Second Presbyterian Church

"Pleading the Fifth: The 5^th Commandment"
May 4, 2003

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Sermons Homepage » Sermons for 2003 » Sermons for May 2003

#6 in the Series on The Ten Commandments
The Rev. Daniel E. Hale, D. Min.

• Exodus 20: 12
• Mark 7: 9-13

With the 5^th Commandment we begin to transition from the Commandments that concern our relationship with God to the Commandments that concern our relationships with each other, fellow human beings. The 5^th Commandment is a transitional commandment because it bridges the relationship we have with God and with our human parents. "Honor your Father and your Mother" is the only Commandment that holds a promise: "so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you."

Now this Commandment is pretty straightforward in many ways and it has two basic parts upon which I shall touch. The first part is, "Honor your Father and your Mother." The Second part is, "so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you."

Let's begin with the first part of the Commandment. Most of the time we tend to hear this in two ways and these two ways are only partially true. The first way we tend to hear this commandment is to assume that the 5^th Commandment is for children.

Actually it was meant, first of all, for adult sons and daughters and how they are to relate to their living parents. Its primary instruction is for adult children to honor, give respect to their parents and all elderly persons. Unlike us in our day and time, The Hebrews believed that the elderly, the ones who had survived into old age, had gained much wisdom over the years. The ancient Israelite culture assumed that the wisdom of parents and elders was beneficial to people who were willing to listen and take heed. This is a far cry from my generation, the baby boomer generation, that during the 1960's were crying out that no one over 30 could be trusted.

The second aspect about the first part of the Commandment that I want to mention is the Hebrew word, Kabod that means to honor. In another verb form Kabod also means to be heavy. To honor does not mean just to obey, which is how most of us tend to translate this commandment. Indeed, to obey is a way that younger children can honor father and mother. But for adult children it means to gladly take on the responsibility of one's parents. It means we are to treat them with great respect. It means to seek all means necessary to provide what is best for our parents. It may mean placing our elderly mother or father in a reputable nursing home when Alzheimer becomes too much for the family to provide good care for the elderly person while living at home. It may actually mean doing something for them that goes against their wishes. To honor our parents means to not allow them, their lifestyle, to deteriorate to the point of squalor and filth such as what we sometimes hear about in the news. To honor our parents means to treat them with respect, not to allow their living condition deteriorate into squalor.

The second part of the 5^th Commandment is the promise itself: "so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you." Israel was, still is, a people of God. The land was given to them by the LORD. It was a gift; their possession was a lease in that they were there as long as they remained faithful to the LORD. If the parents were not honored, Israel was in real danger of losing the land that they possessed. In other words, honoring mother and father was virtually placed upon the same plane of seriousness as being faithful to God. If you have no other Gods before the LORD, then you shall honor your father and your mother, period. If you become unfaithful to one, you were being unfaithful to the other. You see, it is through the love, generosity, and discipline of our parents that we begin to develop an appreciation for God, who God is and how God wants to relate to us. That is why Jesus became so confronting with the scribes and Pharisees. He attacks them for getting out of providing for their parents when they declare that their provisions were to be used, instead, as an offering to God! Jesus says, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!" So the promise emphasizes the fact that we are to honor our parents and that it is to be followed with the same sincerity and seriousness as the commandments about relating to God.

Now, this is all fine and dandy when we have parents who are loving, caring, compassionate, good at discipline and forgiving. Those attributes describe God and teach us how to live. But, what about people whose families were abusive, or harsh, or irresponsible? How are they to honor father and mother who were responsible for inflicting terrible emotional or physical pain? This is a tough question and there is little doubt about the detrimental effect of bad, abusive parenting. How do these people, the survivors of bad, abusive parenting, honor their father or mother? Are they exempt from the 5^th Commandment?

No, they are not. To honor their mother and/or father who are abusive means to courageously choose to work through as much of the pain and trauma as humanly possible! Failing to do so leads to a life of bitterness and resentment with a strong potential to acting out in criminal and inappropriate manners. Survivors of parental abuse are susceptible to becoming abusive parents when they have children.

Ironically, these feelings of bitterness, jealousy, and revenge are deadly feelings. These horrible moods actually shorten the lives of people who have allowed these moods to take over their lives. They actually end up fulfilling the negative side of the commandment's promise, in that being trapped in feelings of bitterness and vengeance shortens people's lives. To honor parents who are abusive means to do whatever is necessary to recover from the trauma. Failing to do this means being hampered in a life in which friendships and spousal relationships can be severely limited. Too often survivors of abuse, the ones who do not receive competent help, lack the ability to develop and experience good and trusting relationships. They become afraid, bitter, very lonely.

And, yes, failing to work through these traumas hampers the survivor's ability to trust God who is our loving Father in heaven. Because we derive our sense of experience about God from our experience of our parents as children, it is absolutely vital to work through our experiences of trauma. If we do not, then we tend to believe that God acts in a similar manner. We tend to believe that God is harsh or cruel, rather than God who is loving and just. The survivor of abuse who does not work on overcoming the trauma has limited resources for receiving and accepting the love and grace that God offers all of us in Jesus Christ.

There is much more that could be said about life today and how the 5^th Commandment speaks to our lives. For today, though, let it suffice that we are to honor and to love our parents for being the ones who brought us into the world of the living. We are to honor and love our parents who taught us to love, to be fair, to forgive. And we do honor our parents who were abusive when we choose to overcome the trauma and eventually forgive them. And let me be clear, forgiving abusive parents by no means excuses them from their inappropriate behavior. Forgiving abuse by parents means choosing life and not allowing the pain to simmer and stew into bitterness and hatred.

Honor your Father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God has given you. God blesses us when we honor our parents. Perhaps it is not a good idea to worship our parents, or place them on a pedestal, but it is a blessing to honor them and to give them the respect that they are due.

Oh, by the way, since next Sunday is Youth Sunday, let me be the first to wish you Happy Mother's Day! Amen.