| "Honor your Father and your Mother"
I Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Ronald W. Francey
May 9, 1993
A few weeks ago I remember Dot's getting up here before you
and giving thanks for all the great sounds that come out of
our choir - especially because with all those sounds behind
her, you surely wouldn't be getting a sample of her singing!
In a similar vein, one thing I'm not, is an artist. Why, I
remember quite well that way back when I was in sixth grade,
and that was many years ago, the time when I got straight
"A's" for the first - and only time - except for the "F" in
penmanship.
Nevertheless, it is somewhat surprising to me - yet true - how
we are able to learn a real lot from letting our senses kind
of ferment over some things that touch us in almost
inexplicable ways. I remember a time when I was a young boy,
actually it was a few times, when I was about eight to maybe
twelve years old. My mother had died and I had moved in to
live with an aunt and uncle in Lexington. Their daughter was
about seven years older than I and was a student at Forsyth
Dental School in Boston. Well, I remember taking the bus by
myself into Boston and working my way, with fear in my heart,
toward those free dental exams that the students gave.
Although at the time I am sure that the only thing that was on
my mind was the pain and suffering I was going to face when
these fine students of medicine dug away with those sharp
pointed objects in my gums, that really isn't what became one
of the finest memories I still cherish.
After the dental exam, I had a few hours to waste before my
sister would be ready to go back home with me so I, this young
non-artistic boy, strolled on into the Museam of Fine Arts.
As I walked the halls in the museum, I remember some paintings
that just absolutely stopped me in my tracks; they were of
some religious paintings that at first seemed so simple, but
as I drew closer I became a little more connected, a little
more knowledgeable, a little more understanding, a little more
caring. It was as if a river of words came flowing out of
those pictures and embedded themselves in my heart. I may not
be an artist but I came away from that museum slightly
different than the person I was when passing through that
entrance door into the museum.
Perhaps there are some simple things, events in your lives
that happened, that you would never have predicted would have
had such a profound effect on your lives as these events
actually did or that would present the vehicle into a new and
fresh understanding of something that may have escaped you
until this moment.
I don't make many trips into the Museum of Fine Arts these
days but I have learned another way to come to an increased
and varied understanding of some of those things that make up
the stuff of life, the fabric of our being. I like to take a
short verse of scripture, sometimes only a phrase, and go off
and plunk myself in a recliner or go off to some other quiet
place and absorb that phrase into the essence of myself.
One of those special biblical phrases is part of our reading
in John this morning. It is a verse which many of us fall
back to as it is as an anchor holding us steady and sure even
through the worst raging seas of life. "In my Father's house
- or mansion - there are many rooms" is the verse which I
will explore today.
"In my Father's mansion are many rooms" is one of those rich
passages so often used with someone approaching death or for
the family or friends during a funeral or memorial service of
one who died. The mansion of many rooms signifies a place
prepared for those that we love; the phrase is a vision of
hope; it carries forward our desire for our loved ones to be
accepted into that eternal world which has no end; into a
place fitting and acceptable to us and to God, into a place
where suffering and pain is no more.
But don't we also learn that we are to work toward that
kingdom that is on earth "as it is in heaven"? Perhaps that
prepared room, where our hopes for the loved person are, is
right here. Perhaps that prepared room symbolizes a person
who has become the fullest person that he or she can become.
Perhaps a kingdom on earth as it is in heaven embodies God's
wish for our parents as they live their senior years on earth.
Perhaps it is God's wish that we honor our fathers and
mothers. One of the oldest commandments we have, tracing back
to the time of Moses, is to honor our fathers and mothers.
I wish to focus on the problems we have in todays world
regarding the challenges to honor that law. Although some of
us are fortunate to have parents age in ways that require
little of others, little of us, there does exist a series of
questions which many of us face as our parents grow older,
grow in some cases to new heights of incompetence, grow to
levels of immanageability, test our adherence to our stated
claims, to our feelings of our own rootedness in Christianity.
As we face the challenges of dealing with our aging parents
are we able to ground our actions, our feelings, our thoughts
according to God's plan, to God's love? What are God's wishes
for us and how do we know it?
Christians affirm God's goodness shown through the act of
creation and we are called to be shepherds of that created
order. We know we are to preserve life so that it can be
lived to its fullest. Our parents are to be given
opportunities to live out their lives in the way that gives
them the possibility to be the fullest human beings that God
meant them to be.
So as we stick our heads up out of the swamp of life that we
live in and see our parents living through the process of
aging, we are called by God to be supporters of that divine
plan for them. As we seek to be partners with our parents in
a democratic family we must be careful. For many years there
have been passionate debates over the question whether
democracy, despite the value of the individual that it has
always espoused, may tend to operate against individual
autonomy, pushing people toward conformity and herdlike
existence.
How are we to know about the way to honor our mother and
father as some of them become incompetent to make decisions
for themselves? By whose authority are we to be led as we
walk through this facet of life? How do we know what is good,
right and fitting as we deal with our aging parents? How
ought it to work that we lift up our parents and help them,
support them, through the aging process? Can this way of
life, of commitment, be rightly ordered? To what end do we
seek? How does it work and what are we to do? What is the
role of the church and why should she get involved? Where is
this mansion of so many rooms?
In earlier periods people often died at an early age.
Honoring thy father and mother becomes more difficult when
they live to such an old age - and when they are no longer a
rare species.
Modernity surfaces in other ways yielding forms of disrespect,
feelings of contempt, feelings of helplessness, toward the
elderly. Dr. David A. Tomb writes: "When helping your parents
through their final years, above all else you must come to
terms with your feelings about both of them. Do you love
them? Do you like them? Are they your friends? Are you
ashamed of them? Are you indifferent? Do you despise them?
... You must recognize and accept negative as well as positive
emotions and try to identify their origins."
This country was formed by people who left their families
behind in another continent during the colonial period, who
strove for freedom in a new world, whose struggle for
independence formed the very character of the younger
generation of people today. Is it any wonder that we are as
we are having been so encouraged to succeed in life?
We are a culture oriented toward the current generation but
times are changing. The average age of our culture is
creeping upward slowly but steadily. Today there are enough
older people living that they are a threat to the younger and
ruling generation. The older generation is beginning to pull
political clout and to be an active voice in society. We have
more reasons to consider the well-being of our elder citizens
for they remind us of our own imminent destiny. We are forced
to take notice.
We fear getting old because we fear the "humiliation of
dependence". Similarly, many - but not all - of our older
fathers and mothers do not want to be a burden. Although it
may be a difficult subject for people to address, God frowns
on neglect of family duties.
"If anyone does not provide for his relatives,
and especially for his own family, he has
disowned the faith and is worse than an
unbeliever"(1 Tim. 5:8).
How does God and God's purposes for us enter into our
determination of what is good, right and fitting?
The family is a bonded and bonding unit. In most cases, our
parents loved us before we were born. They nurtured us
through our early years, kept us in tow during our adolescent
years and became friends to us as we matured into adults.
Although not every family consists of harmonious relatives and
although not every family looks favorably on the family unit
we are nevertheless bonded to the family in inescapable ways.
What should the goal be of visiting elderly parents on a
regular basis? Perhaps the question should be the larger one:
what is the end goal for our aging parents?
An answer is that our parents should become all that God
intended them to be. They should be full of life, of love, of
beholders of promises made to them by their God. They should
be recipients of God's love, as if we could ever stop that,
and should carry forth that love to others as they walk along
the way toward their final destination, to the room in God's
mansion.
Visits to our aging parents should be out of love. Visits to
our parents enable them to remember the past, to plan for the
future, to realize the hope that stays ever before them.
The means of visiting parents differs from family to family.
When family is separated by the width of the continent in
miles, or in emotion, ways must be found to bring the family
together - especially spiritually.
Our church has an important linking role in bringing the
family together. Letters can be sent to the church and read
during worship service regarding events in family life. The
pastor or members of the church can visit the elderly. The
pastor can help enrich family moments, can help elders savor
the love. The church can form groups for the elderly and plan
special events around memories and memory sharing.
The church can use many means to work toward achieving the end
goal for the elders. Through prayer, reflection, spiritual
contact with God, through revelation, scripture and reason,
through God's grace.
The church, this church can be an active voice for our aging
fathers and mothers in many segments of our society. The
media is at once powerful and influential to most of the
population for it captures moments in the hearts of the
audience. People let down their defenses somewhat and are
pursued through careful presentation of the media's points of
contention. The media can make a difference in the lives of
those whom they touch. The media influences you and me but
also influences presidents, senators, representatives, people
who work in medicine, in education, in economics. The media
can also reinforce things that we are doing well. The church
can choose to be linked to the media, to be a voice in and of
the media. Local churches can prepare and present programs
that focus on the well-being, the cares and concerns of our
parents.
The legal system needs to recognize and to protect the law
honoring our fathers and mothers and it needs firmness of soul
as it wrestles with what is often discouraging facts about
ill-treated elderly parents. The legal system must act to
enforce ethical situations in cases where others have turned
away from what is known to be good, right and fitting, when
others have turned toward profiteering, self-aggrandizement.
The legal system must prosecute those who steal the remaining
monies from our aging parents through unethical schemes of
persuasion, playing on the weakness of their age and
feebleness of mind and body.
The church can play an important part of the judicial process
by keeping informed of the goings on within the church family.
When aging members are not being supported, not being held in
love by their family members, the church can speak to the
consciences of those who are slipping in the mud of life. It
is not sufficient for the church to be a passive witness to
injustices going on within families. The church needs to be
an advocate for the well-being of the aging family member.
The church should also represent the aging parents when
"younger" sons and daughters are not available to defend the
parents' rights in court. In such instances, the church must
step forward to protect the aging and to work within the
judicial system.
How is the church to respond to the different cultures
existing in our midst? Where is God and what do we know to be
God's desire for those of a particular culture? From
scripture we know that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). The church can encourage people of a
culture to study its roots, to see where God has been present
from the very beginning until now.
Scripture is full of examples of families going through
extremely difficult times. Stories from Scripture can teach
cultures about family strife, about family love from both
within and outside of the family culture.
Education of other cultures helps us to be more permissive and
understanding of others. Removing fears about other cultures
helps honor our aging parents because it allows them to be
more accepted by others. This tends to reduce the tendency
toward isolation of our parents from those of the "in"
culture.
The church can teach us to be tolerant of older fathers and
mothers from other cultures. In many countries the elders are
revered for their wisdom gleaned from their many years. They
are sought out as teachers of life by their children. Their
word stands. The church can teach its youth about God's
loving all people.
Our political system is charged with maintaining freedom,
fairness for all. It achieves its goal by interrelating with
the judicial system, with education, with family rights, with
the establishment of and protection of a free press, of free
speech and with the economic system.
How can politics relate to the task of honoring our fathers
and mothers? It can establish low-cost homes for the elderly.
It can work toward the provision for ample social security
benefits. It can provide tax incentives for businesses to
enter into home healthcare services. It can change the tax
structure to be less harsh on the assets of the elderly. It
can vote to reduce needless expenditures in underground
nuclear testing and redirect those funds toward improving
general care for our fathers and mothers.
The church is perhaps the best heterogeneous group which is
representative of the composition of all people in the United
States. As such, it,must voice what it knows to be good,
right and fitting regarding the rights of its aging fathers
and mothers. It can influence the outcome of the political
machinery and thus the church has the potential to be an
instrument for the establishment of a concerned government.
Often politicians are church-goers who need to know how to be
Christians and politicians at the same time.
The education sector of society can teach our elders to deal
more effectively with the aging process and can teach our
elders how to plan for their future, how to grow to be fuller
people, how to handle the stress associated with aging. The
educational system can also teach the younger generation about
their aging parents, about the interrelationship between their
parents and themselves, about systems that complement each
other regarding aging. The educational sector is closely
linked to the field of medicine where new studies reveal ways
of extending life, of applying healing technologies to our
elders. The medical field poses new wonders but also
introduces new ethical dilemmas when it extends life to brain
dead patients, when it breathes life into people who otherwise
are vegetables.
The church needs to be a watchdog to see that medical ethics
are employed regarding care for the aging. Holistic health
should be the primary goal of those involved in medicine.
Holistic medicine is concerned with the well-being of the
total individual, with the extended family and with the larger
community. If excessive medication prevents our fathers and
mothers from their desire to prepare themselves for a rite of
passage, the church needs to work with the medical field to
educate them of the right of free will in determining the
course leading to one's own death.
The medical institution's goal may be to continue the life of
the patient but its methods must include the will of the
patient, the will of the family. Where the medical field
exerts excessive power over the will of the patient, the
church needs to activate the other sectors of society charged
with politics, law and the media.
Technology honors our fathers and mothers thru increasing our
knowledge base thus providing us with new and improved
resources to make better and more informed decisions.
Technology aids us in building low-cost efficient housing for
the elder generation. Technology also provides us with ways
to completely destroy our enemies and ourselves. Technology
gives us the power for unprecedented growth in many dimensions
but if unchecked by ethical, moral bodies decay and chaos will
quickly become dominant.
The church can become the devils advocate by forming various
groups of concern that act as watch dogs, by inviting leaders
of technology into ecumenical church sponsored conferences
dealing with Christian social ethics and technological
improvements.
The economic sector intends to understand why the economy
functions as it does so that it can maintain a healthy
economy. It needs to ask itself why poverty won. The elder
generation represents the keenest minds that exist in the
world today. Programs should be established so that elders
are used as consultants to the world economic picture. For
elders to be such consultants, they need to be protected from
an imbalance of wealth. Their buying power must not be
allowed to be diminished such that they are unable to live in
society.
The church may not have all the answers for honoring our
father and mother but it does have love that can be freely
given as a water fountain waters those who come to it for
nourishment. The church is the central source of the love
that knows no end. It can be the enabler to sons and
daughters of aging parents as well as to the parents
themselves. As the older generation increases in number, so
too must the church increase in its commitment to honor our
father and mother.
Older people need to see themselves in light of a positive
concept of aging. Our aging parents can be encouraged to
participate fully in all sectors of society. The church can
provide a way for a new rhythm in life for the aging where our
fathers and mothers provide service to the church, to the
wider community, at a reduced rate. Our aging parents help to
make the past usable in the present. The church can provide
adventures in learning for our parents. We, as church family,
can support a system which encourages participation by our
parents in all sectors of society. We can encourage our aging
parents to develop leadership roles through friendly visiting,
through telephone checking of their friends, through escort
service and transporting other people, through outreach of
discovering other adults in need. Older adults can become
foster grandparents, can train youngsters for leadership
positions, can counsel peers.
As our parents turn toward elderhood, they may taste of losses
that are real and experience wounds to their self-image that
are deep, yet they need to be liberated from those destructive
stereotypes of aging so that they have a room for a future,
for growth and for hope. There is life left in old age and we
as children of aging parents are called to honor our fathers
and mothers by helping them to become fuller children of God.
"We delight to see the dawning of each day and the surprises
it can bring." God has so commanded, how are we to do
otherwise
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