Honoring Our Inheritance    [Sermon #5 in “Faith at Work]

 

                                                                                                            2/8/48

 

Scripture:  Mark 7: 1-13

 

Text:  Exodus 20: 12;  “Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

 

Can you be a Christian all by yourself?  Some believe so - or at least proceed on the assumption.  But many agree with Professor Baillie when he says:  “I cannot be a Christian all by myself.  I cannot retire into my own shell or into my own corner and live the Christian life there.  A single individual cannot be a Christian in his singleness.”

 

The assumption that any man is self-made is a narrow and mistaken belief.  We are made what we are partly by our own decisions and determination.  Any father is glad to see his boy show signs of initiative and accomplishment.  But the boy is very considerably the product of his family’s encouragement, fellowship, suggestions, approvals, skilled guidance.

 

I have heard, again and again, a father’s appreciation of what Scouting does for his boy.  And scouting is an excellent program for any boy.  But I shall remember constantly the considered remark I have heard a Scout troop committeeman make, who was also the father of boys.  He said that he had observed that the boys who really get ahead in the Scouting program, and who develop into accomplished scouts, are generally those whose fathers take an active interest in seeing that the boy gets ahead -- encouraging him, keeping informed with him.

 

It seems so throughout the life of the church as well.  Those who get the most good out of Sunday School are those whose families see to it that they attend regularly, express an interest in what they learn, or better yet, come with them and take a share in the teaching and learning process.

 

The youth who develop the habit and the will to be a regular worshipper at church services is often -- I think usually -- one who has attended from early childhood with his family.  Even a successful youth organization depends in both direct and subtle ways upon the interest of the home.

 

So there are two viewpoints from which to approach a broader understanding of the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.”  The experience of people had crystallized by Moses’ time into knowledge that family solidarity and loyalty is essential to a well-ordered person and to the community of persons.

 

Jesus had occasion to speak sharply to the decadence of his own day when he condemned the hypocrisy of too many people at this point.  It was then a common supposition that young, vigorous people would, for instance, help take care of their parents when old age or illness rendered them feeble.  That is still the healthy attitude for our time.

 

But an ingenious evasion had arisen in the Jewish community of 2,000 years ago.  If one had dedicated certain of his possessions as gifts to God, to be presented eventually at the temple, that gift could not be taken and used for anything else.

 

The greedy and the irresponsibly selfish man among the Hebrews had developed a way of making his possession Corban; that is, a religious gift -- and then delaying presentation of the gift indefinitely while using it himself.  But if there came any kind of call for the help of some worthy, needy neighbor, a man could put on an innocent face and say, “Well, I’m sorry, but I cannot help.  You see my lands and my flocks are all Corban.  And it would not be right or lawful for me to let anyone else have some of them.”

 

Far too many had even gone to the length of declining help to their parents on grounds that their wealth was all Corban.  It was too bad for the old folks, but after all what can a young man do when he has been so pious as to designate practically all of his possessions as religious gifts (even though he has never gotten around to presenting those gifts at the temple - maybe doesn’t even really intend to!)  And the temple leaders helped enforce this too -- for bureaucratic reasons.

 

It is a little hard for us to understand the technical nature of so clever a procedure.  But it is not hard to recognize the human perversity that made it possible.  Jesus not only saw it, but detested it and scathingly condemned it.

 

If one really honored his parents, respected their judgments, their sacrifices, their guidance, their affection, as well as their dignity and their occasional need, he would resort to no such subterfuge for avoiding his filial responsibility as a cheap use of the Corban.  But he would gladly care for their needs with the sharing of his substance and his love.

 

There is a reverse aspect of the problem which needs attention.  If parents are to be honored, they ought to be honorable.  You don’t have to look too far to find parents who show no real love for their children, who refuse to support them and train them, who may even resent or despise them.  Such parents never should have had children given to their care in the first place.  They are not fitted for the responsibilities and the joys of parenthood.  They are in a minority and are under the disapproval of most people before the law and in the eyes of the community.  But they do, here and there, exist!

 

There is little reason why the unwanted kid who has been abandoned on some doorstep to be raised in an orphanage, or whose father has deserted family and left the members to struggle by themselves, should hold the old man in honor.  But that home never was a real home in the first place.  It comes under the condemnation of all the experience accumulated in Old Testament times and in the Christian era since.  [“Our Father”]

The vast majority of well-founded homes, in which parents and children grow in reasonably good family relationship, are families in which the fifth commandment applies and should be observed faithfully.

 

One thing which the Old Testament commandment assumes -- and I think our Lord assumed it too -- is that the family is devoted to God, is religiously informed and faithful.  And this brings us to another consideration, that of the larger “family” or church of which one is a part.  It is a well-documented reality that the family is most well-knit and secure, that participates faithfully, willingly, regularly in its church.  As Professor Baillie said: “A single individual cannot be a Christian in his singleness.”  A saving faith must be institutionalized.  Accepting all the dangers that institutionalism involves, to make Christianity effective in the social order, the church must be made strong.  Many will, and do, agree that this is necessary and are willing to support a church by some attendance and financial giving.  They will even give of their best thought and effort to the revival of the church as a living “organism.”

 

Here they stop.  They do not go on to an especially loyal support of their own church -- the only one they are in a position to assist and influence!  Thousands dream of an “ideal” church rather than the poor struggling institutional fellowship which nourished them in their childhood.

 

Now I am one of those who happens to believe heartily in the denominations of the Christian Church.  The day was unhappy when the denominations fought over their opinions as to which was to be saved and which not -- when competition was fierce and even non-Christian.  [People killed one another over it.]  That day is largely past.  I do not insist that the Congregational churches are better than the Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist or Lutheran.  But I prefer this church, because it is mine.

 

It is, so to speak, my family abode and fellowship.  It is where I can best put into action my desire to serve God.  Through it we can cooperate with the other Christian bodies.

 

The “abstract best” becomes the concrete good in the church family or denomination and particularly the local church.  There is little use talking of the church or dreaming of membership in a universal church unless you are active in the life of a church.

 

The missionary movement to carry the gospel of Christ to the uttermost parts of the earth is a grand movement.  But it has been made possible by the support of thousands of local, sometimes little or even feeble, local churches.  Moreover, the move toward an ecumenical spirit in church life is coming not from the critics outside the church, but from the people within churches -- devoted, self-critical, hopeful members.

 

There is no vital religion today, making an effective impress on the life of our time, that is not sectarian.  And I doubt that there can be.  When a single church has, for instance, become a state church in the past, its spiritual vigor has fallen off and the life of the people deteriorated.  [European churches]

 

We naturally fall into groups.  Like minded fellows gather into congenial groups for activity and progress.  If this can be done in Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions’ club, it can be done truly in the life of the several churches as well.

 

Further, it seems to me that the best position from which to promote the Holy Christian Church universal is from the fellowship to which one belongs.  The late Archbishop Temple was the stronger advocate of universal Christianity by being himself ardently loyal to the Anglican tradition.  The larger loyalty does not exclude the “family” loyalty, but includes it!

 

Our civilization desperately needs the firm foundation wall which a united church can provide.  But the best way to build that wall is by building the individual church.  The normal place for the average person to begin is in the church of his fathers.

 

“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

 

Honor them with love and fidelity.  Honor them with devotion to the best causes to which they gave themselves.  Honor them by improving what they already wrought -- that your children may have the better reason, in turn, to honor you.  It is one of the righteous laws of God.

                                                                        [Prayer]

 

-------------

 

Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, February 8, 1948

            Waioli Church, February 9, 1975