Ex 20

When I think of the Ten Commandments, an image that often comes to mind is something my mom gave me when I was a little kid. It was a string of ten small golden medallions, maybe eight or nine inches in length. Each one was round in shape and had engraved on it one of the commandments.

It had all the “Thou shalt not”s of the King James Version. Still, seeing them delicately inscribed on little pieces of metal lacked the…impact that seeing them engraved in stone would have brought!

Of course, that was then. The image I share with many others now is of people getting in front of cameras, going to court, and arguing about when and where it’s okay to display them. I still haven’t heard of a case in which someone wants to display the beatitudes of Jesus on public property! That may be a good thing, though. All the fighting over the Ten Commandments seems to be more about establishing political turf than inspiring true devotion. (That’s my take on it, anyway!)

The Ten Commandments was my sermon text on World Communion Sunday three years ago. In 2002, I suggested that we should see them as a way of life. I especially mentioned the fourth commandment—remembering sabbath—as capturing the spirit of the entire passage.

Still, I’ve often heard that the fifth commandment is the only one that comes with a promise. “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (v. 12). We’ll look at the second part of that verse later on.

But what about the first part? Honor your father and mother. What exactly does that mean? Much of the time, the answer we get is: obey your father and mother. That was what my mom told me when I was a kid. The fifth commandment tells us to obey our parents. (That can be a very useful interpretation!)

To me, that never seemed worthy of being one of the “big ten.” I could see its importance, but not on the scale of “you shall have no other gods,” or “you shall not murder.” It didn’t seem to carry that much weight!

And my other question was, “What if your parents tell you to do something wrong—and you know it’s wrong? Should you still obey and go on and do it?” I can’t recall ever getting a really clear answer from my mom on that one! At least, she never answered it to my satisfaction!

The truth is, making the easy assumption that honoring equals obeying can get you into trouble. I think it’s safe to say that anyone who’s from a really dysfunctional family can attest to that. For example, consider Al Pacino in The Godfather. Who’s going to tell me that Michael Corleone made the right call by obeying his father’s wishes in carrying on the family business?

We should also bear in mind that children aren’t the ones being addressed here. These words are meant for adults, men in particular. The last word, the last commandment (in Hebrew, the Ten Commandments means the “ten words”), is a good clue of that. Among the things not to be coveted—not to be desired—is “your neighbor’s wife” (v. 17). Clearly, the audience is men. And for grown men, honoring one’s parents involves a lot more than mere obedience.

In his book on Exodus, George Pixley suggests, “This commandment imposes on the community the care of the elderly who are no longer productive. Proverbs 19:26 is evidence of the problem that the commandment seeks to [prevent]. ‘He who dispossesses his father and drives out his mother is a son as shameless as depraved.’”[1]

I think this gives the statement, “Honor your father and mother,” more depth; it gives it more meaning. To see it as simply obeying them leaves it largely at the individual level. But we need to remember that the ancient Israelites weren’t Americans. We focus so much on individual freedom that we often forget our social responsibility. The Ten Commandments, indeed the entire Bible, has a profoundly communal focus. I had friends at seminary from other parts of the world who thought that our Christianity here is seriously lacking in that regard.

But there’s an even more basic question. What does it mean to honor? The thesaurus on my computer has a list that includes “revere,” “respect,” “pay tribute to.” But those are just more words. What does honor look like? Do we conduct ourselves with honor? Do we live honorable lives?

That’s a good question to ask on World Communion Sunday. By its very name, we are reminded that the body of Christ encompasses the entire globe. It is a universal body. And what happens to one part of the body affects all parts of the body.

I said earlier that three World Communion Sundays ago, the Ten Commandments was my sermon text. Back then, I said this: “On this World Communion Sunday, our government is making plans for war on Iraq. We would like to think that only one bad guy will suffer. But just like the war eleven years ago [now fourteen years ago], many will suffer and die—and that includes the Christian population of Iraq, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who number almost one million.”

As I said, that was 2002. On this World Communion Sunday, that number has been drastically reduced. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of Christians have either been killed or forced to flee their homes, even to flee the country, due to the anarchy unleashed by the war. (And, of course, that is just counting the Christians.)

I’ll resist the temptation to tell you what I really think about this war. Suffice it to say that the adjective “honorable” would not be included!

Still, I’m not claiming any special insight into honor. I can’t say that my life has always done honor to my father and mother. I haven’t always been honorable to my brothers and sisters all over the world…or to the earth…or to my wife…or to myself…or to my God.

At the presbytery meeting this past Tuesday here in Jamestown at First Presbyterian, Angus Watkins preached the sermon during the worship service. During his sermon, which was about building peace by caring for the earth, he also acknowledged ways in which he had not honored those convictions. He read this poem he’d written, while it was projected on a screen in the sanctuary:

As I listened to his poem, I thought of my own petty cruelties to God’s creatures. I remembered torturing slugs on a sunny summer day with a magnifying glass, inflicting pain just because I could.

Remember the promise I mentioned earlier that goes with this commandment? “So that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” As I said, I’m no expert in honor, but I do know this. We do no honor to our parents, or to their memory—we do no honor to our ancestors—if we do not honor our brothers and sisters today. And we don’t honor them if we don’t honor those to come after us. Leaving the earth in worse shape than we found it is dishonorable.

In recent days, a fellow named Bill Wiser has written about the projected gas shortages and increased fuel costs, as a result of the hurricane damage to the Gulf coast.[2] “Facing the pumps,” he says, “we can vent at the station attendants or rail against our political leaders. Both choices are futile because all the while we continue to grab a disproportionate share of the earth’s [resources] and support the wars necessary to maintain our global dominance. Instead, we need to address the issue individually and not pass blame. As painful as this may be, we need to come to terms with the greed in our own lives…

“As we begin the 21st century, the planet seems broken—as if it has borne too many centuries of greed and is perishing for [lack] of love. I sense in the severity of recent droughts, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes the symptoms of a worn and ailing earth. The resulting colossal human suffering is a call to conversion—to becoming God’s helpers for the sake of the earth and its peoples.”

Understand, I’m not saying that at the time of Moses, the threat of ecological disaster was what people had in mind. In a clan-based society, honoring father and mother was literally about making sure someone’s got your back. There was no government, no police protection, as we think of it today. The promise “that your days may be long in the land that…God is giving you” spoke to a very immediate concern.

But, as I’ve said, that was then. Today, having our days be long in the land that God’s given us is still an immediate concern. The problem is, repenting of our wasteful ways is something we don’t like to do. When you don’t feel the pain you inflict on others, it’s very hard to imagine things being any other way. That’s true at the global level, but it’s also true right here among us.

Honoring is more than the surface level measure of obeying. Rather, it involves being profoundly engaged, making sure that all people are cared for. That is how we all can live long days in the land, and in the church, that God continues to give us.

[1] George Pixley, On Exodus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987), 135.

[2] www.bruderhof.com/articles/love-the-earth.htm?source=DailyDig