MWUTT 60: Cutting Off Your Parents is Sinful

If your parents hurt you, cut them off. Maybe you heard that from a friend, maybe from a therapist. But God says, "Honor your father and mother," and that command doesn't expire when they're the ones who hurt you. So is it ever right to draw a line? When does a boundary turn into getting even? And what if you're the parent who needs to say, "I sinned against you, son"? Today, we're gonna tackle those questions, and we'll also look at a father who ran down the road to meet his son who walked away, and what that can mean for a family that hasn't spoken in years. Welcome to Men Who Understood the Times. So Zach, what does it mean to honor our parents when affection becomes difficult? Well, we need to start with the fourth commandment first, which I think most of our viewers are probably very familiar with. Your parents probably reminded you of it often as you grew up, "Honor your father and mother, that it may go well with you, and that you may enjoy a long life on the earth." I, I know I often bring up that second part with my child often if he's disobedient. Often, uh, things aren't going well with him when he's disobedient. I remind him, "You know, if you had obeyed earlier, things would be going better for you right now." But th- this is the command God gives us, and for good reason. God has put parents in all of our lives. What a blessing that we all get parents, and He's given them a place of authority for our good as children. Parents are there to provide for children, to raise children, to, uh, lead them the way they should go, to raise them up in the way of the Lord, and that is such an important role in all of our lives as children. And what we owe our parents because of that is what the commandment demands of us, honor. Honor your father and mother. Now, Luther had, uh, some, some very interesting ideas about this in the large catechism. One of the ideas... I, I, just... I think it's, it's a little bit quirky, but he says, "This now I say should be the first and most important consideration to urge us to the observation of this commandment. On which account? Even if we had no father and mother, we ought to wish that God would set up wood and stone before us, whom we might call Father and Mother. How much more since He has given us living parents should we rejoice to show them honor and obedience, because we know it is so highly pleasing to the divine majesty and to all angels, and vexes all devils besides." So it's a high calling to obey your parents. It pleases God to honor your parents. And sometimes, well, probably a lot of times, when you were, when you were a child growing up, you probably had a lot of days where you just thought, "I really don't like my parents right now. It is very hard to honor them right now." And those are actually the moments where it's really the most important to just remember this commandment and honor them. And so also now, you know, later in life, we're talking about adult children cutting off their parents in this episode. If you as an adult are, are looking back at maybe how your parents raised you, or even just, you know, how your relationship is with your parents today and you're thinking, "I really don't like them today," or, or, "They really screwed this up in the past," or, "They, they really screwed me up by the way they raised me," it's in those moments where it's even more important to look at the fourth commandment and see what God tells us. He tells us to honor our father and mother. He doesn't put exceptions on it, you know, "Except when they do this or this or that." No. He just, He just says, "Honor your father and mother."

Fantastic. So we welcome Chris Flugge-Heft, who is here today serving us on this podcast from Grace Lutheran Church in Yorba Linda, California. So Chris, if you want to build on that is, you know, how does God command us to honor our parents?

Yeah. I think that's such an important thing for us to consider. Just not putting forward just honor them, but what are you supposed to do to honor them? The focus of today's episode is especially on adult children. So we're gonna think about as your parents grow older, how can you continue to honor them? Now, this doesn't mean that you're going to listen to the curfew like you would when you were a child. But instead, you're going to elevate them. I, I think in Leviticus it says, "Stand up in the presence of the gray-haired," and how important it is to have that approach of honor and respect for your parents. So then as your parents are growing older, an opportunity to, uh, to treat them with reverence and respect, to assist them in the various aspects of life as things get harder and harder for them. I have a couple of wonderful examples within my congregation of members who have taken their elderly parents to live with them, and how honoring them looks so much different now than it used to. It means taking care of them. It means telling them, "Mom and Dad, this is what you can eat. This is what you can't eat." The relationship has changed so much, but the honor is still there. It's looking at the parents and saying, "These are two individuals that God used to give me life. These are two individuals that God used to care for me." Uh, we're thinking about the fourth commandment primarily right now, but often when I think of the fourth commandment, I can't help but think about the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." And you think about as you were growing up, how did God give you daily bread? How did God train you up so that you could have the skills to earn your own bread someday? It's through mom and dad. So to look at these people, even when it's difficult later on, and that's what I'm thinking of those situations where mom and dad starts to lose their own capabilities, or maybe they feel like a burden li- or as you have them older in age, to say, "I wanna honor them for all the wonderful things that God has done for me through them." So those are a few of the thoughts that I have about honoring parents, especially as they're growing older.