“The Law that Liberates: the Ten Commandments Today”: (5) “Respecting your heritage ... and respecting your neighbours’ right to respect theirs” (Exodus 20: 1-2, 12)

Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Of course, there are all the obvious things about this commandment, the sorts of things that our wider secular culture celebrates.  And this commandment is at least in part about the quality of our family relationships, whether these relationships are within nuclear families, within extended families, or within non-conventional families.  

But, as the man who sells steak knives on TV always tells us “And there’s more ...”.

There are a few other things that jump out from this commandment.

One has to do with our attitudes toward the aged generally.  This commandment invites us to affirm the dignity of older people.  In today’s society, people are living much longer than in previous generations, and remaining healthy and vital for much longer as well.

 

·         As a result, to live in the light of this commandment means that we should never assume that older people automatically lose the ability to contribute to society.  Here in Australia, community groups of all sorts simply would not function without the voluntary involvement of retired people.  (And I’m concerned that the trend toward a later retirement age will cripple many community groups that are dependent on the excellent volunteer work of retired people.)

·         To live in the light of this commandment also means that we as a society should ensure that those older people who can no longer be independent still have a good quality of life. 

This commandment invites us to affirm the dignity of older people. 

“And there’s more ...”.

Other cultures who lived in the same area as the Jews during this time would have had similar commandments within their traditional wisdom.  But one thing was unique to the Jews; one thing that was expressed in three words:  “and your mother”.  Other cultures would have emphasised respect for the father as part of a sacred obligation.  For the Jews, by including respect for the mother as a sacred obligation alongside respect for the father, a revolutionary element of equity and fairness was added to this parental respect, making it far more contemporary than may appear at first sight.  This equity and fairness is just one of the many ethical gifts that all humanity has received from the Jews.

“And there’s more ...”.

The Scriptures (particularly the Hebrew Scriptures) often use the language of “fathers and mothers” (or in shorthand “fathers”) to speak of all one’s ancestors.  So, it’s not too difficult to see this commandment as including the command to honour one’s heritage.

As a result, this commandment is particularly relevant to those of us with the privilege of living in a multicultural society such as Australia.  (And I believe that it is a privilege to live in a multicultural society.)  For us, this commandment should be seen as including an encouragement to honour your ethnic heritage in its fullness and, as part of the richness of our community life, to respect the right of your neighbours to honour theirs.

 

·         to have a thrill of pride at the skirl of the pipes and also to try to grasp the same emotion that your neighbours experience at the sound of the didgeridoo or the shofar, or at the sound of the haka or the call of the muezzin;

·         to cultivate your taste for speculaas or Guinness, and to affirm your neighbours’ taste for beef vindaloo,

·         to follow Arsenal with a passion, but not to think it too odd that someone else may follow Juventus or the Mets,

·         to celebrate Hogmanay or Thanksgiving Day, but not to get uptight when some of your neighbours celebrate Ramadan or Passover.

“And there’s more ...”.

Of course, to honour your father and mother does not mean that you necessarily agree with your ancestors in every way.  This commandment is not a command to continue with every idea of the previous generations.

 

·         This commandment does not authorise you, if your parents were racially prejudiced, to keep up those prejudices and pass them on to the next generation.

·         This commandment does not authorise you, if your parents were prejudiced against Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims, or Mormons, or Freemasons, or gays, or lesbians, ... or anyone, to keep up those prejudices and pass them on to the next generation.

This commandment is not an excuse for one generation to keep up the prejudices of the previous generation.  You do not honour your parents by perpetuating all the prejudices of their generation.

Then God spoke all these words:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ...

Like each of the commandments, this commandment is closely linked to God’s self-identification as the God who liberates slaves and turns them into free people.

For slaves, their most significant relationship is not with their families ... with parents ... with partners ... with children.  For slaves, their most significant relationship is with the person who owns them.  That is the person to whom the slave owes honour. 

For any person to be able to give honour to the members of their family (or – for that matter – to anyone else in a significant relationship) is in itself a sign that the person is not a slave, but someone who is free.

Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

In this commandment, we celebrate God who liberated a gang of slaves, made them a nation of free people, and gave them a history.

 

In the first post in this series of articles, there is a general introduction to the series.