Nothing is quite as revealing as our belly button! I’m not talking about size, shape, or how ticklish it is. I’m talking about HAVING a belly button.
We are not our own. Life comes as a gift from someone else…a mother who gave of her own nutrition and energy as we grew inside her body. And while the umbilical connection is severed at birth, our belly buttons are an everlasting reminder that life is a gift rather than a possession. As we grow older, we might ignore our parents, be embarrassed by them, detest them, try to forget we ever knew them. But unlike the umbilical cord, the one thing we can never sever is the cord that ties us to our parents, for, were it not for them, we would not be.
The stories of our lives begin with grace. Grace is a freely given, often unexpected blessing. Our mother’s breast was the first hint that we live by grace—we didn’t earn that welcome milk, it was just given.
Someone—usually a mother or a father–changed our diapers. They woke when we cried at 3:00 am. and walked us when our tummies hurt. They dressed us to keep us warm and bathed us to keep us clean. And for us to stay alive not only physically, but emotionally, they smiled at us, cuddled us, talked and sang to us. They loved us. Of all the primates, we humans are dependent and helpless the longest—the least able to fend for ourselves for years and years and years. As much as we want to think so in our individualistic society, there is so such thing as a “self made” man or woman.
“Honor your father and mother.” God tells us in this commandment that parenthood is a high and lofty vocation–a calling worthy of honor. This commandment tells us our God is invested in relationships. In fact, God sees us IN relationships.
As much as we postmodern people want to see ourselves as free actors on the stage of life—rejoicing in our individuality and the freedom to do and be what we want—this commandment says some of our lines are already written. Some of our part is scripted before we ever came on stage.
We cannot escape our belly buttons! With our belly buttons came our looks, personalities, abilities, foibles, and many shaping experiences good and bad, at our mothers and fathers knees. At the end of our lives…..as the credits are rolling across the screen….under “writer” and “producer, we’ll see the names of our mother and father printed next to our own.
Most of our spiritual forefathers and foremothers were not at all squeamish to believe a parents’ authority was delegated from God. The Heidelberg Catechism (1562) puts the authority of parents and others this way:
Question. What does God require in the fifth commandment?
Answer. That I show honor, love, and faithfulness to my father and mother and to all who are set in authority over me; that I submit myself with respectful obedience to all their careful instruction and discipline; and that I also bear patiently their failures, since it is God’s will to govern us by their hand.
We all know how easily authority can be abused. So how far down this road of honoring parents we can legitimately go before we enter that dark region where religious people—religious PARENTS—use this commandment to cover over their authoritarian, mean-spirited, even hateful behavior toward their children? Parents can be terribly hurtful and violent—especially toward the most defenseless. Does God in this commandment give parents carte blanche?
Another voice from the 16th century, John Calvin, offers a very sane and balanced assessment:
“we are bidden to obey our parents only “in the Lord” (Eph 6:1)…For they sit in that place to which they have been advanced by the Lord, who shares with them a part of his honor. Therefore, the submission paid to them ought to be a step toward honoring that highest Father.
By meddling in family life through this commandment, God, as Calvin says, places mothers and fathers in a lofty position by “sharing with them part of his honor.” Honoring our mother and father—whether or not they are Christians–is really honoring the God who gave them authority in the first place. Bearing patiently with their failures is easier if we remember that we are ultimately honoring God THROUGH honoring our parents.
It took me a long time to understand this—especially through the challenges I had with my father off and on since I was a teenager. I recognize that God calls me to honor him just because God has given him as my father—whether I judge all his actions along the way to be honorable is not the issue.
Moms and Dads have a huge influence over how well children keep this commandment. If you throw mud on your husband or wife—or ex-husband or wife—in the presence of your children, you may convince them to honor him or her less…..but ultimately they’ll come to honor YOU less as well. You just can’t throw mud without getting dirty yourself. And even if our mother and father are dead and buried, we can honor them in how we speak of them to others.
For Calvin, the authority God has given parents is to lead us toward the heavenly Father. The converse is also true.
“Hence, if they spur us to transgress the law, we have a perfect right to regard them not as parents, but as strangers who are trying to lead us away from obedience to our true Father. So should we act toward princes, lords, and every kind of superiors. It is unworthy and absurd for their eminence so to prevail as to pull down the loftiness of God. On the contrary, their eminence depends upon God’s loftiness and ought to lead us to it.”
We should not blindly obey parents who lead us away from God. The truth is parents who expect their children to honor them by keeping this commandment must themselves keep the commandments.
One of Grimm’s fairy tales goes like this: Once upon a time there was a little old man. When he ate he clattered the silverware, missed his mouth with the spoon, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. He lived with his married son, having no where else to live, and got exceedingly on the nerves of his daughter-in-law.
“I can’t stand this” she said one day, and took the little old to the corner of the kitchen where they sat him on a stool and gave him his food in an earthenware bowl. From then on, he always ate in the corner, looking wistfully at the others gathered around the table.
One day his hands trembled more than usual, and he dropped the earthenware bowl and it broke. “If you act like a pig” shouted the daughter-in-law, “then you must eat out of a trough.” So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his meals in that.
Now this couple had a four-year-old son of whom they were very fond. One suppertime the father noticed his young son playing intently with some bits of wood and asked what he was doing. “I’m making a trough,” said the boy, smiling and looking for approval, “to feed you and Mamma when I get big.” The young man and his wife looked at each other for a long time. Then they went to the corner and brought the little old man back to the table. Never again did the wife scold when he clattered, or spilled or broke things.
What blessing comes back to us if we honor our father and mother? Perhaps it’s something as simple as our children, by watching how we honor our parents, are more likely to honor us. I came across a great line: “We who have had our diapers changed by parents, without feeling at the time any gratitude, get to offer our thanks by changing their diapers.”
Even if few note the sacrificial care a woman gives her mother during her mother’s last years on earth, God knows. Even though the world will not reward her, God rewards. In fact, this is the only commandment with a blessing: “that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
This commandment says: Actions have consequences. How we live DOES make a difference.
God’s 10 commandments are indeed a treasurable gift. They shine light on the path that leads to blessing. And if you or I forget…as I think we all do, whenever (at any age) we get too caught up in ourselves…all we need to do is look at our belly button. And remember.
Question: Which part of this post resonates the most with you? Please share it in a comment.
