June 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

JUNE 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As we pass through Mothers’ Day and prepare to observe Fathers’s Day, it occurs to me that this would be a really great time to think not only on our personal parental relationships, but also on the ways in which they point us back to God the Father and to that portion of His Law that deals with parents and children.

The Lord commands in Exodus 20:12 that we are to “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

As we begin this study of the Fifth Commandment, I am reminded of a classic quote from celebrated humorist and author Mark Twain who, in the course of an 1874 essay carried in Atlantic Monthly observed that, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

With some starts and stops we began looking at the First Commandment last year just after Father’s Day 2009, and while it may seem that a year is a long time to linger over just five commandments, I think it is highly significant that we have this conjunction of dates, times and studies. We noted last year that, rooted in the First Commandment’s imperative to remember and serve the God who alone redeemed Israel from Egyptian bondage, was the notion of His eternal Fatherhood over those whom He has created, claimed as His own and redeemed.

All of us are fallen individuals mired in our own egos, concerns, desires and plans. And, as such, all of us are fully able to become so self-absorbed that “we” become the measure of all that we see. When we do so, we lose sight of all else and come to over-value our own judgments and desires. This is the first casualty of our sinfulness — our relationship to and with God the Father and His rightful authority over us.

This situation is what imbues Twain’s quote with so much of its humor. At some level, most of us recognize our capacity for navel-gazing self-absorption and self-righteousness. We remember, with both humor and pain, the ways in which we have blown-off and ignored or rebelled against that authority. But that knowledge comes only with experience and self-awareness; experience of a few or many miles stuck in the mud of our own stubborn pride and sinfulness, and awareness of our inherent rebelliousness.

God, too, is supremely aware of this tendency on our part, and addressed it head-on in what the Apostle Paul calls “the first commandment with a promise” (Eph. 6:1-4). Paul’s rephrasing of the commandment is particularly apt for us in a day in which we see the unfolding disaster of family dissolution and dysfunction. He phrases it this way: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

God’s authority, wisdom, instruction and discipline are designed to be mediated to us through strong parental relationships. God is the ultimate Father. He is the proto-type and standard for all parents, and has created us in such a way that this bond is the centerpiece of all other relationships. Because of this, parents are supposed to be the representatives of God to their children, showing love, care, instruction, compassion, discipline and grace.

Children are called to honor, value and respect their parents. And when they do so, as St. Paul reminds us, they are called to do so “in the Lord”. This means that the honor, respect and value that they show to their parents is a recognition and reminder of that role that God has in our lives. It is vitally important to us to recognize and respect the sheer fact of our own being. God ordained and permitted our parents to be the agents of our existence. He used them to bring us into this world and, in a certain derivative sense, we owe them everything we have and are. Without them, we would not even exist.

This is a key lesson to which we should all pay primary attention. We must remember, celebrate and honor this commandment from our dual perspectives as both children and parents. As children we are called to honor and obey our own parents “in the Lord.” But, in a similar fashion, we, as parents, are called to emulate God’s example of righteous Fatherhood.

As children we are to listen, learn and produce the fruits of godliness in thankful answer and duplication of Christ’s example as obedient child. As parents we are to demonstrate that wisdom, love and grace that have been extended to us by a holy God who not only created us, but has also redeemed us at high personal cost. This is why St. Paul includes his final admonition: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” He knows that there is an inherent balance in the commandment. Parents should not needlessly provoke their children to rebellion and discontent, but children are still to be respectful and obedient.

None of us is exempted from this command. It is of universal scope and significance. Whether the best or the most wretched, all parents are still representatives of God in this regard. And this is what makes broken familial relationships, child abandonment and abuse so horrible; they cut directly to the heart of this representative role and purposefully mar and scar it. Likewise, deliberate rebellion and disrespect by children towards their parents is equally destructive and hurtful.

Either the one or the other make mockery of the God of heaven, His creation and His work of our redemption. In fact, to demean, diminish or ignore this commandment is tantamount to deliberately pulling on that loose thread in a hand-knit garment. All of us know that pulling that thread will result in the eventual unraveling of the entire garment.

But, on the flip-side, there is hope in the midst of the worst of family tragedy and disaster: God, who is supreme, is our ultimate parent. Yahweh promises us repeatedly that He will both execute justice and provide for the widow and the orphan and that great curses will fall upon those who pervert that justice or ignore their suffering because it is God’s will that they should be provided for and cared for adequately.

So, in a day when more and more families are falling apart, when fatherless youth fall into rebellion, sin, crime and hopelessness or callous disregard, let us remember that God is not yet finished with us. He does hear the cries of the broken, crushed, dispossessed and wayward. Through the finished work of His Son on the cross, the transforming nature of the Resurrection and the awakening and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit He provides for our forgiveness, redemption and restoration.

Once, this word of command, served only to condemn and crush any of us who failed to meet its high standard. But on this side of the cross, it is a powerful statement of hope and purpose. Because God sent His only-begotten Son to die for us and Raised Him up again to His right hand, we have a hope that our relationships may be transformed and restored from even the most bleak circumstances.

As you study, reflect on and think about this command, take a look at the fantastic true story of Baltimore Raven Michael Oher and of his foster parents Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy which was so lovingly adapted and told in the book and movie The Blind Side. Oher was a functional orphan whose father deserted the family and whose mother, a crack addict, abandoned him to the “tender mercies” of Memphis, Tennessee’s foster system and the meanest of her worst streets. Oher never stopped loving and respecting his mother –– even in her most unlovable moments, and God provided to him two loving “parents” who took seriously their call as believers.

This story is nothing less than the marvelous outworking of God’s grace to supply the objective conditions of His command. And it is the dramatic demonstration of the instruction given to us in the Heidelberg Catechism’s “Q & A 104” which tell us:
Q 104: What is God's will for you in the fifth commandment?
A 104: That I honor, love, and be loyal to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I obey and submit to them, as is proper, when they correct and punish me; and also that I be patient with their failings — for through them God chooses to rule us.

So, as we remember Mothers’ Day just past, and celebrate this upcoming Fathers’ Day; as we worship, study, pray and act, let’s look to the nature and purpose of the Fifth Commandment. Let us be instructed anew and refreshed. See you in worship on the Lord’s Day!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+