MCC Podcasts
Love - Remembering Whence You Came
We're almost done with this love series now, bringing it down to a close, but we wanted to take a Sunday to talk about this message that different people have said in so many different ways. Ricky Skaggs, whom I don't tell anybody, but I love good bluegrass. And Ricky Skaggs, man, he's got the twang. He's my favorite. He's a wonderful guy. He has a song on one of his albums, and here's how Ricky said it. His song is entitled, "Don't Get Above Your Raisin." He's not talking about what grows on a vine and then has dried. He's saying, "Don't get above your people, the people you were raised with. Don't put your nose up in the air because they sacrifice and you went to college or you got to it. Don't get above your raisin." John Steinbeck, it was implied in everything he wrote, at least most of his novels. In some nostalgic way, he looks back at the Salinas Valley and so many of his friends and so many of the best remembrances of his childhood, and you have this idea that his heart is connecting to the stories that he's writing. In fact, you have the idea that he's laying his heart out there and saying, "Here's what mattered to me, the good, the bad, the ugly. In most of his novels, you'll see that." It's their way of saying the same thing. Please, don't forget where you came from. My grandfather, get a picture of my grandfather here. This is my mother's dad. We called him Papa. And this is him at one of the deaths in San Francisco at the Boilermakers Union where he was president, either president or vice president. He and the president would switch jobs. They'd get elected. And there he is, going to work every day faithfully. My grandfather, he gave my mother, his daughter, one of those big, thick family Bibles, the size of this podium here. And as a kid was thumbing through that Bible, I opened it up and there was a handwritten note at the very front end of that Bible that I had never noticed before. And my grandfather wrote in that Bible that he gave to my mom this note in his own hand. He said, "Remember whence you came." "Remember whence you came." It was my grandfather throwing his iron in the fire, really, of today's theme. Don't forget your people. Remember where you came from. I have others to remember, too. Like Brenda's dad, my wife's dad, my father-in-law, who died at age 48. We didn't even get to have a long history together. What a kind and good man he was. He made an investment in me. And Brenda's mom, who thankfully is still with us and we still have great fun together. My maternal grandmother, who lived with us after my grandfather died, and my mom and I had the privilege of being in the hospital with her sitting on her bed. Mom holding one hand, me holding the other when my grandmother took her last breath. There's something special about that on her. Sad but rich. And the hero of my life, my dad. Funky. Nobody ever taught him how to dress right. Coma's hair. That must have been on a Thursday. Thursday wasn't a shave day, you know. And this is my dad. See the tires behind him. This is my dad sitting at my uncle Pete's yard, truck yard. And so there's a spot. My cousin still lives on that site. My mother's brother, who just in the last couple years passed. That was a magical place. A pole barn over in Eskelon, where they'd pull the trucks in. And there were truck parts and machinery and everything all over the place. And that was like heaven for my dad. That was his Disneyland. And this is a picture of him sitting in that truck yard. We're probably doing some barbecue or something that day. So special was that place that when my uncle Pete died, that's where we had his memorial. We went and my sister, who's a designer, came and kind of arranged all the tools and cleaned everything up and made it look a little bit like a Disneyland truck yard. We purposefully placed the grease spots all around, set up a couple hundred chairs and a PA system and did his memorial there. That's my dad sitting there. That, ladies and gentlemen, was an excellent, excellent man. I did not get ripped off when it came to a father. He just didn't know that you weren't supposed to wear suspenders felt at the same time. Not supposed to wear a dark suit and white socks and he didn't really care that much. And with regard to each of them, each of these people, this is just a part of my life, Scripture teams up with common sense and common decency and sends me a very clear message. And it's the message that comes from the text that's the focus of this morning's point in this love series. When we love our father and our mother, and all that our father and our mother represent, the household that was the context in which we grew up. The Scripture says, as you will know, "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord God is giving to you. Honor them." And here's today's question. As we're trying to talk about love, what does that look like? How is that applied? What's Scripture teach us about love? And in particular today, what does Scripture teach us about honoring or loving our father and our mother? And a couple of questions that have to get answered when we're dealing with that. Anyway, how do we go about honoring or loving our father and mother practically, measurably? What's it look like? What is the essence of this particular commandment? What might we learn from the way Jesus interacted with his parents? Is Jesus any kind of an example for us? Are there recorded situations where Jesus might be an example, by the way he lived, assuming that he lived out this command? That's a safe assumption. In a way, Jesus interacted with his parents. Does that teach us anything about what it might mean to honor our father and mother? Now, before we go too much further in this message, I think it's important for us to define our terms. In fact, as the answer to those questions unfolds, I've got to take some time to define our terms. And my first point is simply doing just that. First of all, a couple of questions. First of all, what does it mean to honor when the text says "honor your father and your mother"? We're talking about loving your father and your mother. Honor your father and your mother. What does that mean? What does it mean to honor? If you take a general study of the word "honor" and the way that it's translated into Greek and how it's used in the New Testament, you get some understanding of at least the field of definition, some understanding of what it means to honor your father and your mother. It gives us further help to recognize that that... See, when that Old Testament command is given, it's given not in Greek but in Hebrew, right? And recorded initially in Hebrew when it was recorded. But during the time the Jews were dispersed, the diaspora, they were all over the world. And so the Hebrew text was translated into Greek, and that is a Bible called the Greek Septigint, or Septuagint. So we at least have that, and we can look and see what to compare Greek to Greek when you're looking at the New Testament and trying to get some other deeper understanding of what that means. You can see how that was translated in that command in Greek, and you see some consistency in the words that are chosen, the word that's chosen to be translated "honor." Now if we look at the way that's used, we get some idea of what we mean by honor your father and your mother. The first is this. The idea of honoring them, it has a sense of provision, provide for them, it can mean that. So in Matthew 27, 9, I put those texts up there in case you want to go look at them more later on your own. I'm not going to read all of them. You have a reference to, and using this word "honor," you have a reference to honor being translated as "price." It's the price of Christ, the price that was paid for the field that Judas bought when Jesus was turned in, that's the price that people thought Jesus was worth, those silver pieces. In 1 Timothy 5, you have this word "honor" used in the context of caring for the physical and true needs of widows. Honor the widows who are widows indeed. It's talking about making sure they have food and housing and clothing and they're all taken care of. So it's the idea of provision. In Acts 28, 10, you have this word "honor" linked with providing for the different needs of different people. So provision is the idea. You have another sense of what this word "honor" can mean. It can also be used to talk about a public display of personal value. So I'm publicly expressing some sense of value that I'm laying on somebody so I could honor my friend Javier. It would mean to publicly give you a sense of just how valuable he is as an individual, which by the way, his value is pretty significant. But you have this idea of public display and the word used that way. So in John 12, 26, the idea of receiving public esteem, and that's the same word that you see in the challenge to honor your father and your mother. In Acts 28, 10, public displays of honor are marks of respect. So you have that idea of honor and respect now linked as though synonymous. So you've got provision. What do we mean by honor? We can mean provision. It can be used to mean public displays of personal value. And of course, finally, it can mean to willingly submit to somebody's authority. So we honor somebody by willingly submitting to their authority. In Ephesians 6, children are challenged. Honor your parents, obey your parents. And those two phrases are used as though interchangeable. Honor your parents, obey your parents, and the Lord. In 1 Peter 2, linked to the idea of submission, we're challenged to honor or submit to authority. And it even challenges us to honor and submit to all people, honor folks. It's not a blind submission, of course. But we're not trying to unpack all the meanings of 1 Peter. Just trying to show you, give you some sense for the field of meaning, the way the word is used. And in John 8, you have the same word translated honor when it talks about how Jesus followed or obeyed or submitted himself to his father. I honor my father. I submit myself to my father. I only do what my father instructs me to do. So what does it mean to honor when this text says honor your father and your mother? Well, it can have a sense of provision, provide for them. It can have this sense of public display, of personal value, and all that might mean. However, that's accomplished. And this idea of to willingly submit to them specifically when we're children. But there's an adult sense of submission and honoring, too, that adults have to figure out to their folks, whether their folks are alive still with us or not. There's still a nuanced sense of that submission, okay? What does it mean to honor? As we're defining our terms as another term, another phrase that we want to talk about, who is my father and mother? So when it says honor your father and mother, Juan, what do you mean by honor? What's housed there? Secondly, maybe a more refined question, more of a philosophical question other than the obvious, mother and father. Who is mother and father? What do you mean by that? Remember the question that's posed in the New Testament when Jesus says, "Love your neighbor," the question that's posed, "Ah, who is my neighbor?" And we get a definition of anybody who's near you and in need. That's your neighbor. In fact, just anybody who has a need that you can meet and respond to. That becomes neighbor, it's not the classic sense of neighbor, but it's an expanded understanding of neighbor. We're asking the same question here. When you say honor my mother and father, who is my mother and father? What do you mean by that? And I ask the question because as we explore the New Testament understanding of mother and father, we're invited into a bit of a loose-edged understanding of mother and father. It's a bit more inclusive than we might think. For instance, in Matthew 12, Jesus, let me just read this text. Matthew 12, beginning at verse 46, "Well, Jesus was still talking to the crowd. His mother and his brother stood outside wanting to speak to him. And someone told him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside." Now, if somebody came to you and said, "Maybe not your brother's a sister, but your mother is outside." By the way, it's raining out there. Your mother's outside. Everybody's in here seated. Your mother's outside. What would you do? Well, bring my mother inside and you get out of that seat so my mother can sit down. At least that's the way an Italian son would do it. And Jesus replied to him, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" And then pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers." And that is like, wow, slap you across the face, shocking. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother. Now, Jesus is not being, he's being figurative here to make a point. But there's a loosening of the edges of definition of mother and father. By the way, Jesus applies it. At least it's an expansion of it, a more inclusive definition. And in 1 Timothy 5, Paul seems to have an expanded view of this application as well. Because he is saying, "Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father." Remember, speaking to a young pastor who's leading a church, the pastor, he says to that young pastor, "Even though you are in a sense an authority over an older man in your church, there's a way you treat them and there's a way you don't simply because they're older than you. You respect the respect they've earned in life. You treat them more like they were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with absolute purity. Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family. And so repaying their parents and their grandparents for this is pleasing to God. So you see this expanded idea of what father and mother is and then housed in that last one is a reinforcement of the idea, the literal sense of connection. But that even a father and mother, but even Paul there goes to say, "Yeah, make sure you do this and it's a blessing to the parents and to the grandparents in bringing this honor to those who are possibly not even still with us." So who is my mother and my father? For the sake of our discussion today, I want to suggest this, that our original parents are obviously, let me go to the next slide up here, that our biological parents, obviously, this is talking about our biological parents. But there's an application for going beyond that. And maybe even this is talking about this, there's some responsibility to honor our spiritual parents. And perhaps, I'm less certain about this one, but perhaps even the line, our grandparents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and the seed, our siblings, our aunts and uncles of our parents. We look and we say, "Honor your mother and your father." I know that my mom would feel dishonored if I dishonored her brother, my uncle. That's her brother. She had a brother, she didn't even care for that much. But she still loved him, and she still expected us to love him. So just want to challenge us to think a little bit about, first of all, what it means to honor, secondly, who is my father and my mother when it comes to the application of this, when it comes to the application of this challenge in Exodus? So that's the first point, defining our terms. Move to the second and final point. How did Jesus live this out? How did he honor his parents? Is there anything in the example of Jesus? Let me put it this way, change that. What in the example of Jesus can give us insight into how we live this out? Interestingly enough, there are three recorded conversations between Jesus and his mother. So I went to those three recorded conversations between Jesus and his mother, pulled back the covers on those a little bit, and tried to glean something for us that was relevant in how we can use him as an example, and how we might find ways to honor our parents, our mother and our father by today's definition. The first is in Luke chapter 2 verses 48 through 51. This is the story, I start at verse 41 where Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem, so he's an adolescent, a pre-adolescent, but in Jewish culture he was a virtual adult. And they go to Jerusalem for the festival, the Passover, he's 12 years old, they go up to the festival according to the custom, the festival is over, his parents are returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it because they were more like a clan. I said, "His cousin's house," or whatever. Thinking he was in their company, in their group that was traveling in their clan, they traveled on for a day, and then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends, which they assumed is where they assumed he was, right? And when they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look at him, and after three days they found him in the temple court sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Okay, okay, you go to Jerusalem, you leave Jerusalem, you go a day without finding your only child, at least, no, probably not his only child, they're no only child, but they go to day without finding your firstborn, and you're figuring out he's with his cousins, day two you can't find, three days without that kid, three days. Now granted, he was a teenager, so maybe they were thrilled about three days without him, but probably not, and they go back to Jerusalem and they're searching. I mean, I used to panic when I lost them for ten minutes at the mall. There are jackals on the trail, you know, just imagine all the things that went through their minds, so they are upset. She's in the temple like he's sitting on a cruise ship, relaxing, cup of coffee in one hand, legs crossed at the knee, scrolls open, asking questions of the theologians and them asking questions of him, and he's amazing him, he's like everything's fine, everything's cool, and his mother says to him, this is one of the great understatements in all of scripture. Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you. That's Jewish for kid, I don't know whether to hug you or shoot you, I've been freaking out for three days. Why were you searching for me? He asked. That would not have gone well if my son would have said that. Didn't you know that I had to be in my father's house? And I wonder if all the prophecies and all the prayers and all the conversations at home that were profound, that are not recorded here, come to mind. They didn't understand what he was saying to them. And then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all of that in her heart. Lessons from the example of Jesus, how do we honor our parents? We honor our parents by recognizing their authority. That's one of the ways we honor our parents. I just want to say this, Jesus subjected himself to his parents' authority, even though he knew by then that his real work was about his father's work. His Heavenly Father. You have to ask the question, did he know then that he was divine? We know that he developed as an individual, it was his choice to do that. Ephesians 6, 1, is a text already referenced to children, obey your parents in the Lord. Here's the thing we remember, the second part of that Ephesians 6 text says, and parents don't exacerbate their children. Try to remember what it was like to be a child. Cut them some slack, but we honor them by obeying them. Here's all I'm trying to say. If God could subject himself to human parents, so can we. We honor our parents by recognizing their authority. We honor our parents by remembering they're doing the best they can. We have a word for parents that make decisions that are not in the best interest of their children, and they do it on purpose. You know what we call that, insanity. It's not common. Even though the decisions are not perfect, we have parents who love us and who are going to sleep at night and laying down the bed and not sleeping at night, because they're wrestling in their minds trying to figure out the best way to do what's the very best, even beyond their means for their kids. They're not perfect. You won't be perfect. They love you. They would take a bullet and a second for you. So if God could surrender himself and submit to those parents, human parents, so can we. What do we learn from Jesus? You honor your parents by recognizing their authority. Secondly, second conversation, we honor our parents by recognizing their wisdom. Now we're moving from a commandment primarily or initially for children. It's not exclusively for children, but to stuff that many of us can take on as adults. We recognize our parents by recognizing their wisdom. In John 2, you have the conversation between Jesus and his mother, and the wedding feast at Cana. The wedding takes place. Cana and Galilee. Jesus was there. His disciples were there. His mother was there. They'd been invited to the wedding. And when the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "Son, they have no more wine." There's probably already obvious. They have no more wine. When they go like this and nothing comes out and doesn't go into the cup, they have no more wine. There's not a lot more recorded. There's no setup. Everything that goes on between now and the next thing Mary says is nonverbal, except for the question Jesus asked, "Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come." Obviously, there's some nonverbal going on where he knows and she knows what she's talking about when she says, "They have no more wine." They must have been talking beforehand. There's a connection made that we don't read about but must have happened. My question is, what was the nonverbal that happened? Because the next thing you hear after he said, "My hour has not yet come." And then he looks at her and, "My hour has not yet come." Maybe they were talking on the way to the wedding about Jesus saying to his mom, "When do you think it's time for me to launch my public ministry?" "Ah, not your hour has not yet come, son." Or some version of that. And maybe I'm guessing he's referring back to a previous conversation. However it happened, there's a moment right there in the nonverbal. Because the next thing Mary says is this. She caught a glimpse of his eye or the tone in his voice. She knew, "Okay, it is time." And she says to the waiters, "Whatever my kid tells you to do, do it." Trust me, it's going to be good for you if you do it. Do it. And you know what happens after that. The water becomes a beautiful 96 silver oak cab. Or better. We honor our parents by recognizing their wisdom. Could it be that Christ's statement to his mother, "My hour has not yet come," was actually a question to in a sense get her input on whether or not actually his hour had come. And was there something like this? Now again, I'm just guessing here, but I'm trying to make sense out of the huge fast transition here. Could it have been like this? "Mom, my hour has not yet come." And she went, "Yeah, it has." And then he responded back. And then she says, "Whatever he says, do it." And you have this first miracle recorded. Her wisdom gave input to his actions. In college, my dad, I wanted to play football at Sacramento State. My dad had always forbidden me to play football at high school, in high school. Probably really good for my high school team, for dad for forbidden. But I went to college and I decided, "I'm going to play whatever I want to play." And my dad said, "Son, I think if you play football at college, you're going to be sorry. I forbid it." He said, "Well, you can forbid all you want. I didn't honor my dad." "I'm going to play. I want to play. I want to play a whole year without quitting something." So I went out for the JV football team as a freshman at Sac State. My dad said, "I'm concerned about head injuries, and I'm concerned about knee and ankle injuries, back injuries." And I said, "Well, I'm going to play." "Okay. I don't agree. I think you're going to be sorry." Today, I struggle with memory loss. Sometimes it's debilitating. A couple of times you've seen it if you've been here several years in the middle of a sermon. "Don't go on. Don't know where I am getting on to an on-ramp." "Randa, where are we?" "Oh, you're okay. Okay. It's coming back to me." "Don't worry. You're okay. We got safety." I couldn't play. And probably in the next 18 months, I'll have a left knee replacement. You know one of the ways we honor our mother and her father by recognizing their wisdom. And I'll go beyond that. And applying it. No matter how old you are. And then there's this final conversation that Jesus has with his mother. Because remember the question is first of all, let's define our term. Secondly, what do we learn about what it means to honor our father and our mother from the example of Jesus in these encounters he had with his mom? The third and last recorded conversation of Jesus comes in John 19. And Jesus is on the cross. This is at the cross. It's a short conversation. And near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister married the wife of Clopus and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, "Woman, here's your son." And to the disciple, here's your mother. And from that time on, this disciple took Jesus' mother into his home. Third way that Jesus gives an example of honoring our mother and our father is this. We honor them by recognizing their authority. We honor them by recognizing their wisdom. We also honor our parents by recognizing their need. Simply put, we make dog-on stinking sure that they are provided for in old age. And if they have not been able to make plans to provide for themselves, the Scripture teaches children to provide for them. You make sure they're not too lonely. They're not hungry. They're housed properly. They're well taken care of. We do not have the right, according to Scripture, to live comfortably while our parents are struggling. You see, that's a bold statement. Damn right it is. And it's a scriptural statement. It is flat, out, wrong, and condemned by Jesus. In fact, the Jews set up a system. When it got too expensive for them to fulfill that part of the law, they set up a system they could pronounce that, "Oh, I can't afford to care for my parents because everything I have is set aside for the work of God." And so you sort of, you gotta buy. You gotta pass. Oh, you claim that this was all for the work of God. So it's okay now. And Jesus condemns him in one of his teachings as you guys. You talk about the law, you talk about honoring God, and you love your traditions more. In fact, you conveniently construct traditions to get you off the hook for challenging and expensive responsibilities that are way more honoring to God than you realize. And these traditions subvert that honor that you bring to God. And it's in that context that Jesus says, for instance, you give yourself an out when you have a responsibility to care for your parents because you claim, "Oh, but I'm giving this to God." You don't have the responsibility to care for your parents anymore. That's how important this was to Jesus. In fact, providing for the physical needs of our parents or making sure that they're taken care of even if they plan for themselves. Okay, but you still make sure that's working okay. That may actually be the primary sense of the Exodus challenge. You might be able to translate that, not honor your parents, but it wouldn't be much of a stretch to translate that honorarium your parents. We honor our parents by recognizing their authority, by recognizing their wisdom, according to the example of Jesus, and then by recognizing their need. Because that's what was going on up there on the cross. Jesus is saying, "Okay, no welfare system, no government's going to take care of my mom." John, make sure she's fed, and housed, and loved, and visited, and cared for, like she was your mother. Because John, from now on, that's your mom. Mom, I thought about this from now on, that's your son. I'm not leaving you in the lurch. And I don't read anywhere in this command. If your parents have been great parents, honor your mother and your father. If your parents are worthy of your time, honor your mother and your father. If your parents didn't mess you up through in the years, honor your mother and father. That's all irrelevant. What God says is love your mother and your father. Love those elders among you. Love those widows. Love those aunts and uncles and grandparents. Even if they were lousy parents. There's something about saying it stops here when you've had less than you deserved as parents. And one of the ways I show that it stops here is that I will not stay evil with evil. I will repay lousy parroting with excellent childrening. You love them. I'm going to finish by reading a little bit of an excerpt that my mom died about a year and a half ago. And I was doing some writing about that. And I think that what I was writing about was a great example and a good way to close this message. So would you permit me just to read you a few paragraphs? Listen to this. My mom was to use an old but effective cliche loyal to a fault. This isn't a chapter about loyalty but this segment really fits in well with our message today. But though dependable and tenacious it wasn't my mom's loyalty that stood out to me in her decline and ultimate death. It was that of my siblings. My sister Susan and my brother Lenny. My sister Susan was a second board. My brother Lenny was the third board. They both live up in Portland where my mom died. For as our mom went strong and decisive and somewhat independent began to succumb to the scarring demands of multiple sclerosis it was the two of them who rose to the levels of loyalty and honoring that we had all been raised to practice. Our mom had expressed a desire to remain in her own home for as long as it was possible. So while we did have to eventually move her from her house to a retirement community her house by the way which my brother provided for her. A rental house she had that he tore down and remodeled just so it would work for her. To get the mover from her house to a retirement community during her last year of life we were able to keep her in her own apartment there with her dog. And when her health continued to decline and it became clear that she would have to be moved again it was my brother and sister who in order to honor her wish decided to take turns staying overnight at mom's place administering her meds making sure she had all she needed including good company though both of them had families and careers of their own that was the adopted regimen alternating 24 hour shifts day after day after day night after night after night for a month after month after month after month why because that's what mom asked us to do. We talked about this my brother and sister and my expressing my concern for them my own sense of guilt for living 600 miles away and not being able to do my share of that but every time I suggested that we find another way to care for our mom my brother and sister responded for the deep sense of love and loyalty and an almost indignant desire to honor her. This is what she did for us all of her life they would argue plus this is what our dad would want us to do it honors him too besides and I think this was rich our kids they said all need to see what a real family looks like in order to have a chance at one for themselves someday those weren't the exact words used but they were pretty close and the concepts expressed in them are dead on. Delinean Susan every day and night spent caring for our mom was a day spent being loyal the day spent giving her the honor she deserved with a firm awareness of the fact that both those who had gone before and those who would next carry the torch of our family's faith were watching honor your father and your mother love your father and your mother the scriptures say so that you may live long in the land the Lord is giving you (upbeat music)