00:00:00.000 - 00:00:48.000

[Music] [Singing] Turn the hearts of the children to their parents. Turn the hearts of the parents to their young. Turn the hearts of us all to one another. Turn the hearts of the people to the Lord. [Music] On the care and keeping of parents. A message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman.

00:00:48.000 - 00:01:51.000

[Music] The scripture reading of the evening is from Exodus chapter 20, beginning the reading at the verse numbered one. The passage of scripture to which we generally refer as the Ten Commandments. And God spoke all these words saying, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

00:01:51.000 - 00:03:10.000

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his ox or his ass or anything that is your neighbor's. Now when all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled. And they stood afar off and said to Moses, "You speak to us and we will hear, but let not God speak to us lest we die."

00:03:10.000 - 00:04:28.000

And Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to prove you, and that the fear of him may be before your eyes, that you may not sin." And may the same God who inspired these words incline our hearts to the understanding of this inspiration. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Dr. Loren Isley, in his very distinguished collection of philosophical and anthropological essays entitled "The Unexpected Universe," tells of an author friend of his who fell asleep one night and dreamed a dream. He found himself walking along a familiar path and confronted the home in which he had grown up as a child, long since abandoned and vacant.

00:04:28.000 - 00:05:38.000

He walked up on the porch and peered into the blank and black windows, trying to see the face of his mother and father, even though they had been long gone from this earth. He pressed his face against the glass, looking into the house, but could see nothing. He stepped back and lighted a match, and in the light of that flare he saw reflected in the glass the face of his father and then mysteriously the face of his mother. And as he moved closer to them, and as the match went out, in an instant there was a transformation such as can only happen in a dream. And the two faces merged into one, and the one face became his face. The very lines on the face of his father and the lines on the face of his mother became lines on his own countenance.

00:05:38.000 - 00:06:36.000

And then he wakened in a cold sweat. Loren Eiseley asked his friend, "Did you learn anything from the dream?" And his friend replied, "Yes, I learned that I am they." Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that many of the common places of life are in fact very mysterious? Many of the things which happen about us every day are utterly beyond our understanding and deep universal mysteries? Take this matter of the relationship of children and parents. I stand before you tonight fully conscious of the fact that I am responsible for my thoughts, that I am responsible for my words, and that I am responsible for my deeds.

00:06:36.000 - 00:07:39.000

And yet every one of us in this room knows that to a very large degree I am what I am in terms of my thoughts and my words and my deeds because of my parents. The environment in which I grew up, the food that I ate, the clothes that I wore, the Christmases I enjoyed, all of these things have helped to make me what I am. Our society holds me totally and individually responsible for what I do. Yet in a very real sense, much of what I do has been determined and influenced by my parents. I was brought into this life without ever having a choice. My mother and father decided for me. Yet I am held responsible for what I do in the course of the life that is mine. In one sense I am free, and in another sense I'm not very free at all.

00:07:39.000 - 00:08:25.000

That's the mystery of the parent-child relationship, and all cultures have recognized it. The ancient Babylonians said that if a child turned against its parents, it should have its hands cut off. Plato said that if a child revolted against its parents, that child should be banished from the land. Cicero said that Solon didn't even write rules concerning how children should behave with regard to their parents because he considered it inconceivable that a child could ever behave before its parents in a dishonorable way. In culture after culture we discover what C.S. Lewis calls "the triumphant monotony of great ideas repeated again and again."

00:08:25.000 - 00:09:07.000

One people after another have confronted this very serious question. I am they, and yet I am I. How do you deal with that mystery? I want to think with you about it tonight, and I want to think with you about it in terms of the commandment of our God. "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days might be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Now I know that as soon as I say the word "commandment," there are some people who become uncomfortable.

00:09:07.000 - 00:09:48.000

They think immediately of curbs and restrictions and inhibitions and fences. This is a mistaken notion. Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of our century, has taught and explained to us once and for all that there's a great deal of difference between a law and a commandment. A law is cold and impersonal. A law is something icy and external. It is that outside of us which imposes itself upon us. The law is always serene. We can live or die, suffer or be happy, and the law is in no way affected. The law is always the law.

00:09:48.000 - 00:10:33.000

But a commandment is a very personal word from the great heart of God to our hearts that are made in his image. It is not external; it is internal. It is not impersonal; it is personal. It is not icy; it is warm. It is not law; it is love. And what I want to do tonight is to look at the great mystery that can be summed in the sentence "I am they, and yet I am also I," to look at this whole question of the relationship between parents and children in the light of this message from the loving heart of God.

00:10:33.000 - 00:11:13.000

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days might be long on the land which the Lord your God gives you." Now the first thing I notice about this commandment is its priority. The Ten Commandments can be divided into two groups. The first four commandments are concerned with man's relationship to God. "Thou shalt have no other gods before him, no graven image; do not take his name in vain," and so on. They are vertical commandments having to do with a man's responsibility before his Creator.

00:11:13.000 - 00:11:46.000

But the remaining six commandments, the second group, concern a man's relationship with other men. "Do not steal, do not lie, do not bear false witness, do not commit adultery." They are horizontal in their dimension. And the first of these horizontal relationships about which God speaks to us, that one which is given priority, is the relationship between parents and children. "Honor thy father and thy mother."

00:11:46.000 - 00:12:16.000

We are the only one of the world's faiths, you know, that is taught in its holy book to call God "Father." That's because the family is at the very center of our faith. Have you ever stopped to think of how important the family is in Christianity? If you look at most of the world's faiths, you discover the leader of the faith to come on the scene as a fully grown individual. He is already like some bird that's gotten out of the nest and is able to fly on his own.

00:12:16.000 - 00:12:46.000

But Christianity begins in the nest, in a manger, in Bethlehem, with a mother and a father. We've seen pictures of the holy family or the Madonna and Child so many times that we have forgotten that we are the only one of the world's faiths that emphasizes and places at its very center and beginning a family. And again and again in the scriptures, we are taught that life itself is the gift of God through the family.

00:12:46.000 - 00:13:13.000

You see, in order for there to be life, there has to be a man and a woman who get together and through procreation produce a child. And in that moment, there is a family. The beginning of life is the beginning of a family. And this family is a kind of trinity of man. And I use that word very deliberately. It is not only like the blessed trinity in heaven in form, in that it has three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Father, Mother, and Child,

00:13:13.000 - 00:13:35.000

but it's also like the blessed trinity in function, in that it gives life. And not only gives life, there can be no children without parents. It not only gives life, but it instructs and teaches and orders life. To our Christian faith, the family is not part of the order of society, something that is thought up for the good of men.

00:13:35.000 - 00:14:04.000

The family is of the very order of creation itself. And its function is to give life and then to inspire or educate the life that has begun. We sometimes become very impressed with ourselves in the 20th century and all that we have accomplished, but it's my judgment that we are very ill-advised to do so.

00:14:04.000 - 00:14:34.000

The invention of language was much more important in the total scheme of things than any words that we've ever addressed to each other over the telephone invented in our century. The discovery of the wheel was far more awesome in its implications than the building of a 747. The writing of Plato's dialogues in terms of their human value is far greater than Three Mile Island.

00:14:34.000 - 00:14:58.000

Milton wrote more significantly than Hemingway. Shakespeare infinitely superior to Tennessee Williams. I would much rather have written Hamlet than have invented anything that has been invented in the 20th century. We need to hold on to, to retain all that which is part of the richness of the past.

00:14:58.000 - 00:15:24.000

And what Scripture says to us about the family is that it not only gives life, but it passes down to the new life the treasures of yesterday. God creates and then God inspires, and the family becomes God's instrument by which he creates new life and inspires and educates it.

00:15:24.000 - 00:15:45.000

I think I am particularly sensitive to this because I'm a bachelor. In my early life, it was a constant despair to me that I was not married. And I still feel very incomplete because I am not married. And I still would like to be married.

00:15:45.000 - 00:16:15.000

But as my life has continued, the wanting of a wife has somehow become less to me than the wanting of children. There is a kind of immortality in having bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. There's a kind of going on and a sense of worth that comes in being able to pass down to that which you yourself have begotten out of the past.

00:16:15.000 - 00:16:30.000

When I was out in California, I looked into adopting a child. Out there, a single person can adopt. And I thought that even though I could not give to that child life, I could pass things down that I thought to be of worth and value.

00:16:30.000 - 00:16:43.000

I consulted with a very noted pediatrician in Southern California. He strongly urged me against it. He said in the first place, you could not adopt an infant because you would not know how to take care of it. And that's true.

00:16:43.000 - 00:17:05.000

If you tried to adopt an older child, it would probably, since most older children are awaiting adoption, most of them are limited or handicapped in some way, emotionally or physically. And he said you should not undertake the caring of a child like that until you've had experience with normal children, which I have never had.

00:17:05.000 - 00:17:17.000

And in the third place, he said your ministry is to have many children and not just the children of your own family. I can accept his first two arguments. I have never been willing to accept the third.

00:17:17.000 - 00:17:39.000

But I will say this to you tonight, and I'm making myself very vulnerable to you when I say it. The thing that most keeps me in this place is my love for you. I'm very conscious of the fact that were I to have had children in the normal time,

00:17:39.000 - 00:18:01.000

they would be just about your age. And I hope you will not feel burdened by this. But I look upon some of you whom I know well as sons and daughters. And two weeks or three weeks from now when some of you leave here,

00:18:01.000 - 00:18:29.000

some of you who have walked for many, many months now in the insides of my heart and concern, a part of me will go with you. You see, there is in the relationship between parent and child not only the creation of life, but the enriching of life.

00:18:29.000 - 00:19:04.000

So that the family having this relationship becomes one of the noblest gifts of God. And this is why in this supremely important place in Scripture, the Ten Commandments, the family of all human horizontal relationships is put in the place of priority. That's the first thing I want you to notice tonight, the firstness of the family.

00:19:04.000 - 00:19:27.000

The second thing I would ask you to think about is this, what the commandment prescribes. It prescribes that we honor our fathers and mothers. And the word "honor" means to put in the place of esteem and of authority. I really don't want to spend much time defining the word "honor"

00:19:27.000 - 00:19:41.000

because the fact is if your heart is open to your parents, you know what that honor is without my defining it. And if your heart is not open to your parents, then no definition I could offer to the word would make any difference.

00:19:41.000 - 00:20:10.000

You are to submit yourself to the authority of your mother and father. Now I will confess that I don't understand why people have such a hang-up about submitting to authority. Every time I go to the garage, I submit myself to the authority of the mechanic. Every time I go to the doctor, I submit myself to her authority.

00:20:10.000 - 00:20:30.000

Every time I drive down the street, I submit myself to the authority of the traffic cop or the school guard. When the school guard goes to the doctor, she submits herself to the authority of the doctor. When the doctor sits in court, he submits himself to the authority of the judge. When the judge sits in church, he submits himself to the authority of the minister.

00:20:30.000 - 00:20:54.000

As soon as you are involved in a society and in relationships with other people, you are going to be of necessity involved in submitting yourselves to the authority of others. Why then this hang-up, this holding back from yielding to the authority of our parents and honoring that authority? Oh, I will acknowledge that it's not always pleasant.

00:20:54.000 - 00:21:16.000

But this is a tough world. And in a tough world, tough parents have to lay down tough restrictions. The life of the home must be above the level of the life on the streets or we'll die in the streets. You see, you're very much like a young tree growing high up on a mountain and strong, blasting winds blow.

00:21:16.000 - 00:21:36.000

If that tree is left to itself, it will be bent and broken by those winds, possibly. But if someone tends it, if they turn up the soil about its roots, if they drive a stake into the ground and lash that tree to the stake, if they prune off the branches which are not conducive to its growth,

00:21:36.000 - 00:21:54.000

then that tree will grow strong and straight and tall. And that is what the good parent wants. They do not want you to be a child always. You offer no honor to your parents if you remain children with regard to them forever.

00:21:54.000 - 00:22:21.000

The whole function of your honoring them is to grow yourself to that position of independence and responsibility when you can stand tall and straight and true alone. That responsibility is the goal of every honorable parent. But I hear some of you say, "My parents are not honorable."

00:22:21.000 - 00:22:39.000

Are you saying to me that I should honor parents who do not love me? That I have to put in bed at night? Parents who have made no sacrifices for me? Parents who belittle me or ridicule me or have in fact no concern whatever for me?

00:22:39.000 - 00:23:01.000

Are you saying to me that I'm supposed to honor my parents even when my parents are, by the very standards you've uttered, dishonorable? That's a good question and a fair question. And I answer it, "Yes, you are still to honor them."

00:23:01.000 - 00:23:32.000

Oh, I know it sounds very philosophical to say, "One cannot honestly honor that which is dishonorable." But before we become too philosophical, let me reverse the proposition for a moment. If you are going to argue that you should honor your parents only when they are honorable, then would it not be equally fair for me to say that your parents should love you only when you are lovable?

00:23:32.000 - 00:23:56.000

I mean, there were many times in your early life when you were not particularly lovable. You might visualize yourself of having been a bundle from heaven wrapped around with a rainbow. But the fact of the matter is that if you were left alone, you would have died in your own filth. And the fact of the matter is that you were oftentimes more like a storm cloud than a rainbow.

00:23:56.000 - 00:24:23.000

And the fact of the matter is that even until this very day, most people would be quite bothered or bored by you. But your parents see in you a grace and a beauty and an intelligence and a courage and a future that other people don't seem to be able to discover. Now, why is that?

00:24:23.000 - 00:24:45.000

If they adopted the attitude of loving you only in your moments of lovableness, then you wouldn't be alive. But they continue to love you no matter what because you are their children, whether you are lovable in that moment or not. And I would suggest that the contrary is equally true.

00:24:45.000 - 00:25:13.000

That though your parents sometimes behave in very dishonorable ways, they are still, even in the midst of that, to be honored. For you see, they are your parents, which means they have given you the gift of life. Now, your life may be very hard, and it may be made harder by your parents.

00:25:13.000 - 00:25:51.000

Some of you have told me of the deep hurt and the great misery that you bear at the hands of your parents. And I know that what you have told me is true. But if every year of your life were an agony, and every month of your experience a pain, and if every week were a hurt, and every day a wound, and every night made wretched with ugly dreams

00:25:51.000 - 00:26:22.000

so that you were filled with fear and utterly without hope in this life, if all of that were still true, you would have before you, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, still the possibility of heaven. You would have before you eternity with God and his angels.

00:26:22.000 - 00:26:53.000

The scriptures say, "Infinitely worthy beyond anything that we are called upon to endure in this life." And the possibility of heaven is yours only because you have lived, and the gift of life to you was given by your parents. If you owe a man money, you are not relieved of your indebtedness if he happens to be a drunkard.

00:26:53.000 - 00:27:17.000

And just so, you are indebted to your parents for the gift of life, and their conduct never relieves you of that indebtedness. And if you are growing in your faith, if you are growing in your faith so that you can see how small and inadequate and pathetic their faith is,

00:27:17.000 - 00:27:49.000

then your very growth in faith should give you greater courage and strength to endure whatever they call upon you to endure. And as you grow in faith, you should be becoming more sensitive to your own sin. And as you become more sensitive to your own sin, more able to forgive theirs.

00:27:49.000 - 00:28:14.000

As you grow older and mature, your perspective on your parents will change, and some things that you think wrong now, you will think right then. But even if that were not the case, still, when you look at them and when you serve them, it is to be an honor.

00:28:14.000 - 00:28:43.000

For you can say what no one else can say. I am they, and I am I. And the great heart of God, counseling my heart, says, "Honor those who have given to you the gift of life, which will make life with God for eternity."

00:28:43.000 - 00:29:05.000

Yours. Please turn your cassette to the other side. I have just one last thing I'd like to say. This commandment is not only a priority and prescription, it's also a commandment of promise.

00:29:05.000 - 00:29:21.000

For it says that if you do honor your father and your mother, that your days will be long upon the land which the Lord God gives you. That does not mean that you will live to a great age. What it does mean is that in a society where children honor their parents,

00:29:21.000 - 00:29:39.000

their forefathers, their national forefathers, and their fathers within their own home, in that kind of society there is that which gives permanence and continuity. The suggestion of the commandment is not that if you honor your parents, God will pat you on the head and give you a reward,

00:29:39.000 - 00:30:03.000

but rather if you honor your parents, you do not so much receive a reward as you do a result. The result of honoring one's parents is a stronger society, a stronger people, a stronger nation. The Hebrews to whom these commandments were given were a nomadic people. They lived in tents and moved across the land.

00:30:03.000 - 00:30:23.000

Now anyone who knows much about nomadic people knows that they are fiercely independent. They love freedom. There is no people that loves freedom more than the nomadic people. And there was this desire within the Israelites. They loved freedom, but they understood that if they were to succeed in their way of life,

00:30:23.000 - 00:30:46.000

there had to be a unity, there had to be a cooperation within them, there had to be an honoring of the discovery of the past and a joint adventure into the future. Oh, as they moved out, the young men went out as scouts, but they always returned to the base camp. And the speed with which the base camp moved was determined by the oldest in the group,

00:30:46.000 - 00:31:01.000

the ones who had been out there before, or who at least knew enough about new adventures to know what it was like out there. The state is a relatively new creation in the mind of man, but the family has been there from the beginning.

00:31:01.000 - 00:31:18.000

And the teachings of the older people of the family, they are what gives stability to the group as it moves out into history. That's true of the Israelites of old or our pioneers when they moved across the Great Plains. You know it to be true when you go out on a camping trip with people.

00:31:18.000 - 00:31:30.000

There's a sense of freedom when you get out into the great woods. But you know that it's as you work together, as you learn from those who are more experienced than yourself, that the journey becomes everything that it ought to be.

00:31:30.000 - 00:31:50.000

This was brought home to us very powerfully by the television series Roots. After that series was over, the most watched series in the history of American television captured the whole consciousness of the nation. Charles Haley, who wrote Roots 1 and Roots 2, made some observations on television, two in number.

00:31:50.000 - 00:32:05.000

His first observation was this. Going back into a study of his Roots and examining the phenomena of the reaction of people to Roots, he had concluded that we ought to interview the oldest members of our family, take down everything that they had to share with us.

00:32:05.000 - 00:32:25.000

And the second conclusion was have family reunions, bring everybody together, discover the unity and the combined strength that is yours, and build on that strength. That's what makes nations strong, depending not only on their national fathers, but on the fathers at home.

00:32:25.000 - 00:32:50.000

See, that people that ignores its past is condemned to a dark future. That people that lays claim to its past has power for its future. And this commandment holds this truth before us. Marian Anderson is one of the greatest women that America has ever produced,

00:32:50.000 - 00:33:16.000

the first black to sing regularly on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, warm, wise, much beloved. She is one of our most honored American ladies. Some years ago she was asked by a reporter, "What was the grandest moment in her life?" She had a whole host of grand moments from which to choose.

00:33:16.000 - 00:33:31.000

She could have selected the time when Arturo Toscanini, the greatest conductor of the day, said she had the most magnificent voice of our century. She could have talked about that time when she sang at the White House for President and Mrs. Roosevelt and the King and Queen of England.

00:33:31.000 - 00:33:45.000

She could have talked about receiving the Bok Award, which is an award given every year to the person from Philadelphia who has done most to honor the city of Philadelphia. She could have talked about the time when she was given the Medal of Freedom

00:33:45.000 - 00:34:03.000

by the Congress of the United States, or when she was made an honorary ambassador to the United Nations for our country, or when she sang to Easter sunrise services before hundreds of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial. There were all kinds of moments that she could have mentioned, but she mentioned none of these.

00:34:03.000 - 00:34:31.000

In response to the question, "What was the greatest moment of your life?" she replied, "The greatest moment of my life is when I went home to my mother and said to her, 'Mom, you won't have to take in washing anymore.'" What she was saying was this.

00:34:31.000 - 00:34:52.000

The family that loved her and supported her and encouraged her and sacrificed for her, that did all the things necessary to help her get to the place that she finally knew, that family was first in her consciousness. And the greatest moment in her life was when she could go back to that family and say,

00:34:52.000 - 00:35:19.000

"I'm tall enough and strong enough and straight enough now to stand alone, and standing there, put out my arms and help to carry you." And when you have a nation of young people that looks to the wisdom of the past like that, not dependent upon it, but claiming all that it has to offer,

00:35:19.000 - 00:35:42.000

and then standing strong and straight and true and saying, "We can move out ahead, but we'll never forget to keep lifting you." When that happens, that nation is blessed. And that nation's days are long upon the land which the Lord God gives it.

00:35:42.000 - 00:36:21.000

For its young people say, "We are they, and we are also ourselves." Remember, please, that this commandment is different from all of the others in one way. It's the only commandment you will not be able to obey all of your life. Till the end of your life, you will be able to obey the other nine, I trust.

00:36:21.000 - 00:36:51.000

But in the normal course of events, your parents will die before you. And so the option of honoring them will not always be open to you. Eighteen of our students this year have lost their mother or their father or both. What's it like to lose your mother or your dad?

00:36:51.000 - 00:37:10.000

There's no way I can describe that to you. I can only say about half the joy goes out of your life. My dad's been gone three years now, and there are still moments when things happen that I think,

00:37:10.000 - 00:37:42.000

"Oh, I've got to call Dad and tell him about it." Victories to share, troubles to share, jokes to tell. But he's not here for the sharing or the bragging or the laughing. And as it is with me, so it will be in turn with each and every one of you.

00:37:42.000 - 00:38:20.000

So take these words of God written on the tablets of stone for Moses. "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days might be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." And write those words upon the tablets of your heart. And having written them there, live them for as long as you can.

00:38:20.000 - 00:38:54.000

Live them. Let us pray. Some weeks ago, one of our students came to me and told me how his dad had died a few years ago. Dad was a minister.

00:38:54.000 - 00:39:28.000

And he told me that his father concluded every act of worship with a benediction which he had written himself. And this boy told me that he longed to hear his father's benediction again. And he asked me if some night in Vespers I would use it as our closing prayer. Why did he do that?

00:39:28.000 - 00:39:46.000

For memory's sake, I suppose. Because the words are beautiful and true, I suppose. But I think there's more than that. I think he wants to honor his dad.

00:39:46.000 - 00:40:42.000

And he wants to feel again, somehow, the blessing that only a good parent can give. So I told him that some night I would pray his father's benediction on him and on all of you. Here, then, is a father's benediction. And now, may grace, mercy, and peace, which cometh from God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be and ever abide with you, now and forevermore.

00:40:42.000 - 00:40:51.000

And until Jesus comes to reign in righteousness.