Honor Your Father and Mother

May 11, 2021

I have a Mother’s Day joke for you. Two women were talking. The first said, “I have the perfect son.” The second woman asked: “Does he smoke?” The first women said, “No, he doesn’t.” 
“Does he drink whiskey?” “No, he doesn’t.” “Does he ever come home late?” “No, he doesn’t.” “Wow, I guess you really do have the perfect son. How old is he?” “He will be six months old next Wednesday.” 

Today is Mother’s Day and we want to thank all the moms and all the women who impacted young lives this year. 

It’s been a tough year for Moms and all the women who take care of kids or have a role in their lives. Moms always have a huge job, but it got harder in the last year. Mom became tech support and teacher. Moms had to work from home while kids go to school online. There were quarantines, and you have to figure out who will watch your kid at home. Then we want to appreciate mom, now there is a Flower Shortage and Mother’s Day cards are in short supply. I just want to say that I’ll settle for diamonds! 

It was a hard year for older Moms: maybe Mom was in a nursing home or hospital, and you couldn’t see her. It made us realize how precious the opportunity to be with mom is, to tell her we love her and how much she means to us. We can’t take Mom for granted! 

Today we’re going to look at stories in the Bible that teach us about what it is to give honor. 

When we look at the Bible, we are reading a story from a different time and a different culture. Today, we don’t say to our children: “You must bring honor to your family.” Their frame of mind was a bit different. The Bible shows honor and shame cultures. In that kind of culture, people may be over the top nice. If a stranger comes passing through in the desert, you beg them to eat with you, kill the fatted calf, and give them a feast! You give great honor to that stranger. But if that stranger then makes fun of your momma, they had better run for the hills! You don’t let someone shame your family! 

It’s different for us, if someone says, “Your momma wears combat boots!” it doesn’t feel like a terrible insult. Combat boots are a fashion trend for one thing. Or mom just might serve in the military! We don’t feel as big a burden to uphold the honor of our family. Honor and shame don’t seem important now in the same way. 

Another time honor come up in the Bible is in genealogies. Why? Why are genealogies in the Bible, they don’t seem interesting. They say this person begat that person who begat that person.   But honor (and shame) in the Bible is determined primarily by the group you belong to.  So, for someone to know your identity and status, they have to know who your family is.  For this reason, genealogies are perhaps the most basic way honor is communicated in the Bible. 

When you think of it that way, you can see why genealogies are important: they tell people who you are. Around here we enjoy what I call “genealogies.” If you don’t know who someone is, you ask and you’ll hear, “that’s so and so’s sister,” or “that’s so and so’s grandson.” We even like to know whose former house someone lives in: they live in what used to be so and so’s house. Who someone is connected to helps us know who they are. In the Bible people believed you are formed and influenced by your family. Your family helps you become the person you are. We would agree with that. The Bible would say about your family, “Their honor is your honor.” 

One of the ten commandments is “Honor your father and mother.” And there’s more to that commandment: “Honor your father and mother so you may live long in the land the Lord is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12). The Hebrews dreamed of the land the Lord would give them. They had been slaves. So, the commandment is saying, honor your father and mother, so that you will live your dreams! 

Why does honoring your parents make your dreams come true? Honoring them means you give respect and gratitude to your parents, but it also points out that you have received help and blessings in life. It helps you remember to be grateful to God and others. 

You honor your parents because you are grateful to them. You appreciate what you have received. With gratitude, we acknowledge the goodness in our lives. and that the source of that goodness lies at least partially beyond ourselves. As a result, gratitude also helps us connect to something larger than ourselves as individuals —to other people and to God. When you’re grateful to your parents, it connects you to God and other people. 

Thinking of how our parents and others have helped us, and that God has been good to us, that makes us grateful and honoring people! 

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the prodigal son. It is a parable, which is a made-up story Jesus tells to make a point. A son decides he wants to leave his family and go do what he wants. Not only that, he demands he get his inheritance right now, which nobody does. His father actually gives his wealth to him and sadly watches him leave. The story starts with dishonor: the son doesn’t care about his family, he dishonors them. He goes off and parties and has fun, until he has wasted all of his inheritance. Then he finds himself working and living with pigs and thinking about how much better he had it when he lived at home. Even his father’s servants have food to spare, while he doesn’t have enough to eat! So, the son goes home, thinking he will tell his father he is sorry, and that he doesn’t deserve to be treated like a son. He will become a servant in his father’s household. 

The son has learned through the school of hard knocks, to be grateful to his parents. Living on his own in the world and experiencing the consequences has humbled him. He is ready to be in relationship with his family, and this time he is going to honor them. 

His father sees him from a distance and runs to him, hugs and kisses him. His father loves him, before the son has even apologized. The son says, he is sorry he has sinned, and he no longer deserves to be called his father’s son. The son has learned to honor his father. The father says, no, you’re not my servant, you are my son! He welcomes him back and throws a big party for him.  

The father in the parable, stands for God, and we are the prodigal son. We have all been that son: at times ungrateful. We have been the disrespectful kid, or the teen who thinks their parents just don’t get what the world is like today. We’ve been the adult who looks for a financial bailout from our parents. Like the prodigal son, we have or will come to realize at some point that our parents have been good to us. Most of us learn we have a lot of reasons to be grateful to our parents. When you’re grateful to your parents, it connects you to God and other people. 

This story of the prodigal son tells us, dishonoring behavior toward a parent bothers the parent, just as the father in the parable is so sad when his son leaves home. But what bothers parents the most is when their child is cut off. The most important way to honor a parent is to stay in relationship. 

Mom can overlook disrespect. A gift for her on Mother’s Day is nice. But Mom seeks more. You honor mom by calling or being with mom on Mother’s Day!  

My challenge for you this week is to find a reason you are grateful to your Mom. Does she or did she work hard, help others, read to you? What is or was the best thing about her? Find a reason to be grateful! If your Mom is still with us, tell your Mom what you are thankful for. 

God wants us to honor our mother and father. The reason we are to honor them is that we experience the fullness of life in relationship. That’s what it’s all about, being connected to Mom and Dad. The people in our lives and God are what’s important! Cards and gifts are great. But God and Mom are happy when you show up and express your love to Mom.