Bringing Honor

Scripture: Matthew 15:1-9

Then Pharisees and legal experts came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why are your disciples breaking the elders’ rules handed down to us? They don’t ritually purify their hands by washing before they eat.”

³ Jesus replied, “Why do you break the command of God by keeping the rules handed down to you? ⁴ For God said, Honor your father and your mother, and The person who speaks against father or mother will certainly be put to death. ⁵ But you say, ‘If you tell your father or mother, “Everything I’m expected to contribute to you I’m giving to God as a gift, “then you don’t have to honor your father.’ ⁶ So you do away with God’s Law for the sake of the rules that have been handed down to you. ⁷ Hypocrites! Isaiah really knew what he was talking about when he prophesied about you, ⁸ This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. ⁹ Their worship of me is empty since they teach instructions that are human rules.”

Questions

1. Why would the Pharisees appeal to the elders, why would they expect that their elders would be authoritative for Jesus?
2. How do we prevent ourselves from negating the important elements of the Bible with our own interpretations the way the Pharisees had done with the tradition of giving gifts to God?
3. What does honor mean in this passage since it is due to parents and in Isaiah 29 (quoted by Jesus) it talks of honor that is false?

Background

Related Scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17; Isaiah 29:13; Malachi 1:6-14; Matthew 19:19; 1 Timothy 5:1-8

The Pharisees seem to appeal to their traditions of interpreting Scripture expecting that Jesus would find those traditions authoritative, he does not and says so when he calls them your rules.

Jesus is likely creating a scenario that was unlikely in real life when he talks about vows negating duty to parents, however the scenario likely had its roots in the genuine priorities of the Pharisee’s traditions.

Jesus is calling out the idea that the Pharisees prioritized duty and obligation in such a way that it showed no consideration for the kind of love that God expects from people.

The command to honor parents is the transition point of the Ten Commandments because it shows that if a person cannot even demonstrate honor to their parents they are not going to be decent members of society.

The commandment is not directed toward children listening to parents but adults who need to provide for parents when they age.

Some of the language of honoring and respecting parents used in the Old Testament (as in the quote from Isaiah Jesus uses) is identical for how we are to honor God.

By quoting Isaiah 29:13 Jesus is connecting the honoring of parents with authentic worship of God and saying that rejecting one’s duties is to in a way reject proper worship.

Reflection

When we think about respecting parents or elders in our culture, we tend to think about teaching children how to behave in public. But this is far from what the Bible means when it speaks of “honoring your parents”. The Bible is addressed to adults who have families of their own and is written to instruct them on how to be responsible members of society. We must remember that fact as we approach the command to honor one’s parents. This command was not addressed to children or even addressed to parents to help them raise children, this command was addressed to adults whose parents are nearing their later days. Honoring parents meant two things for ancient Israel, first it meant caring for aging parents who were less able to care for themselves, and second it meant living in a way that brought your parents’ honor.

The first of these meanings is directly referenced by Jesus in Matthew 15, where he talks about providing materially for parents in their latter days. He is directly opposing a person who makes a vow to give part of their wealth to the temple under the guise that those specific possessions were what was to help parents. A modern example would be to give stock to the Church and then tell parents, “I’m sorry I made a vow to give that stock to the church and it was all the money I had set aside for helping you.” We can understand how that is evil and manipulative, using a vow to God as an excuse to forget family. For Jews this was the most basic level of decency, if you could not provide for parents who cared for you when you were young and helpless then you were in many ways unfit for society. This is why the command to honor parents comes where it does, after the instructions dealing with one’s relationship with God and as a way of introducing how one lives in community. The positioning of the command to honor parents demonstrates that it is fundamental to a thriving society, and Jesus seems to echo that in Matthew. He picks up this tradition and this command precisely because it shows how we can twist ourselves and our priorities away from care for others and call it religious. We can claim to be good moral people but if we are not concerned with caring for the vulnerable members of society, reflected in our own aging parents, then what good is our supposed commitment to morality?

This is the where the second element of honoring parents comes in. The Bible frequently uses the metaphor of heavy verses vapor. Things that are vain (see Ecclesiastes) are like vapor, while things that are honored are heavy. We are supposed to picture the difference between a granite monument and smoke. Honoring parents is this type of heavy, it creates an enduring reputation for the family. Not only is honoring one’s parents a practical matter of taking care of the people who took care of us, it also has to do with living in a way that creates a legacy within the community. Honoring parents is living in the community in such a way that people respect the family name and so bring honor to their parents. Read this way maintaining the rest of the commandments is how one brings honor to one’s parents, if you live life as a caring member of God’s people, you give weight to your name and to the parents who taught you. Honoring parents is about living in the community in such a way that you bring honor to their legacy and create a memorial for them. And this begins with how you take care of your parents themselves, but it does not stop there. Taking care of parents is simply the easiest step in making sure the community around you is thriving. This is why Jesus starts here when he talks about traditions replacing God’s instructions, because if we allow our own traditions to override this most basic element of civil society how much easier is it for us to hide behind religion when the demands of love push us further. As we meditate on honoring parents, we are meant to not simply reflect on how we treat those individuals who cared for us in our earliest days, but also how we shine as an example to for them in how we create a name in the community. In this way we create a legacy for our parents in how we build a community for future generations.