"Honor Your Father and Mother" (1/1/12 - 1/7/12)

Often Nicky and I read to each other. However we are pretty terrible at getting completely through a book quickly or with due diligence. We've stalled out on two that we've been reading for over three years for reasons of dislike, theological difference with an author, or more likely because of how we feel when we both get home from a long day at work. The third book we picked up because our pastor had quoted it three or four different times. The book is called Mere Morality: What God Expects from Ordinary People by Lewis Smedes. Smedes was professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary from 1921 to 2002. Smedes is also well known in our church's denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, because Smedes was its flagship ethicist. Our pastor painted the image of Smedes as an eloquent and simple communicator, and a brilliant and erudite theologian and ethicist. In Mere Morality, Smedes is trying to get back to the basics of morality and ethics, particularly for Christians "in the world come of age." in a 282 page book, and after 84 pages, Nicky and I got to a very interesting section where Smedes begins to talk about "parental authority." The book itself is somewhat of a commentary on the 10 Commandments, and for the last 30 pages Smedes has been talking about the fifth commandment, "honor your father and mother." The following is a somewhat lengthy quote from mere morality which will help us connect Smedes' thought to my grandparents.

"The Judeo-Christian perspective, however, sees the circle of covenanted care as the right setting for the nurture of children into commitment to what is right and true about life. Parents are parents mainly to take care of the child initiation into faith and morals. And the two go together. Morality has to do with what is truly important and right about life, and what is important about life depends on what is true about God. So, the heart of family is the parents' calling to pass on the moral and spiritual reality of life to their children. The covenant of caretaking, then, creates the family. In this context alone we can understand how a parent has authority and why the child has an obligation to honor the parent. the family is not a spillover from our romantic passions, nor a product of society's requirements that parents provide their offspring with bed and board, nor a little circle of people deriving emotional support from living together, nor a social contrivance for keeping our broods in control, one which could become obsolete if a social planner or to find a better one. In a Judeo-Christian sense, family is rooted in the Creator's design for the ongoing nurture of children who bring faith and moral value into the next generation. To undermine, neglect, or replace it is to wreck the core community that makes all other community possible." (Mere Morality, 80-1)

After 30 pages, we finally get to the core of why parents should be honored, and according to Smedes, it is what makes or breaks all human community and familial lineage. Now growing up I constantly heard, "Eric, the Bible tells you to honor your father and mother!" "Eric, you're breaking the fifth commandment!" The one I remember very specifically was in the mid-1990s. My father had been asked at Oakfield Baptist Church to consider becoming a deacon. One day when I was being particularly naughty, my dad said he decided not to become a deacon because as he told me, "my child is disobedient and unruly."I thought I sensed in my father's words feelings of grief or remorse. What he had told me was a indirect quote from the book of Titus in the New Testament. The quote however is a indirect reference to the fifth commandment found in Exodus chapter 20, and in Deuteronomy chapter 5. If he was speaking with truthfulness (and not jest) then of course he was assuming two things, one, he had not lived up to the fifth commandment's assertion that a parent's role is to teach their children faith and morality, and two, I have not honored my father and mother. Communication is learned, but often too late. When I read Mere Morality I cannot help but think what the world would be like if parents and children could read and understand books like these. Children would know that submission and obedience to parents is not from some control for authoritarian privilege from power-hungry parents - but a deep and steadfast love. Parents would not have to worry that their kids would stray down the wrong path, that they would grow up with proper morals and values that reflect the world God created and the institutions God has crafted.

Leona's Bible reveals to us a deep longing and passion for her children's faith and morals. On the backside of the front free page (to use technical book speak) which you can see below and on your left, Leona had diligently written down the salvation and baptism dates of her immediate family. However if you notice Leona was either not worried about her own or did not know the date (This bible was given to Leona by Homer on April 1, 1963.

 

The following is a re-presentation of these dates:

Homer saved          Dec. 28, 1934

Leona saved           Dec, 1932

Marilyn saved         May 14, 1948

Dale     saved         July 6,     1948

          Baptized July    27, '52

          Joined church   Aug 3, '52

                  (Oakfield)

Lois & Jean Saved          Feb. 9,   '58

          Baptized               Aug 21   '60

   Joined Oakfield            Oct. 6,   '66

Houseman's 1st Service at Oakfield 

                                   Oct. 9. 1932

Accepted in Hiawatha Baptist Mission 

                                    March 1957

Marilyn & Jerry accepted in H. B. M. June 7. '72

Moved to Prince Albert - Sept 20 '72

   To Teach at Parkland Baptist Schools

On the front side of this same page was a prayer written down by Leona. Click on the picture to see a larger image of it. The prayer reads:

                    My Prayer

I do not ask for riches for my children

Nor even recognition for their skill

I only ask that Thou wilt give them 

A heart completely yielded to Thy will.

I do not ask for wisdom for my children

Beyond discernment of Thy grace

I only ask that Thou wilt use them

In Thine own appointed place.

I do not ask for favor for my children

To seat them on Thy left hand or Thy right

But may they join the throng in heaven

That sings before Thy throne so bright.

I do not seek perfection in my children

For then my own faults I would hide

I only ask that we might walk together

And serve our Saviour side by side.

                (My earnest prayers for our 4 Children)  (Marilyn, Dale, Jean, Lois)

 

My conviction that Homer and Leona would agree with Lewis Smedes' idea was of course contingent upon their reflection upon the biblical text as well. So I opened Leona's Bible and turned to Deuteronomy chapter 5. Leona had underlined and scored a number next to each of the10 Commandments (Deut. 5:7-21). Leona wrote down next to Deut. 6:4 "Response". She believed that the proper response to the 10 Commandments was this central verse in the entire Old Testament, and thus its centrality. "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD: and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." next to "soul" Leona wrote "sincere" and next to "might" she wrote "strength" (these of course being common clarification notes for herself). Two verses down (6:7-9) Leona filled her margins with comments regarding how a parent should teach these to their children. Here again is a re-presentation of how Leona annotated it:

"And (thou) (- parents) shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt (2) talk of them when thou sittest in my house, (3) and when thou walkest by the way, (4) and when thou liest down, and when thou  risest up. (5). (6) And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. (7) And thou shalt write them upon the posts of the house, and on thy gates."

In the margin Leona wrote a very interesting note, "Gen. 3:6 - woman who had wrong seat of values." I was puzzled with this at first, but my puzzlement came from not being very bright. After a light bulb turned on in my head I turned the Bible to Genesis 3:6. Without going into too much detail, the three temptations that Eve faced in the garden of Eden were commonly boiled down in preaching in Leona's time and in mine (for I heard the same thing espoused in my undergraduate bible classes) to 1. lust of flesh (the fruit was good for food) 2. lust of the eyes (the fruit was pleasant to the eyes), and 3. pride of life (it gave humanity the desire to make one wise apart from God). Leona was connecting her role as a parent to Eve's role as the mother of all generations that came after her. The picture of her notes in Genesis 3 is below:

After 10 years of biblical studies, reading the Bible, poring over the Hebrew, and reading many many books on biblical studies, I had never once thought to connect Eve with the parent's role in teaching their children. But there it was before me, Leona had done it! My grandma was wise indeed. Her prayer for her children had been answered. Now I have a much more solid and firm foundation both in the God whom I love, and in the family I belong to.