Honor Your Father

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
June 15, 2014

The Fifth Commandment talks about honoring our parents. What does that mean? We reflect on the things we were taught that we should hold fast, and the things we were taught that we should let go.

TEN COMMANDMENTS “Honor Your Father and Mother”

We’ve been studying the Ten Commandments together for six months now, and today we are looking at number five: Honor your mother and father, so your days may be long in the land.”

Everyone has parents. Some grow up with the parents they were born with, and some grow up with people who chose them to love. Some in this room had parents that fit the picture we have when we hear that word: people who stay by our side as we grow, who give us the benefit of their resources, their advice, their experience so we can become useful in the world, joyful and brave and compassionate and good at relationships. Some in this room had parents who were somewhat like that, with some rough spots. Some had nothing but rough spots.

Some parents can stay for your whole growing up process, and some leave, or are taken from you. Lots of folks are raised by other family members, who act more like parents. Some parents do a good job, some do badly. Some do real harm. Some of our parents are still living; some have gone on into the mystery.

How might we think about honoring all of our parents? The Hebrew word used in the Exodus passage is kabed. It has to do with giving weight to something, knowing it’s heavy, that it matters.

Honoring means helping someone, to bring them joy, improve their lives, to respect someone, esteem them, have concern for them, affection for them, consideration, appreciation for them, nurturing, forgiveness.

The way most of us were taught about this commandment, it sounded like “honor your mother and father” had mostly to do with obeying what they said to do, living up to who they wanted you to be, making them happy at the expense of your independence and your individuality. It set you up for either keeping this commandment or growing into your own adult with your own sense of truth and place and who you should be in the world. The Westminster Larger Catechism (the list of answers Presbyterians point to, written in the 1648) expands this this commandment enormously to include all older people, people who are “superiors in gifts,” supervisors, managers, clergy, legislators, police, etc. It seems as if you were a really good person, according to that system, you would be over obedient.

Most of us learned in college about the psychological experiment conducted in the 60’s by Stanley Milgram. A researcher in a white coat asked participants to press a button to shock a person in the booth in front of them. They would administer a mild shock, then a stronger one. The white coat would say, “again,” and look like he was turning up the strength of the shock. As the experiment proceeded, the person in the booth would act more and more distressed, then in agony. Finally he was begging for mercy. It surprised researchers how long most students would keep pressing the button, believing it was shocking this person in front of them, if the white coat said to. It was this kind of experiment, certain orders being obeyed in Nazi Germany and in Vietnam, that turned the spotlight on the dangers of teaching people to obey in this religiously connected, unquestioning way. We began to use bumper stickers that said “Question Authority” and started to raise our children to learn to negotiate and to trust their inner voice.

In our free faith, we can know that we will not be asked to do something that doesn’t make sense, something that is bad for us or others. Honoring our parents has to do with making their lives better, respecting them, allowing them to be who they are, as we would want them to allow us to be who we are. Sometimes there are specific things we can honor and some things we can’t. I think this Commandment has to do with honoring those who have raised and taught us, who have sacrificed for us and loved us. Maybe that is your biological parents, and maybe it includes other people too. Maybe there are some teachers or preachers or friends who need to be honored in that role as well. Maybe they need a note to be sent to them, or at least to be written – if they are dead or if you can’t find them for some other reason. The thanks is something that will be good for you to do, their role will be something good to acknowledge. It is good to acknowledge those who have given you gifts. Your parents are where you come from. It does a person no good to be ashamed of where they come from. Raise your head and find a way to honor it. It is part of you. You have some of each parent in you, whether in your biology or in your raising, and it would be good to know that’s there. You may have some of their good qualities and some that weren’t’ so good. Even if it’s not one of their best qualities that you have, maybe you can turn it to better use. If you got your dad’s comfort with risk-taking, maybe he was a compulsive gambler, but maybe you can use that quality to a better purpose. If you got your mom’s picky negativity, maybe you can use it to become a systems analyst who finds the flaws in a system in order to make it better for everyone.

Honoring who they are, who they were. Knowing that doesn’t mean obeying them, knowing that, in fact, the best way to honor them is to become a fully functioning, sane and joyful human individual in right relationship with a community, whether that is what they seem to want for you or not. Forgiving them, and forgiving ourselves as parents. Horrifyingly, we make mistakes as parents. Sometimes our children will talk to us about that and sometimes they won’t. My mother, as she was in the last part of her life, said “We told you ‘no’ too much….” I think that was adorable, that this was her biggest regret. She was a wonderful mom. Parenting is hard, and there has to be a lot of forgiveness about it.

“I seek your forgiveness for all the times I talked when I should have listened; got angry when I should have been patient; acted when I should have waited; feared when I should have been delighted; scolded when I should have encouraged; criticized when I should have complimented; said no when I should have said yes and said yes when I should have said no… I often tried too hard and wanted and demanded so much, and mistakenly sometimes tried to mold you into my image of what I wanted you to be rather than discovering and nourishing you as you emerged and grew.”

Honor them in who they are and honor them as they are in you. We get so afraid that we will turn into our parents. Our free faith encourages us to seek our own truth. To become an independent sane useful person IS a way of honoring your parents.

Part of this mutuality is implicit in the notion of honoring: ” ‘Honor’ is a more delicate, transitive maneuver, whereby both parties grow in dignity through the process” (Brueggemann)

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