Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12
We are, to a frightening extent, like God. When God made us in His “image,” he molded us into little models of Himself, in some mysterious way comparable and compatible, body and soul, male and female, to His Incomprehensible Being. The great fourth commandment, that of honoring our parents, directly connects with the imago dei in us. Like God, we have the power to (pro)create children made in our image, and the power to direct and influence their lives and the lives of generations to come. This divine power is indeed frightening.
It dawned on me that when my children were young, they had little or no real comprehension of God. All they could comprehend was what was directly in front of them ─ me and my wife their mother. We were god to them. One of the great mysteries of life is why God would endow a sinner like me with such power over humanity. Fortunately for me, I have had good parents.
What about those who have had bad or even abusive parents? How hard it is for them to ever be able to make a healthy transference from their parents to God Himself when they come of age! God has entrusted his reputation to all the parents of this world. All children gain their first impression of God through their parents! However mysterious this is, it must be so, for parenting is a necessary aspect of the image of God in us.
But this commandment is not directed to the parents; it is directed to the children. This obligation God lays upon all humanity is to honor father and mother with no proviso as to whether they are worthy of honor or not. The whole course of our lives is directly linked to how well we do this. The primal and original responsibility of every human being when it comes to being a child is to honor his/her parents. We might even say that the very commencement of our spiritual journey to God is made by passing through the gates of this commandment. No doubt this is easier for some than others, but we must bring ourselves to think the very best of our flawed parents, serve them, love them, be gentle with them in speech and action, and when young, obey their wishes if it does not conflict with God’s righteousness. Doing the work of this commandment is to do the work of spiritual formation; it is the way that God transforms our souls and prepares us to be parents ourselves. We are all handed, to some extent, a “twisted baton” in the race of our lives. It is our responsibility to untwist it so as to hand to our children a straighter one. The future of the entire world depends on this.
A creation blessing accompanies this commandment. When God created the world, He then blessed it so that everything could function the way He intended it to grow and prosper. Parents are endowed with this same power. However, many parents, out of their own poverty or woundedness, refuse or are unable to give blessings to their children. This is a serious failure, and many children carry this lack of a blessing all their lives. In spite of this, God promises to the ancient Hebrews (and to us His covenant children) who make the decision to honor their parents, that their “days will be long in the land.” This is nothing other than a creation blessing we can bring upon ourselves even when parents do not endow us with this blessing. Consider St. Ambrose,
The formation of the children is then the prerogative of the parents. Therefore honor your father, that he may bless you. Let the godly man honor his father out of gratitude and the ingrate do so out of fear. Even if the father is poor and does not have plenty of resources to leave to his sons, still he has the heritage of his final blessing with which he may bestow the wealth of sanctification on his descendants. And it is a far greater thing to be blessed than it is to be rich.
The Patriarchs 1.1
This great commandment is the great “swing commandment.” The first three are vertical in that they have to do with our relationship with God (worship and honoring God). The following commandments are horizontal in that they have to do with our relationship with others. In this commandment we find both dynamics in action: relating to parents in their divine function leads us to God, the great Father of all, as well as the horizontal aspect of relating to parents as human beings.
Takeaway: To honor parents is to honor God, and to so honor is to be blessed with creation blessings.
Questions: 1) What are concrete ways in which we honor our parents? 2) What do we do when our parents are unworthy of respect and even abusive?
Resources Used:
ACCS, vol III, p. 105f.