Honoring Our Parents

The only commandment in the Decalogue with a personal promise is Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”  It is not in the 10 commandments that we find “husbands love your wives,” or “parents, don’t provoke your children,” but of honoring “parents” God included this specific command with a promise.  Why do you think that is?

It pleases God.

It acknowledges authority.

It prohibits lawlessness.

It is unselfish in attitude.

Obedience pleases God.  The contrary to obedience is disobedience and disobedience is lawlessness, and what is lawlessness but lack of respect for the law.  Obedience and honor are not far apart in how they are used in the Old and New Testaments.  For just as in Exodus where children are commanded to honor their parents, St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians reaffirms that children are to obey their parents, for this “pleases” God.  Therefore, to disobey, to dishonor one’s parents displeases God, and so much so that when the Law first came out, a child could be justifiably put to death for dishonoring one or both parents.

Honor, like obedience, is an upward movement; it is not a trickle-down effect.  Honor goes from bottom to top relationally, and this is indicated in the child-parent as well as human child-God relationship.  It is a vertical command and one that can go against the grain of our fallen human nature.

It is true that some parents do not merit respect as individuals.  Some are abusive drunkards, negligent, or even overtly violent toward their children.  This horror plays out in our daily dose of internet news. One of my professors told me that her Mother, who never wanted her, told her when she was just 10 years old, “I tried to abort you.”

Some parents don’t live up to our expectations of what a parent “should be.”  Blended families can’t hold a candle to the Brady Bunch, or multi-generational households don’t reflect the perfection found in the Waltons, because life is not scripted and edited to fit a perfect ideal.

In those instances, like with abuse or neglect, it is even harder to show honor to a parent, but honor God commands.  Why?  Again, because it pleases him.

Likewise, there comes a time when many of us are put into a position to care for our parents; I was.  After my father died, my mother came to live with me for 14 years and I was privileged to care for her up to her moment of death. Was it easy? No. Yet during that entire time, through thick and thin, I worked hard to honor my mother.  Yes, I loved her, dearly, and yes, that love at times was strained, but I knew what I was commanded to do.

God does not require us to love, or even like our mother or father; though both are ideal.  He asks us to obey and honor them.  Obedience is a big deal to God, it matters greatly to him and as such, it should matter to us as well.  We have multiple generations today who disrespect their parents.  Of those, many have little or no respect for law, human or divine.  Respect, obedience, lawfulness and pleasing God begins at home.  My parents were able to balance love and authority, and in so doing, not only did I love them, but respected them as well.