September 18 / Proverb 30:11-20

Proverbs 30:11-20

There are those who curse their fathers
and do not bless their mothers.
…
The eye that mocks a father
and scorns to obey a mother
will be picked out by the ravens of the valley
and eaten by the vultures.

Proverbs 30:11,17

Honoring one’s parents is a notion that we see often in the Scriptures. Indeed, it is one of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:12; Dt. 5:16), and Paul reiterates it clearly (Eph. 6:1-3; Col. 3:20). It forms an undercurrent that runs throughout Proverbs, which takes a dim view of disrespecting parents, as is made abundantly clear here.

Interestingly, the commandment to “honor your father and mother” makes no attempt to focus that honor only on perfect parents or even on reasonably good parents. The commandment is there for us all, whether our parents are good, neglectful, or outright abusive. And that makes this commandment a serious challenge for some, if not most. It is hard to honor someone that we know to be less than what they should be, yet we are still called to honor our parents.

Needless to say, our culture — at war with God in multiple ways — provides little help for us here and makes honoring parents all the more difficult. Sitcoms and commercials routinely bash parents — particularly fathers — as incompetent fools. Psychology and sociology often blame parents for the sins of the children. Teachers and coaches often undermine the very parents that they should be supporting. And, of course, all those things make good sense to us at some level at least some of the time. That is, we laugh at the sitcoms because they ring (partly) true; sometimes criminal behavior is clearly the result of horrendous parenting; sometimes teachers and coaches really do steer kids onto better paths than their parents would. And so we fall into the trap, and we rationalize away a core truth of Scripture.

So I encourage us all to fight back. Take time to evaluate our relationships with our parents. Take a good, honest look at who they are (or were), their strengths and their weaknesses, their successes and their failings. Forgive them for all the ways they messed up. And honor them, simply because they gave you life.