Honor Your Father and Your Mother (Exodus 20:12)

Honor Your Father and Your Mother

 

Exodus 20:12

 

Today’s word is the fifth of the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. God said, “Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” The Ten Commandments are divided into two groups. The first four are about how to serve God, and the last six are about how to serve others. In my opinion, if a person is a tree, the first-group commandments are about the root of the tree, and the second-group ones are about its trunk. And the root is the person’s faith in God and the trunk is his love to others. That is, the Ten Commandments are rules stipulating faith in God and love to others. Of course, faith and love are not two different concepts. We love God by trusting in him, and we express our faith in others by loving them. Still, I think, faith is more for our relationship with God, and love for our relationship with others. The life of the root is in its commitment. The root cannot move here and there. The root should be settled firmly in God and extend its arms deeply into the ground. Therefore, the relationship must be faithful. On the other hand, our relationship with others are dynamic interactions. Love provides us with power and wisdom to engage in such interactions with others. That is, love becomes the basic source of power and wisdom for serving others according to God’s will. Faith and love are the most important virtues that we should learn and make progress in throughout the Bible. And the Ten Commandments are the most fundamental rules of faith and love that God gave to us.

 

The fifth commandment is the first of the six commandments about how to serve others. Let me read this again. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Regarding this commandment, St. Paul wrote, “Honor your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise - so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” (Ephesians 6:2-3). Paul says that this is “the first commandment with a promise.” The promise mentioned by Paul means God’s promise following the commandment, “so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Although the other five commandments are given without a promise, I believe, the promise given with the fifth commandment are still applicable to other five. What we should remember is that God’s commandments come with God’s promises like where the needle goes the thread follows. And both the commandment and the promise come from God. God is pleased with those who obey his commandments. And to them, God keeps the promises he gave together with the commandments.

 

God said, “Honor your father and mother.” Honoring the parents is the most important basic human duty emphasized all the time and in every nation. The etymological meaning of “Honoring” is “making heavy.” My parents are the most important persons among all I know in this world, and therefore, my relationship with them is the heaviest one that I should take care of. In Korea, people say, “If you want to know a person’s real character, visit his home and see how he treats his parents.” A person’s relationship with his parents may be the prototype of all the relationships that he makes with others. And if the child-parent relationship is not good, whatever the reason is, he may have difficulty in other interpersonal relationships as well. When we honor our parents, the most important persons, we may establish good and healthy order in all the other relationships.

 

Yet this is not as easy as we think. People say that love flows downward, from the parents to their children. This is a natural human instinct like water flows from high to low. We all acknowledge the importance of honoring the parents, but upward love is usually not so powerful as downward love. But God gave this as the first commandment, “Honor your father and mother.” Especially in God, this commandment should be engraved deeply into our heart. Paul says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” (Ephesians 6:1). In the Bible, the parents are often God’s proxies who represent God in the house. They are teachers instructing God’s ways, and God’s agents carrying out God’s will. In Deuteronomy 6:6-7a, God said to the people, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children.” In Genesis 18:19 as well, God said, regarding why he chose Abraham, “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” What is that the Lord may bring to Abraham? It is “blessing all the peoples of all nations on earth” (Genesis 12:3, 18:18). In order for this plan of God to be fulfilled, what is critical is that Abraham command his children and his household after him so that they keep the way of the Lord and to do righteousness and justice. The name “Abraham” means “the father of many peoples” In other words, Abraham is the father of fathers, and the model of all fathers. Parents are those who teach their children God’s ways and supervise them to practice the ways so that God’s blessing may come upon the children. In this sense, parents are like the loins connecting their children to God. And the most important assets that parents should transfer to their children are God’s commandments and God’s promises.

 

In this sense, “Honor your father and mother” is truly a commandment with a promise. Nevertheless, not all parents may be so diligent in teaching God’s way to their children. And they may not have been raised by their parents that way. In fact, people’s life tends to become gradually away from God over the generations. Judges 2:7 says, “So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.” And verses 10-11 says, “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals.” Joshua’s faith in God was maintained barely through his generation, and those born thereafter forgot their God so quickly. With this, we can see that it is extremely hard to continue the faith of the parents’ generation through the children’s generation. And, therefore, it’s not easy that God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled after many generations. In this sense, the commandment “Honor your father and mother” is very important. This commandment was not given by parents to their children. This commandment was given by God to each of us. The authority and weight of this commandment doesn’t come from the parents’ godliness or their integrity. It comes from the fact that this is God’s commandment. Our parents are all great but they may not be as perfect as God. Nevertheless, God’s commandment “Honor your father and mother” is still valid. It is because God said so.

 

As mentioned above, this is the first commandment with a promise. God said, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” When we honor our father and mother, we live a blessed life long in the land that the LORD gave to us. This is because God blesses children through their parents. Isaac had two twin sons Esau and Jacob. Although they were twins, Esau had the birthright because he came out of the mother’s womb first. But one day, he, out of hunger, sold out his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew. Genesis 25:33b-34 says, “So he (Esau) swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.” Birthright comes from the parent-child relationship. Esau should take care of it like his own life. It is because God’s blessing comes upon the children through the parents. After all, Esau who despised his birthright failed to get the father’s blessing, and Jacob, who appreciated the value of the birthright, obtained the blessing from his father Isaac. We may think that Jacob deceived his father Issac to snatch God’s blessing, which was supposed to go to his brother Esau. But it is God who turned the flow of blessing to Jacob who honored his parents. Genesis 26:34-35 says, “When Esau was forty years old, he took as wives Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. And they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.” This suggests that Esau did not talk much with his parents, or consider the parents’ opinions seriously in his important decisions. Furthermore, he was the firstborn who would inherit God’s promise that began from his grandfather Abraham and was transferred to his father Isaac. As Esau did not honor his parents, he could not be used as a part of the long passage of God’s commandment and blessing over generations.

 

This age is the age of conflict and division. We see conflicts and divisions between generations, between genders, between political groups, between teachers and students, and so on. With this trend, people are getting more selfish, and business-oriented. In every relationship, we calculate profit and loss, instead of exchanging truthful unconditional love. And this trend even affects the parent-child relationship. In 2Timothy 3:1-5, Paul tells about terrible times that will come in the last days. And verse 2 says, “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasting, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy ......” Paul specifically mentions “those disobedient to their parents” as a sign of the terrible last days. In such an age, God’s commandment “Honor your father and mother” shines upon our souls like a bright star. Our parents are our home where we can have true rest in body and spirit and enjoy the genuine love relationship that we cannot find in the world. Our parents are everlasting memory of true love that we cannot taste in the world. So they are worthy to be honored with all our hearts. We all learned love from our parents even before we know the love of God. In fact, parents’ love is the love of God even if they have never talked about the love of God. They gave birth to our bodies and our spirits, and they took care of us as their own bodies and spirits. God made us of our parents. So we cannot honor God without honoring the parents. I remember my parents, and miss them so much. May the Lord forgive my disobedience and bless their souls in heaven with your everlasting peace!