directed toward the responsibility of adult children, there is an equally important responsibility for parents to act in a way that allows the commandment to be faithfully kept. Honor is not automatic -- in business, politics, religion, or even parenthood. Some parents, even good church folk, are atrocious, abusing their children physically and emotionally. Honor that mother or father? Mom, Dad, get your honor the "old-fashioned way" -- earn it!
The apostle Paul writes, "Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21). Yes, children need discipline and parents ought to provide it. But Paul's message is to not do it so harshly that you break a child's spirit. Martin Luther, all his life, had a difficult time calling God "Father," not because of any pre-modern sensitivity to inclusive language, but because his own father had treated him so sternly while he was growing up. Luther could not identify the loving God that he had come to know in the scripture with what he knew of "father" in his own home. Support has to be a two-way street.
Honor to parents means respect, but respect is something that must be warranted. The obedience that parents get should not be the obedience that is given grudgingly to a dictator. It should come from a realization that what the parents ask is reasonable and, ultimately, for the child's good. It means a consistency of care and concern that begins in the child's infancy and continues forever. Parents should be respected, but they should respect their children enough to want to deserve it.
Parents need to remember one thing more to be worthy of the honor that the fifth commandment calls for. Parents must give their children a proper spiritual framework for life at an early age, or they may never hear that this commandment even exists. In the sacrament of baptism, we promise to raise our youngsters "in the knowledge and love of God." That means we take a vow to train them in God's precepts and to bring them up knowing the love God has shown us in Jesus Christ. We promise to raise them in the church, and the church promises to help us do it. Christian children will be proud to honor mothers and fathers who fulfill those vows, moms and dads who talk the talk and walk the walk.
Every parent knows that children are a tremendous commitment. They change our lives. Children require real work, real dedication, real patience. But we know the real joy they can bring. And what a joy it will be to face our Lord one day and, seeing the godly lives of our children, be able to hear, "Well done."
"Family values" is a phrase often heard in our land these days. Sadly, it is most frequently used in an effort to deny basic rights to a certain segment of our community. But if we want to see how the truly just society that God intends for us understands family values, we simply reread this fifth commandment. "Honor your father and mother" -- this is the commandment of God. And the nation that does that will find, "that you [will] live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."
Study Questions
1. If this commandment is ancient Israel's "Social Security" legislation, how does that inform Social Security in our day?
2. How do we honor the elderly?
3. What happens when a society denigrates the elderly?
4. Social science insists that our past helps form us. What happens if we try to ignore it or pretend it is of no importance?
5. How can those who have been damaged by their family of origin overcome the hurt?
6. Think of some of the families we encounter in the Bible -- what are the strengths and weaknesses we find?
____________
1. See Exodus 21:15; Leviticus 19:3a; and Deuteronomy 27:6 for the penal code equivalent of this commandment.
