Exodus 20:12; Matthew 12:46-50; August 3, 2025; Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
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“Honor your father and your mother.” – Exodus 20:12
On the surface this feels like one of the lightest Commandments. Children, respect your parents.
I mean, that’s pretty straight-forward. It doesn’t involve murder, theft, adultery, or blaspheming against God’s name. Nothing too hard…nothing too difficult…….. oh, except, that it is!
Man, I pray you didn’t get your hopes up this morning, my friends, for this will hardly be a light sermon. Like, at all. Family dynamics are just too complicated.
Aren’t they?
The verb for honor in Hebrew quite literally means “to give due weight to; to ascribe importance to.” And its opposite, in Hebrew, means: “to slight; or, to treat lightly.”
If we then are going to honor this Commandment today, let alone our parents tomorrow, we just can’t treat this Word lightly. No, we’ve got some heavy lifting to do this morning.
So, when wading through historical commentaries about the context behind this decree – as in, why it made its way into God’s mighty decalogue — it seems, to some thinkers at least, that the Spirit was attempting to address certain ancient Near Eastern societal/familial issues at play, that I dare say, are still relevant today.
Such as…how should we care for our aging parents?
How do we care for our loved ones who are struggling to care for themselves? Should we send them all to Rydal Park? Or, bring them back into our homes? And if the latter, should we ask them to then contribute around the house, finding like a low impact role, so to help sustain the family schedule?
Just how precisely can we care for our parents, when sometimes it’s hard enough to look after ourselves, or our children?
Well, apparently, some back in the Near East considered these very questions and came to conclusions that if their parents could no longer stand on their own two feet then their value was negligible at best, or non-existent at worst, and thereby unworthy of extra care and attention.
Sometimes, this would literally manifest in a lack of burial arrangements being made in their honor, or in more extreme cases, parents being shoved right out into the street.
Apparently, this was such a problem that in ancient Egypt children could be sued for doing so; while in ancient Greece laws were made arguing that one should lose their citizenship if they neglected looking after their folks.
This Commandment then, you see, was seen as a furtherance of those attempted corrections; a way to bring mandated caretaking into God’s Law.
Imagine that… mandated healthcare being made into law…
Such, that despite any such hardship that it might create, honoring your parents was an ethical virtue that both citizen and person of God had to ascribe to.
Again, imagine that!
But… playing Devil’s Advocate, because that’s how I do… how about when our parents make decisions contrary to their own safety, well-being, or financial standing? Is honoring them just letting them do it? Or wouldn’t that be a form of neglect?
Wouldn’t giving due weight to their issues, not treating them lightly, suggest that sometimes the best way to honor our parents is actually acting on their behalf, taking agency away from them? As hard as that is!
But, going a step further even — because that’s what I do, and I told you this wouldn’t be light — what if our parents have first been neglectful of us? Or worse, abusive towards us? Damaging us by taking our own agency – our mental, physical, and emotional well-being from us?
Should we ascribe importance to them still in our lives, always and forever? Forgiving them and inviting them over for dinner, birthday parties, and holidays…all so we can say that we’ve kept this Commandment?
Or, would it be more appropriate to allocate equal weight to their questionable actions, not treating them so lightly, honoring the pain they’ve inflicted, by discharging their influence away from our care and attention, shoving their presence out onto the streets…. so to speak?
Believe it or not, our Westminster Larger Catechism, which is not really my favorite Confession, has a whole section on this Commandment. Where father and mother are defined not only as our natural parents, but as any “superior” either in age or gifts from our family, church, or commonwealth.
And, that these “superiors” have a weight to bear and a responsibility to carry, especially if they are going to be due any such honor from their children.
The Catechism states the following: “it is required of superiors to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors (yeah, I’m not a fan of this language either); to instruct and counsel, commend and reward, to protect and provide all things necessary for soul and body…” Sounds pretty good, right?
And, that their sins: “involve neglect of the duties required of them, an inordinate seeking of themselves, their own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure… commanding things unlawful of their children, or not in their ability to perform… dissuading, discouraging, or discountenancing them in that which is good; correcting them unduly; careless exposing them to wrong, temptation or danger; provoking them to wrath, or any way, dishonoring themselves.”
Whew! This Larger Catechism doesn’t mince words now does it?
And sadly, I bet it also describes some rather close relatives in our own lives. Unfortunately.
Because relationships and families, in general, are just hard, aren’t they?
Rarely are they as light as what appears in magazines, or on social media.
You know that overused family photo that is like sunlit from the back and where everyone is just like jumping and laughing and holding onto each other while smiling? Yeah, that’s like a single moment in a string of lots of other moments that often don’t look anything like that. Where are the photos of the arguments? Of the talk-backs? Of the negotiations, rejections, and compromises?
And that’s not to suggest that family life is mostly bad. Or even half bad. Not at all. In fact, it’s mostly great.
But that sunlit image is also not realistic. At least not all the time. For even the best of families have their issues… sometimes… Jesus’ own family notwithstanding.
For here in our text, in verse 46, Jesus’ mother and brothers are seen standing “outside”the house in which he is teaching and working – outside of the circle in which he was preaching — a posture, one commentary opined, which signaled that they thought they owned special privilege over him and above those on the inside.
In Mark’s account of the very same story, Jesus’ family are seen here trying to contain and control him, in addition to their demanding of his attention. …And Jesus, my friends, just can’t stand it.
Earlier in Matthew 10:35-37, Jesus warns that his ministry might cause a rift between families, saying “anyone who loves their faither and mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Hyperbolic for sure, but to the point. And, elsewhere he says things like “let the dead bury the dead” “leave everything [and everyone] behind and follow me.”
And here, when his nuclear family sends someone to stop him and fetch him, he gets noticeably annoyed and doesn’t even answer their request directly, choosing to instead speak through the messenger boy caught in the middle, replying, oh yeah? just “who is my mother, and my brothers?” (v48)
And there, pointing to his disciples, he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (v.49-50)
This is his family, the relations that he honors!
Those who in turn honor the Father’s will, by recognizing the bonds that tie us one to another, as children and joint-heirs with him, the Son, the anointed one.
Jesus family honor code then is not based on blood, on who birthed who, or to whom you are related, but instead it is wed to those who live and act according to the Spirit, who believe and follow the commandments of our Superior.
That is, our Heavenly Father, in whom there is never neglect nor abuse, but equal weight and respect expressed for all.
Just imagine, my friends, how well we would keep this Commandment if we believed and expressed the same!
Amen.
