Sermon: "A Letter to My Children," (the Fifth Commandment), October 17, 2021
Preacher: The Rev. Foster Freed
Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:1-16
The Fifth Commandment in our Sermon Series on the Ten Commandments, “Honour your Father and your Mother.” Our guest preacher was the Rev. Foster Freed, and the sermon came in the form of a letter to his children.
October 17th 2021
From: Foster, your papa!
To: My beloved children, Rachael, Jordan, Kristen & Bethany
Dearest children....I trust you know that this odd letter comes to you with my blessings....my warmest blessings. But yes, those blessings do not change the fact that this is an odd letter although, in truth, I’m not certain whether I ought to describe this as the oddest letter I have ever written or, conversely, to describe it as the strangest sermon I have ever planned to preach. Permit me to explain.
A few weeks ago, Ryan Slifka--the Coordinating Minister at St. George Church in Courtenay--contacted me to see if I might be interested in offering the sermon on this particular Sunday. But Ryan--who I think all but one of you met during your stints running United Church summer camps--cautioned me that he needed a sermon that would fit into the series of sermons he is presently providing based on the Ten Commandments. He further noted that the specific commandment to be highlighted on this particular Sunday was none other than the Fifth: “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” To cut to the chase, I offered my “yes” to Ryan’s offer without so much as an instant of hesitation although, to be honest, afterwards I did find myself wondering whether I had just managed to fall for the ultimate practical joke a Millennial could play on an unsuspecting Baby Boomer. Frankly...I am yet to be convinced that I had not!
Indeed! Part of what gives pause is the realization that I am part of a generation that tended not to be especially kind to our fathers and mothers as we came of age. Whenever I hear or read something from a Millennial giving us Boomers a hard time, I try to recall that it was not Millennials who embraced the slogan: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Nor does the fact that slogan was coined by a student activist too old to count as a Baby Boomer let my generation off the hook. Then again, I really and truly have no right to hide behind my generational context since there were certainly no shortage of my peers who were far less rebellious during the ‘60s and ‘70s than I proved to be. I know that I gave my parents some sleepless nights....and for that I can only experience sadness (since I have yet to figure out how to change the past) but also: I can only resolve to avoid in this sermon (disguised as a letter) speaking as if I had been a perfect child with the right (like a modern-day Polonius) to offer his own children sweet-sounding admonitions. God forbid. But, in truth, I have a second cause for concern!
What I’m getting at is what I will describe as the “Jesus-context”. After all, far from placing family on a pedestal, Jesus continually forces us to think through the ways in which family-ties can prove an obstacle to our response to God. Already as a 12-year old boy in the Jerusalem Temple, he expressed a scarcely veiled disdain when his parents showed surprise that they found him in what he described as his “Father’s house”: by which he most assuredly did not mean Joseph’s house. There is also his notorious insistence--on an occasion when his mother and brothers came along to check in on him--that anyone who does the will of God is mother and brother; so much for family ties. Nor should we ignore those teaching snippets in which he makes the point that even the Gentiles care for their families...meaning that the mark of an authentic disciple is the generosity they show to those who are not part of their own affinity group. Perhaps most notoriously from a Jewish point of view, is an episode in Matthew and Luke in which a would-be disciple asks Jesus to be permitted to first bury his father to which Jesus replies: “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” The fact that some of Christ’s latter-day followers have no hesitation in launching groups that aim to “Focus on the Family” does not alter the fact that Jesus’ own focus--when it shifts to the family--appears to regard family ties as something of a two-edged sword, with the capacity not only to ignite but to constrain the breadth and depth of our generosity as human beings. All of which....
....all of which leads me to proceed with caution: neither pretending that Jesus wants me to be more obsessed with filial obligations than he appears to have been, and --of course--not applying to the four of you, my children, a standard to which I did not always succeed in adhering with my own parents. Which leaves me precisely where?
***
Well...which leaves me with a key word...and also with an unexpected conviction. I’ll start with the unexpected conviction--a conviction that may appear to undermine the entire premise of the Fifth Commandment--but a conviction that seems to me entirely valid, namely...namely that the obligations and responsibilities parents owe to their children are, by and large, far more profound than the obligations and responsibilities children will eventually come to owe to their parents. When push comes to shove, it is an audacious decision to bring a child into this world: a world to which Christianity’s central symbol--an instrument of torture known as the cross--provides an incisive backdrop. Hauling out, yet again, the most utilized of my go-to quotes: I can, without hesitation, echo psychologist Scott Peck whose best known book begins with a simple three word sentence: “life is difficult”. Life is indeed difficult: and despite all of the joys and miracles it has on offer, it is no small thing to choose to bring a new being into the life of the world. To do so is to take on a profound set of obligations...obligations that will change over time as the child grows, but obligations from which we will never be entirely set free. In short: the question of children “honouring” their parents is a question best understood--or so I have come to believe--within the context of the profound set of responsibilities enjoined upon parents when they give birth to a child who will, one day, hopefully be in a position to “honour” them. And yes: that word--honour....
....that’s the word I had in mind earlier when I wrote of a conviction and a word that have shaped my thoughts today. The word “honour” I think, is the key word in the Fifth Commandment: not “obey” your father and mother (although, to be fair, that formulation is found in other parts of the Torah) but “honour” your father and mother. Furthermore, that word is an English translation of a fascinating Hebrew word that is part of the same family of words often rendered in English by the word “glory”: above all, the act of worship through which we “glorify” God. It would, of course, be a bit much to translate the Fifth Commandment into English by insisting that children should “glorify” their parents, although--to be fair--the core concept of the Hebrew word means to give “added weight” to something or someone: not unlike an aging hippy responding to a piece of music by saying: “Wow! That’s heavy, man!” And so here’s the thing.
When I put that word together with that conviction....it’s hard for me to shake the impression that the single most important way in which a child can honour a parent is by paying it forward rather than obsessing it backwards...and permit me...permit me (at the risk of making this sermon disguised as a letter a wee bit longer) permit me to spell out what it means for a child to honour mother and father by paying it forward!
***
Let’s start with the obvious! The most obvious way the four of you can “pay it forward” is by making your mom and me grandparents. In actuality, one of you has already done that and has already discovered the unending rewards and unending challenges of becoming a parent. I know that the other three of you intend to become parents when the time is right; that is, indeed, a weighty honour for your mom and me. But I also know that all four of you are either already working as teachers or are training to be educators: and that too honours us, especially your mom who home-schooled all four of you. I can think of no better way to honour her endeavours as a mom (who was also your teacher), than through the decision all four of you have made to undergo the disciplines and to make the sacrifices needed to become professional educators. That too honours us as parents...including the fact...the painful fact, that teachers--no less than parents--will have ample opportunity to second-guess themselves: a realization that opens the door to a rather basic question where the Fifth Commandment is concerned: the question of forgiveness.
After all! Parenting will likely prove to be the greatest challenge any of you ever undertake. Were I to compile a list of the biggest mistakes I made over 30 years of United Church ministry, I suspect I could track that list with my ten fingers and perhaps one or two of my toes. Were I to attempt to track a comparable list of my mistakes as a parent, it would require a few additional limbs. To be a parent is to be humbled...over and over again although, mercifully, it is also to be enchanted and delighted and uplifted over and over again. As parents you will sometimes have to seek your child’s forgiveness....and as your dad I hope that you will send some of that forgiveness in my direction. There’s that haunting story of Noah when he gets drunk and while drunk becomes naked: and his sons--at any rate two of his sons--cover up his nakedness. I hope the four of you are willing to protect my dignity in that sort of way.
Of course, that leads to a further consideration: perhaps the most critical of all. While I have no intention of parading around naked in front of you anytime soon, I am now 70; rumour has it that I am not getting any younger. This, incidentally, is the facet of the Fifth Commandment that was of keen interest to Jesus: namely the care a child ought to provide for parents in need. While scholars continue to debate the context of the point Jesus makes in the 7th chapter of Mark’s Gospel concerning wealthy children and their not-so-wealthy parents, the point Jesus makes in that episode is far from obscure: namely that someone who has vowed to make a gift to the church should be forgiven that obligation when a needy parent requires help. Whatever else the Fifth Commandment meant for Christ, it clearly meant children trying their best to care for parents when such care is required. I hasten to add: neither your mom nor I have any romantic illusions about the “good-old-days” when families had no choice but to provide hands-on care for aging parents. But even at a time when there are good and gracious options for families with aging family members, there is still a need for advocacy. I hope and pray that the four of you will honour us by serving as our advocates as we grow older...hopes and prayers which, of course, lead to an additional thought involving the whole question of what it means for the four of you to be siblings!
In truth: that’s a theme that merits its own letter and its own sermon! As a pastor who has done a fair share of funerals, I know only too well how challenging it can be for sons and daughters to attain unity when a parent leaves this world...and yes, as a son and a brother, I know how wrenching the decisions can be which need to be made by children on behalf of their aging parents. I was blessed to have a brother--living in the same community as my dad and mom--who was the primary decision maker and was someone whom I could fully trust in that role. Your mom and I fully trust the four of you for those likely times when you will have to make comparable decisions for us. Given how complex such decisions can be, no doubt you will not always be in perfect agreement...but I trust that you will work together to arrive at decisions that will be respectful of one another...and will be compassionate toward the two of us although, of course, this is yet one more of life’s dimensions where we inevitably end up second-guessing ourselves. Much more could be said on this theme, but I’ll leave it there...although, there is one further theme I cannot simply sweep under the rug!
***
There is, I’m afraid, an elephant in the room, an elephant that bears the awkward name: “faith”. As a pastor--as a religious professional!--I have no right to pretend that there is not a “faith-dimension”--a religious dimension--to what the Bible intends when it hands down the Fifth Commandment. Indeed: within the context of the Biblical world--honouring mother and father, first and foremost, means embracing the faith they sought to hand down to you. In truth, like so many Boomers and Gen Xers (and going back even further to my parents and grandparents’ generations) our success-rate at handing down the faith has been spotty at best. Only one of the four of you belongs to a Church community! The other three of you are all, in some sense, seekers: if not specifically “religious” seekers, certainly seekers eager to discover and claim meaning and purpose for your lives which always entails finding meaning and purpose within the life of the world. But such seeking falls far short of an actual embrace of what the old hymn spoke of as the “Faith of our Fathers”! And yet!
I would be the ultimate hypocrite were I to give you grief over this...given the fact that I “honoured” my far from observant (though far from nominally) Jewish parents by becoming a Christian. Given the rather tortured path that led me to the doors of the Church, I am well aware that there is no magic formula that I could hand you that would be guaranteed to effect the same process for the three of you who remain outside of the church and yes: given all of the question marks that haunt the institutional church in the year of our Lord 2021, frankly I cannot blame any of you for exercising caution. On the one hand, I am enough of a universalist to approach all of this without fretting that your salvation is somehow on the line unless your mom and I find a way to shoehorn you into the church. On the other hand, I remain stubbornly convinced that the gift of the Gospel--which is to say the gift of Jesus Christ--is the most precious of all God’s good gifts and yes, your old man can only hope and pray that each of you in your own time and place will get to unwrap that gift. But in the meantime....
Well...in the meantime...I find myself going back to the Garden. Yeah...that Garden: not the one behind our house on which your mom lavishes such devotion, but the ancient garden we know as Eden. Long before the Fifth Commandment--or any of the other commandments were handed down--our first parents were commanded “to be fruitful and multiply”. At the risk of going terminally sentimental on the four of you, I hear strains of that not-so-ancient ditty from Fiddler on the Roof: “To life, to life, l’chaim”: and yes: placing to one side any and all questions of faith-affirmation and religious-affiliation, all four of you have chosen--as parents, as would-be-parents, as educators and would-be-educators--all of you have chosen to live faithful lives, by which I mean: lives that clearly demonstrate a desire to affirm life, a deep desire to walk fruitful pathways, and in the process, lives that honour your mom and me.
With that I must close. As always, dear children, Rachael, Jordan, Kristen and Bethany: may God bless and keep you, may God’s face shine upon you and be gracious unto you, may God’s countenance lift upon you...and grant you peace. Amen!