Honoring Parents

Been studying the 5th Commandment today - Honor your father and mother. It seems that the commandment is the transition between the first four, which deal with our relationship to God, and the last 5, which deal with our relationship with each other.

The first four are about loving God, and the last 5 are about loving our neighbor. The fifth command bridges the two ideas.

The family is where the two ideas meet. Parents parallel God in providing unconditional love to completely helpless children. Eventually the children come to love their parents, as we come to understand and love God.

As I think about this passage it comes to my mind that honoring parents (which involves obedience), from a very early age, is the first and most fundamental response to God. What makes that sobering/awesome is that it is up to parents to make sure that it happens.

Children don’t come into the world seeing or knowing God. They come into the world seeing and knowing their parents. What do they see? What do they know? It’s up to us to show them and to teach them about God. Honor of parents creates an environment for learning and transmission of God's love.

All human relationships, for good or ill, develop in association with the relationships that emerge in families.

I read last week that 41% of babies are now born outside of a marriage relationship. I wonder what that does for this concept of honoring parents. What about divorce? What about step-parenting?

And what do you do if your parents do not deserve honor or respect?

God is redemptive, meeting us in our messes--we all have them--to help clean them up and make something good come from them. This is good news!

Faith.
Trust.
Obedience.

***

Ben and I are going for a bike ride after we eat. Then after that I am going to look at a bike that a friend has for sale. Right now I have a borrowed bike, and I need to return it. I really want to do a lot of biking this summer.

Tomorrow I begin running again; five miles in the morning. All the runs now are running toward the Monumental Marathon on November 6. Boston, baby!