Deeper: S3, E6 - Honouring

There's a command in the 10 Commandments where we are told to honour our parents.  Here we look at what 'honour' means, and what an abundant society we could have if we truly honoured (in words, actions, time and resources) those in the stage of life ahead of us.  We will look at how good parenting reflects the heart of God for humanity, and that as we honour our parents here on earth, we are actually also honouring God.

Transcript

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Hi there, welcome! We have rounded the top of the hill and we're on to episode 6 out of 10, exploring the concept of experiencing and bringing the abundant life that Jesus claimed he was going to bring all believers. To do this, we are moving backwards, traversing like a well-driven truck through the Ten Commandments. In this episode called Honoring, we're going to explore parenting and parents. We're going to look at what Jesus had to say to the religious leaders who sidestepped their duty to their elderly parents. And imagine communities all across the world for whom honouring those ahead of us in their most frightening and vulnerable season of their lives reflects how we honor the Creator Himself. So brace for impact, this is honoring. So, Father God, as we look at what it means to have this abundant life you say believers will have, I pray you'd help us to have the courage to put down things we might already think and feel about how we live and who you are. Help us to lay them at your feet and re-examine our beliefs and practices in the light of what you might be saying. Help us to weigh up what is said, to take what's coming from you, and leave behind anything that's not. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Yes, and there it is. Okay, so going through the phases of being a child and growing into adulthood, we don't generally think too much about what things are like for our parents. We we just kind of assume things are as they are. So when we're under three, we are totally dependent. Most of us utterly idolise our parents, whatever they're like, and we want to be like them in everything. We're not always aware that they are feeding us or buying stuff. Sometimes we've got no idea that things even cost money or that parents can even get tired. It just all seems to happen for us. Three to five years old, we do a bit of boundary testing, uh, but still basically want our parents' approval. Then between six and eleven, we start to see that our friends have got other opinions than the ways that we do things, and we start to make comparisons between different households. This lines us up beautifully for those teenage years where much of what our parents do seems outdated or ill-thought through or boring, uh, chores are an imposition, boundaries are a lack of trust, and technology is our world, not theirs. But then, theoretically, we reach the older teen and the post-teen world where things kind of flatten out and there's a mutual respect and an interdependence. Many people say there's another phase in this development. The moment that someone has their own children, whether they are biological or blended or chosen, as you go through those same phases for yourself with your own children, all these memories pop back into your head that there's an entirely new appreciation of what it must have been like for your own people who parented you to parent you. For a family growing up in the UK today, it will cost one child, um, in financial terms between zero and eighteen, somewhere in the region of a quarter of a million pounds, just to achieve the baseline for socially acceptable standards of living. For most people, that figure will actually be something like 300 to 400,000 pounds. And that doesn't change too much with a second child, so a two-children family could be looking at a staggering three-quarters of a million just to get by. That's just the money. There's a whole bunch of time and dedication to do cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, sitting with them, doing homework, coming home from work when they're ill, sacrifices of hobby time and social life, and more. Plus the heartache that comes when your children are rushed into hospital or have an accident, or their first couple's breakup, or exams or crushed hopes, or friendships that go wrong, and of course, the horrors of social media and school bullying. All of this is an investment. It's an investment of time, money, words, space, and above all, of love. Love is the driving force behind it all. Not many people sit down before a child happens to them and explore the costs. Most people thrill at the new life that comes their way, and then they pour everything they can into that life because that reflects God. Becoming a parent yourself is like walking around with a huge mirror strapped to your face, but the image you can see is your parents looking back at you, and unbeknownst to you, this love you're pouring out into your child reflects the love that God pours out to the world. Parenthood is an investment of one entire life into another entire life, and it's a reflection of how God invests his whole being into all of humanity. An entire life. Now I know there are rare situations when parenting goes so significantly wrong that this relationship becomes unhelpful, even dangerous, and the deep, deep impact of that is even more evidence of the significant role played by parents. But most people can still look back and find other people who they would say parented them, who maybe weren't their biological parents. Older figures who walked with us, people who took us in, people who talked with us about things maybe who led us to faith, who protected us at a certain time, or provided for us, or other things. The Bible teaches us that for this unique parent-child relationship, there needs to be a unique amount of honour that is given back. And that English word honour actually comes from a Hebrew word which describes weightiness, like a grounding heaviness, or gravity, not a bad heaviness, more like something immovable and significant. And it outworks itself in the way that we are supposed to behave towards that person. We're meant to recognize and remember the significant parts of us that have come from them, that the best that they've given, the sacrifices, the joyful shared memories, and yes, as time moves by, our roles begin to eventually reverse an honouring of our own time and money and resources and care and patience. For a similar amount of time that we are dependent on our parents, roughly 18 to 20 years, there will be this reversal for many of us if we are gifted to have parents who live to an older age. In the first churches that popped up all over the world, where they called themselves followers of the way of Christ, there was this revolutionary new way of being with each other, where they saw each other as a new spiritual family. Paul refers to himself more than a few times as a spiritual father to others, sometimes to whole churches, sometimes to individuals. And what became one of the most revolutionary things about these first churches was they poured out their care and their resources and their time for the most vulnerable among them, especially the elderly. It's funny how, in one sense, these commandments, commandments 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, can all be seen as commands to take care of those who are more vulnerable than us. Do not covet, actually, should create a fair economy in which all people have enough and the poor are therefore taken care of. Do not give false testimony in court is about protecting vulnerable people in the media and in the courts. Do not steal, protects vulnerable people's property and space. Do not commit adultery, protects the vulnerable who are drawn into the sex industry and are trafficked across the world. Do not murder, protects the weakest among us. And this command to honour our father and mother. It works to protect the elderly. A good friend of mine who's now approaching his 90s was who and still has all the get up and go that anyone could want, was talking about yet another visit to hospital for him and his wife. And he turned to me quite candidly and said to me, Alex, it takes a lot of courage to get old. A lot of courage. I live on the Isle of Man and we have a significantly older population than the United Kingdom. Something like 21 to 24%, that's a quarter of our population, is over 65, making us the oldest, one of the oldest populations globally. Over 65s in the UK, for example, make only about 16 to 19%. But still we struggle as a nation to look after people well. Literally, as those who have given into our societies, churches, children, arts, armies, hospitality families, and more, as they're reaching the time of their lives when they feel the most vulnerable and uncertain. They often become invisible, feel unuseful, or feel in the way. The Isle of Man's assisted dying bill, which is looking to try to get through here at the moment, has a number of strongly worrying elements to it. One of the most worrying for me is that it creates this disposable feel to the elderly. So many older people I know feel distressed, feel a nuisance, and when their family can perhaps no longer take care of them, they feel like a burden. This should never be the case. Even when Jesus was talking to religious leaders in Matthew chapter 15, he sees them giving their money to the temple instead of to their parents because they'd seen it as a higher way to honor God. But Jesus fiercely chastises them for it. For him, looking after our parents is the way that we honor God. We look after the vulnerable not because it's a duty, but because we remember that they are also made in the image of God. And how we look after the ones that He created is how we honor the Creator. Importantly, this is the only command with a blessing attached. Honor your father and mother, so it will go well with you, and you will have a long life. Even if we just took this command at its practical outworking, of course it would work out. A whole culture where caring for the elderly is out the outworking of our worship would mean that a whole culture would have people who have the greatest care as we get older. So when it is my turn, the same will go for me. But there does also seem to be a supernatural promise here, too. When God's people honor those who brought them into the world, and then the one who brought everything into the world returns that honour back to them. It may be your biological parents, or adopted, or temporary parents, it may be a spiritual parent like a mentor or the person who has shaped your faith the most? You may have a few of these. In what ways, as they begin to become more frail, or find life more difficult, maybe they can see their resources have an end date, maybe their life has an end date, and that is a frightening prospect for them. How can you honor them with your words, your time, your resources, your memories, your respect? I mean, just how abundant would our society be if the elderly had a significantly more hope-filled view of their old age because they could see people all around them waiting in the wings to honor them as they increase in their own dependency and vulnerability. This abundance is not as much about how we experience the abundant life Jesus spoke about. In this case, it's how are we part of providing that abundance for those people in the stages of life one step ahead of us? How can we ensure that their last years are just overflowing with goodness? What can our role be in that? So, so, Father God, ageless one, may you bring to our minds and hearts the people who have fathered and mothered us in various ways. Surprise us by reminding us of people who, out of love, provided for us and parented us at every stage of our lives. Help us know how we can show them honor in the things that we do now while it still matters. And may your kingdom of love and patience and goodness and grace receiving and giving. May that kingdom calm alive in us as we bring abundance to others in these last seasons of their lives. Amen.