You know one of the topics we don’t talk about too often in our churches?

Our relationship with our parents when we’re adults.

Somehow, we’ve decided that it’s a topic relevant only for Sunday School/ Children’s Church—but not really beyond that.

Maybe we feel like we’ve outgrown it. Maybe we’ve dismissed it because it dredges up painful memories and past hurts. Maybe we don’t talk about it because we focus more on other relationships and prefer classes on parenting or marriage.

And yet, the Word of God says not once, not twice but eight times: honor your father and your mother.

Yikes. Really, God? Isn’t that just a Ten Commandments thing? It’s in the New Testament, too?

 And God says, “Yeah, only like six times.”

That’s a direct quote from Matthew chapter 30.

Kidding. There’s no Matthew 30 and God didn’t say those words.

But joking aside, the Bible speaks of honoring our parents six times in the New Testament (in Matthew 15:4; Matthew 19:19, Mark 7:10, Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20 and Ephesians 6:2) and, hey, if it’s in the Ten Commandments, we’d better be paying attention.

Today, let’s look at what honoring our parents can look like, but, first, let’s consider what honoring our parents is not.

Honoring our parents doesn’t mean implicitly obeying them. It doesn’t mean giving them permission to manipulate our choices or meddle in our marriage. It doesn’t mean we don’t have boundaries with them. It doesn’t mean that you follow them to forgo Jesus.

So, what does it mean? According to the Hebrew (er, I sound like a pastor now, don’t I? Full disclosure: I googled it.), the word “honor” in this context means “to give weight to”.

I love how this idea of “giving weight to” is beautifully demonstrated in the Ruth and Naomi story.

You may recall the narrative from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament: Naomi has lost her husband and her two adult sons, leaving her and her two daughters-in-law bereaved. Naomi plans to leave Moab where the family had been living and go back to her hometown of Bethlehem. She urges her two Moabite daughters-in-law to return to their own homes so they can pick up the pieces and make something of their lives.

But her daughter-in-law Ruth isn’t convinced.

Ruth sees through Naomi’s insistence that she return to her home. She sees an older woman who is dealing with immense loss and bitterness. She sees someone who could use a traveling companion—and a friend.

Ruth joins Naomi and together they make their journey to Bethlehem.

I can just imagine that scene:

Naomi choking back tears as Ruth says those now-famous words:

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1: 16b)

The older woman overcome with emotion. The younger one steely in her determination and yet completely tender-hearted toward her mother-in-law.

I picture Naomi tugging at her scarf and wiping the tears that threaten to roll down her cheeks. This time, not tears of grief but tears of being overwhelmed by another’s kindness.

I imagine Ruth gently holding Naomi’s elbow and steadying her step as they journey toward Bethlehem.

I see Ruth diverting attention from her sacrifice with a corny joke, hoping to distract her mother-in-law, all the while burying her bewilderment at what the future may hold.

Yes, this is conjecture, but I wouldn’t be too far off the mark in guessing that Ruth demonstrated empathy toward Naomi.

The story of Ruth and Naomi enfolds many sweet treasures and I’ve written a longer Bible Plan on this topic for YouVersion which you can download here if you’d like.

But, personally, I love this nugget of truth that we discover right here in chapter 1: Ruth demonstrates unselfish empathy.

She put herself in her mother-in-law’s shoes. She saw beyond the obvious. She gave weight to her mother-in-law’s struggles. She even looked beyond her own emotions and pain.

And, friends, couldn’t all our relationships, especially those with our parents,  use just a little empathy?

Wouldn’t that stop us from retaliating to a barb with a careless word?

Wouldn’t that stop us from casually belittling them in our conversations with others?

Wouldn’t that stop us from harboring hurt and nursing resentment because we now understand a little bit of their story and their struggle?

Today, can we honor our parents by choosing empathy over indifference?

Friends, despite what it looks like from the outside, there are no perfect relationships. We’re all imperfect people meshed together in messy relationships.

But let’s take a page out of Ruth’s book and, despite the annoyances, despite the words that sting, despite the way we think things “should” be, let’s challenge ourselves to live from a place of empathy in our relationship with our parents.

Let’s seek to honor God by honoring our parents.

 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

A version of this article first appeared on Indiaanya