How do you honor parents that were not worthy of honor? How do you honor the Fifth Commandment of God found in Exodus 20:12: "Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you." Is it even possible? What would it look like? Why should I? I mean, surely God knows the details and will give me a pass on this right? Don't theologians have a word for all knowing? OMNISCIENT, right? Since He knows, he'll understand if I sit this one out. If this is what God requires, I'm out - enough with the Church thing already... y'all don't even know what you're askin'.
There is a spectrum of experience here, and we all fall somewhere between Hallmark and Hell. That's just the way it is. For some individuals this day is fraught with a spiral of scared and angry emotion that threatens to suck them into a black hole vortex. Unfortunately some were long ago sucked into the spiral and cast out the other side into an uncharted galaxy where the rules are made up as the individual sees fit, and frequently in direct contradiction to the laws of this present Creation. For those who have found a firm foundation and invited Jesus in at his gentle but insistent knock, we have allowed Him to come with us to the closet, open the door, cast His Light in where we could at least name the skeletons if we weren't entirely ready to face everything about them. Each year I find fewer bones in that closet, less mess, less dust and debris. And although that closet is still a disappointing room in my house, it is no longer a fearful frightening place I need to avoid.
These days get easier as the years go by, mainly because of the healing I experience as I walk a different life surrendered to Jesus and nurture a family who does the same. I see the honor my wife is worthy of as a mother on Mother's Day, and as a father myself now there is a gentle healing that takes place in that experience and the daily experiences of attempting to be a Godly father for my daughters. In me and my life choices, and subsequently my wife's and now our daughters we have broken the cycle of dysfunction and sin that marred my childhood. We are no longer held in the bondage of iniquity visited upon the children of those who hate the Lord, we have crossed over into the thousands of generations who receive mercy because we love the Lord and seek to keep His commandments. Love God, love others is the summation of those commands for those of you wishing to skip the detailed reading of the Torah in particular, and sifting through the imperative and indicative tense structure of NT Greek to understand the differences between Christ's commands and promises.
Mother's Day. Father's Day. Grandparent's Day. What if you cringe at the thoughts these holidays recall? What if you hide behind a terracotta mask worthy of a Masquerade, Mardi Gras, or Phantom of the Opera on those days for others sake? Go through the motions of happy so you don't rain on other peoples parades? A real 'mummer's ball' with the Tubular Bells soundtrack from the horror films playing only to your ears in the background?
The difficulty tomorrow poses for me is formed by stories that in my case are long and complicated. Short version: Born a bastard into a broken welfare class family fully immersed in the "Free Love" hippy drug culture of the '70's I knew my father's name but am not certain I ever met him. Later I was adopted into another family, with married middle class parents. The damage to my psyche and image of men in general was well established by that time however, not only by abandonment, but also the experience and witness of various forms of abuse most always initiated by males. So although I played pretend and acted 'normal' (whatever that is) in my happy new family, I'm not sure my new father ever bonded with me in a healing, constructive way. I think he tried to an extent, but even with his Airborne Ranger military skills and Engineer Battalion knowledge and experience, he never found the way to scale the sheer hardened walls or cross the mine fields of my defenses. A year after my marriage to Shonda, my mother disowned me after some harsh words, and he chose to stop trying and instead honor her anger. Without intentionally blaming or shaming him for all that I will say that somewhere inside I honestly held (maybe the correct word is not in the past tense - hold) him in contempt because of that. Yeah, abandoned by one father, and unworthy of another father's efforts - tomorrow holds that hardness for me after 22 years of walking a Sanctified life, attempting daily to wholly surrender who and what I am to Christ. You don't know how many times I've lain prostrate before the Lord asking for a dramatic instantaneous healing like the physical issues remedied in the pages of the Bible. His Grace is sufficient for me, and there is a deep sense of healing that comes from gaining knowledge and wisdom from facing these things.
What if you avoid the 5th Commandment, or the Ten Commandments altogether because you cannot fathom a God who would command or demand that you "Honor..." a parent who was unworthy. I don't need to share the sordid possibilities for the reasons your stomach is churning right now while you read those questions - you carry them with you and replay them on the screen of your mind's eye like a home movie you'd just rather not ever watch again but can't bring yourself to discard. They inform a morbid masochism fueled by the confusion lodged in some stronghold establishing event you may never have had an opportunity to share on a therapists couch, a pastor's office, or even in the quiet times of conversation you have with your spouse.
You are not alone.
And you do not get a pass on the Fifth Commandment. The command is not to 'obey' hurtful ungodly parents, it is to 'honor' them.
So what does it look like? How do you do it? Especially if the parent(s) are unrepentant and still unworthy and you've long since lost any hope for wholeness in this area. I once spoke to a brother's question posted on Facebook regarding just this, and although I can't remember everything I wrote that day, the substance is along these lines every time I have the conversation with another hurt soul:
Honor your father tomorrow and everyday, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in whatever land the Lord has given you. Follow Paul's advice in Romans 12:18 "If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men." (NASB)You honor your parents by becoming all that God meant you to be. You keep the focus on you and healing the harmful outcomes of the damaging experiences you had. You honor them by becoming a person that any reasonable parent could be proud of. You bring honor to their name and history in spite of their hidden or obvious unworthiness. You honor them by pushing into God for all that He is worth, letting Him walk you into that dark closet of skeletons and exorcising the demons by His Holy Light. You honor them by learning where those hurts came from and how they played out in your walk. You honor them by learning how God wanted you to be treated, and treating others His way instead of the way your parents raised you. You honor them by walking others out of the same broken places you once were. You honor them by giving consideration to where those hurtful experiences may have come from in their life, causing the caustic back splash into your childhood. You honor them by forgiving them, truly coming to a place where you can say they did not do right by you, but you can no longer afford to cherish the anger and hurt engendered by those experiences. You honor them by refusing to accept unacceptable behavior - from them, if they are still perpetrators - or anyone. You honor them by healing and relearning how to live your life in healthy, constructive, loving ways. You honor them by honoring yourself as a God created individual worthy of love and respect and kindness. You honor them by refusing to reestablish a relationship with them if they are unwilling or unable to bring the price of re-admission. You allow them the dignity of suffering for their own mistakes, and no longer carrying a burden of shame that was theirs unfairly thrown on you. You honor them by not maligning or shaming them with your speech and written word, but speaking honestly and moving on from a foundation of truth brought into the Light. You honor them because God, your true Father, chose them to be trusted with stewarding your life, He chose to knit you together in your mother's womb, and whatever failures they may have had as parents - God still saw and used the Good that He saw in them to bring your life forth into this world. And maybe, just maybe, you can find it in you to trust that God as your Father had a bigger plan in the whole scheme of things than you could possibly imagine.
I offer this link for a sermon on this commandment preached earlier this year by my current pastor Dr. Steve Elliott at First Alliance Church in Lexington, Kentucky:
http://sermons.faclex.com/2012/04/15/honor-on-command/
It is a sermon wrapped around the Fifth Commandment and it could be that there is a deep Word of healing for you in it, regardless of where you fall along the spectrum between Hallmark and Hell. One of the most healing things I heard was where Steve delineates the difference we confuse about the words 'honor' and 'obey'.
Be blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment