Yeshua Explored

10th July 2023

Honour

How do we treat our parents?

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you”. (Exodus 20:12)

This has become …

Do what seems best for your parents, at all times, but rest assured that society can ease the burden of an aged relative, so trust it to look after your loved ones in a satisfactory manner.

Here’s a quandry. You have aging parents who are now very dependent on you. They are in reasonable health, so haven’t entered the State care system. You are their care system. Problem is that you “have a ministry” and surely God’s call on your life has to take priority. That is true but may not be the answer you are looking for when you realise what this calling entails.

And he continued, “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 mother’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their 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 7:9-13)

Here Jesus makes it very clear how one should interpret the Fifth Commandment. If you have aging parents, a significant factor of God’s call on your life is to honour them by caring for them to the best of your ability and as circumstances allow. To truly honour them is to treat them as you would want to be treated, to give of your time and effort, not just to throw money at the “system” to care for them instead of you. Our society, as I said earlier, does tend towards the “nanny state”, but it’s not for benign reasons. We are encouraged to palm off responsibilities to others, to live a selfish existence caring for ourselves, with plenty of cash to consume goods and services we don’t really need and thus feed the system. This idea was espoused by Plato, who encouraged parents to hand over their children to the State for their education. The State doesn’t know the best for us and our families … we do!

Let’s look at the underlying function behind this commandment. Honouring one’s parents can be expanded to honouring all those who have inputted into your life over the years, which could include foster or adopted parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties and so on. But it can also include teachers, family friends, neighbours, ministers, even those in your peer group who you may have grown up with. The word I am grasping for here is one that has been massively hijacked by factions of society. The word is respect.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T warbled Arethra Franklin in her pomp, Respect bro’ can be overheard in gatherings of urban youth and its opposite, are you dissing me? can also be heard on the streets, often menacingly. All of these definitions have, at their starting point, the notion that my world is the most important thing to me and anyone who is ‘disrespecting’ (dissing) me is committing a cardinal sin. It comes from the individualism of our society, mentioned earlier and conjures up an allied concept, that of entitlement. The whole package has produced a segment of society (not just urban youth) that insists their very existence is a fact that ought to command respect from others, whether or not it has actually been earnt and that there’s an entitlement that determines that everything must fall into place just to ensure that our band of individuals have a happy and contented existence.

That isn’t how the world works. The problem is other people, particularly those who also demand respect and entitlement. Thankfully most don’t and live lives that acknowledge and bounce off others, perhaps even with behaviour approximating to the Golden Rule of Scripture, quoted in many places, such as here:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

Of course, for Christians, it is all about other people. All the gifts God freely gives to us are for us to use to encourage others, teach others, heal others, minister to others and so on. So, whereas the Golden Rule is a good template for general use, we should be giving to others regardless of what we receive from them, or expect to receive from them. As for the question of respect, that should not be an issue for us. Instead:

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:17)

So, it’s not about receiving respect, rather giving respect to others: Above all:

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you”. (Exodus 20:12)

And entitlement? Here are a couple of quotes in the secular world that are quite telling:

“When we replace a sense of service and gratitude with a sense of entitlement and expectation, we quickly see the demise of our relationships, society, and economy.” (Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)

“Entitlement was, she knew, a terrible thing. It chained the person to their victimhood. It gobbled up all the air around it. Until the person lived in a vacuum, where nothing good could flourish.” (Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind)

For Christians, what are we entitled to? See how Paul compares the life we leave behind with our new lives in Christ. No hint of entitlement here!

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;to be made new in the attitude of your minds;and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:17-24)

Living for others in righteousness and holiness. And if we are to respect and honour others, it is those closest to us that take priority:

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)

Here it is in black and white. If we fail to keep the Fifth Commandment then we are worse than unbelievers and have denied the faith. In a cynical world, people are only too glad to see Christians fail and we are constantly being watched to see if our behaviour is a reflection of the One we claim to follow, Jesus Christ.

If we can’t even treat our own parents with honour and respect, then surely there’s nothing about us that is different and we might as well be unbelievers. In fact, many unbelievers treat their parents better than a few Christians I can think of.

This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp