Honor your father and your mother.

Fifth Sermon on the Ten Commandments

Lent I; March 5, 2006

Genesis 25:19-28

This sermon is a letter to my father, who died in August 1985.

Dear Dad:

I remember two things you cared about when it came to sermons: you thought they should be solidly based on the Bible – so I think you would be glad to know I’m doing a series on the Ten Commandments – and you thought they should be no more than twenty minutes long. How many times you embarrassed us by timing the preacher’s sermon and telling him it was twenty-two or twenty-seven minutes long!

You often said, “Do as I say, not as I do.” That was terrible advice, and I suspect you knew it, and somehow Don, Dan and I did not take it. Children learn from their parents’ example, and I learned a lot more from what you did than from what you said.

The Fifth Commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother.” I know the commandment is addressed to adults, to make sure they honor their parents after being grown and caring for their own children. Most children are inclined to honor their parents – well, until they become teenagers, anyway. Parents who don’t receive honor from their children generally have shown they don’t deserve to be honored.

I can hear you complain that many parents seem to want their children to run the show. Sometimes people will leave a church and look for another one, saying that their children didn’t like the Sunday School or something. I can hear your opinionated, “Well, big deal. The adults choose the church based on what works for them, and the children can learn to like it.” You made it clear that we were Presbyterians, and everywhere we moved we joined a Presbyterian church, and whenever we traveled on vacation we attended a Presbyterian church, and that’s all there was to it. No weekend away that I can remember failed to include Sunday morning at a Presbyterian church, wherever we were. That was what you and Mom had decided, and we kids could learn to like it.

I know you knew your Bible, and the story of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob. Now, there’s a dysfunctional family for you! Both parents playing favorites with one of the boys, and both parents using the boys as ways to get at each other. Maybe Esau and Jacob needed a divine commandment to honor their parents, given how those two parents behaved. You and Mom both always seemed to be in there for the long haul with all three of us, not playing favorites, and maybe that contributes to children honoring their parents. You must have had a favorite – all human beings like some people better than they like others – but it was never obvious. Isaac and Rebekah made it obvious enough that it got into the Bible.

Maybe the Commandment is there because all fathers and mothers are as frail and human as everybody else, and who knows that better than their children? My brothers and I have had some good times sitting together and laughing about some of the foolish, hot-headed things you used to do. Then, like as not, we are sad because you’re not around to do them anymore. You’re not here to love our wives as we know you would, or watch your grandchildren grow into fine young people. You’re not here to start baiting me with absurd political statements, just to see me turn red. I’m sure someone in Clarinda will take up the challenge.

Still, you knew you were human, and you never pretended to be better than you were. That’s probably why you said, “Do as I say, not as I do;” you didn’t want us to commit your mistakes. No fear: we make our own mistakes. More fathers and mothers would be honored if they could be as honest as you were, as much in need of forgiveness as you were. We good Presbyterians often forget that the Gospel is more about forgiveness than it is about toeing the line. Forgiveness came hard with you sometimes – I still think some of those times I was grounded were a little too harsh – but it always came. You did not hold our past misbehavior over our heads.

I remember you forced my first theological crisis, and you didn’t know you were doing it. You told me to mow the lawn on a Sunday afternoon. The Fifth Commandment said, “Honor your father and your mother,” but the Fourth Commandment said, “Observe the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.” How could I reconcile my duty to God with my duty to you? I really did not want to mow the lawn on Sunday. But I did it. I don’t remember whether I justified it by thinking that honoring you had to outweigh obeying God until I was old enough to make my own decisions, or if I simply realized that God would not punish me but you would. I mowed the lawn, many times, on Sunday afternoon. Now, of course, I never mow the lawn on Sunday. If it doesn’t get done on Saturday, then it doesn’t get done. There’s usually time after work on Monday.

“Do as I say, not as I do.” It didn’t work, Dad. I honor you and Mom for what you did, not for what you said. You brought us to Church every Sunday, and would not let anything interfere with that. I learned to pray because you two prayed. I learned to sing hymns because you two sang them. Seeing you sing praise to Someone bigger than you made an impression on me, and I remember Mom holding the Hymnal so I could see it and showing me with her finger how to follow the words.

Once, some years ago, I was at a seminar attended by a group of Presbyterian ministers. Strangely enough, all of us were men, something that doesn’t happen very often in the Church. We got to talking about our fathers. All of us had gotten our start in the Christian Faith from the example of our parents; all of us had a strong memory of the support of our fathers for our becoming ministers. I was different in one way though. One after another, as we went around the room, all those other men said, “My father was a Presbyterian minister.” When it came to me, I proudly said, “My father was a Presbyterian elder. He worked for the Quaker Oats Company, but he loved the Church, and by his example he taught me to love the Church.”

God told us to honor our fathers and our mothers. Maybe one of the ways I honor you and Mom is to love the Church. And I promise to keep trying to keep my sermons biblical, and less than twenty minutes. Love, Bob

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa