The Third Sunday In Lent
The Third Sunday In Lent
Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Third Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Colossians 3:20-21
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Colossians 3:20-21
✛
Honor Father and Mother
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Ten Commandments divide into two sections or tables. The first four concern our relationship with the Lord. The next six concern our relationships with our neighbors.[1] This evening we move from the first table to the second with the Fifth Commandment. At Mount Sinai, after the Exodus, God says, “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Forty years later, Moses, in his farewell speech to the Israelites as they, but not he,[2] are about to enter the Promised Land, recounts the Ten Commandments, and concerning the Fifth Commandment he says, “Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”[3]
The Apostle Paul, writing 1500 years later in his Epistle to the Ephesians, to Christians living far from the Promised Land of Canaan, says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with [a] promise); that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Paul develops this counsel in his letter to the Colossians, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”[4]
The original Catechism of the Episcopal Church elaborates the Fifth Commandment: “To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honor and obey the civil authority: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters…” That was in 1789. By 1928, a service of Offices of Instruction was added, which drops the line about my “betters,” but adds, “And to order myself in that lowliness and reverence which becometh a servant of God.”[5]
In the 1979 revision of the Prayer Book, the Catechism says, “To love, honor and help our parents and family; to honor those in authority, and to meet their just demands.”[6] Before we smile at what a difference the 1960’s have made in society, we do well to recall that the Apostle said we are to obey our parents “in the Lord,” and that he spoke to parental restraint as well.
A family is an organ in the body of society. A well-ordered family is a blessing to the social order. If the whole society is well ordered, then, as the Commandment promises, it will go well with us in the land that the Lord gives us. A healthy, harmonious family and a healthy, harmonious society will bless the lives of members and citizens with health and harmony. Proper filial piety is connected to proper love of country or true patriotism. The Fifth Commandment reminds us that God from the beginning says that it is not good for man to be alone, but rather that God has created us to flourish in relationships – families, neighborhoods, cities, nations, even a global community, in which every man, woman and child is kin, of one blood family. I recall a program on The Discovery Channel called “The True Eve,” which noted that every homo sapiens on planet earth is the direct descendant of one woman, one mother. Walk down Fifth Avenue and consider all our races and languages: yet we are all literally siblings.
The nature of political society, the duties of a subject in a kingdom or a citizen in a republic, the responsibilities of kings and presidents and chieftains and governors; as also of members and leaders in the Church – all these are derivatives of the Fifth Commandment. “It takes a village to raise a child” is an expression of a truth which is older than Moses. Society is not an aggregation of independent, disconnected individuals, but an organic community of members, a polity of citizens, a living body.
The issues of authority and obedience, of restraint and resistance, are aboriginal. Two extremes – tyranny and anarchy – violate the Fifth Commandment, which is a true Word of life to the earthly human community and beyond. For God Almighty is a Trinity of Persons, and Heaven is the Communion of Saints free from sin in the eternal life of Christ in God.
A wise Bishop once told me, “Parents never die.”[7] My father died at age 48 in 1975; my mother at age 72 in 1992. Yet I continue in a living relationship with them. When I say my prayers or make my confession, they are with me. I grow in my relationship with them in the Lord – in understanding, in forgiveness, in gratitude, in expectation of the day of reunion which grows ever closer. I owe them, humanly speaking, my very body and soul; they taught me to believe and to pray; to tell the truth; to face the music; to take courage; to work hard; to love and to show affection. I miss them and my grandparents before them, but I keep the Fifth Commandment by praying for them and asking them to pray for me in the Lord. I hear my grandchildren, taught by my own children whom my wife and I taught: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mommy and Daddy and [my brother and sister] and all my aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas and cousins… And please make me a good boy [girl].” This moves me once more in the knowledge that the Lord’s Fifth Commandment most certainly is a Word of Life, abundant Life.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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[1] Lutherans and Roman Catholics count three Commandments about God (combining the first two into one), and seven Commandments about our neighbor (dividing the tenth into two).
[2] The Lord prohibited Moses (along with almost the entire wilderness generation) from entering Canaan because he lost his temper and struck the Rock of Meribah twice, not once as commanded. Numbers 20:7-13; Ps 106:32-33. Instead, the Lord showed Moses a view of the Promised Land from Mount Nebo. Deut. 34:1-6
[3] Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16.
[4] Ephesians 6:1-4; Colossians 3:20-21.
[5] The Book of Common Prayer 1928, p. 580 (Catechism); p. 288 (Offices of Instruction).
[6] The Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 848.
[7] Bishop John Coburn of Massachusetts.
