Listen to the words that a man named David Ferrell wrote& “After 21 years of marriage, I've discovered a new way of keeping the spark of love and intimacy alive in my relationship with my wife. I've recently started dating another woman. It was my wife's idea actually. 'You know you love her,' she said one day taking me by surprise. 'Life is too short. You need to spend time with the people you love.' 'But I love you,' I protested. 'I know, but you also love her. You probably won't believe me but I think if the two of you spend more time together, it will bring the two of us closer.' As usual, Peggy was right. The other woman that my wife was encouraging me to date was my mother.”

Mother's Day is a difficult day for us preachers. We want to honor mothers but not give the same old sermon each year. I got on the internet to look up and see what other preachers had said. I read about fifteen sermons about Mother's Day. They were all what I would call Pious Dribble. Oh my goodness. One minister had the gall of simply telling fifteen jokes about mothers and mothers-in-law and that was his whole Mother's Day sermon? Can you believe that? Our United Church of Christ says it is a Hallmark day, not a religious day of observance. They recommend to simply call this the Feast of the Christian Family and let us honor all parents and grandparents on this day. There is probably some wisdom in that.

I don't want any of you men in the congregation to take my opening remarks as permission to date other women. (Laughter) That is not what was intended. What was intended by quoting from David Ferrell was that we do honor and pay respect not only to our mothers but also to all parents and grandparents as our United Church of Christ suggests that we do. There are instructions in the Bible that urge us to do this. Do you know what the fifth commandment is? The fifth commandment is&”Honor your father and your mother.” It is the first commandment that gives a reward because if you honor your father and your mother, it says, “You will have a good life and your days will be long.” That is exciting, isn't it, that we will have a good life and our days will be lengthened? So that is the first motive for honoring father and mother that is given in the Bible.

The passage that Joanie read this morning is even more interesting giving the second motive for loving parents - judgment. Jesus said, “If you don't honor your father and your mother, (quoting from the Old Testament) you are worthy of death.” Ouch! That is pretty harsh! Frequently in the Bible according to Old Testament law it is so important that we honor our parents that we should be killed if we didn't. Wow! Jesus went on to castigate the Pharisees because they were cheating their parents out of financial support doing it in the name of giving their money to the synagogue. These men would give their money to the synagogue from which they got their own salary and say therefore they didn't have to give it to their parents to support them in their old age because they were “giving to God”.

Last night, my wife pulled out Proverb 6:20-21 as I was telling her about my anxiety about preaching this sermon this morning. I told her I didn't want it to be Pious Dribble like all the ones that I had read. I wanted it to be taken seriously. She said, “Well, why don't you read to the congregation Proverb 6:20-21. That sounded like a good idea. It reads as follows:

My son, keep your father's commands and don't forget your mother's teaching. Keep their words in mind forever as though you had them tied around your neck. They will guide you when you walk. They will guard you when you sleep. They will speak to you when you are awake. These commands are like a lamp. This teaching is like a light and the correction that comes from keeping your father's commands and your mother's teaching will help you have a happy life.

Great advice! In fact it comes from the very Word of God.

As I researched honoring parents and how we might do it, I found writings by a minister named David Nassar. David said there really is special honoring that should be done by each age group. He said that each age group should hear a sermon about how they should honor their parents. He advised that children before the age of twelve or thirteen need to honor their parents by listening carefully, trusting their advice and obeying them. So let your young children know that is what they are expected to do. Rev. Nassar said adolescence is a time when children learn to disagree to create their critical thinking. But that drives parents nuts. Have you had a teenager disagree with you and argue with you? Yes, I see some acknowledgement of that. And yet that helps them develop their critical thinking. The message that they need to hear is that it is OK to disagree if you disagree agreeably. They must listen carefully as a teenager to the wisdom of their parents and obey them even if they don't like it. Good advice. Then he said the Bible commands that even adults have to honor their parents. How do adults honor their parents? Again, he used the word listening. He said give them great respect. We now can question their wisdom at times and not necessarily obey them because they are now equals with us. As they age, we need in some form or another to be willing to help them if they need it.

I thought of an example of this. There is a woman that I heard about who did this to a remarkable degree. She was a woman who was terribly sexually abused by her dad. She grew up filled with rage and anger towards her parents. She was angry at her mother for not protecting her and her father for abusing her. As she read the Bible and integrated the fifth commandment, she began to realize that honoring parents doesn't depend on the quality of parenting received. It depends on the commandment of God to honor them. She felt called to go into ministry and as her fortunes rose, she thought that God was telling her to do something amazing. That was that God was telling her to bring her parents to the city where she and her husband lived. She was to buy them a house because she and her husband now had the resources to do that and to take care of them in their old age (even though she had felt damaged by them at a very high level)! The fascinating thing was that as she honored her parents in this way, took care of them, her father repented. He became a Christian and shortly afterward died giving her the assurance that he now was in heaven. Before he died, he made things right with her. It is an amazing story that illustrates the fifth commandment that we honor our fathers and our mothers. She forgave both of her parents and took care of them in their old age. Again, David Nassar points out that we listen to them, we honor them by helping them and those are the things that we are expected/commanded to do by the Bible, the Word of God.

We are a church family. I would like to take a moment to honor someone very special to me in our church family and that is my wife. My wife has voluntarily taken the role of nurturer in our church family as I am not the best at that. In a sense, we have become parents of the church (although I don't want to become the target of any outrage you may have at your own parents). But I do think we take the role of parents at times. I am the one who instructs and my wife is the one who does the better job of nurturing. So I want to thank her for doing that as a volunteer. She doesn't get paid for it. And so I honor her this morning in the role that she takes. She created the 140th anniversary dinner dance that we had two weeks ago. She created the bereavement luncheons that we have when people have funerals and the Helping Hands organization. And as many of you know, she stands in the back of church on Sundays and hugs just about everybody who comes through the door. That is not something that is required of her. It is something that she does willingly and voluntarily because she loves you as I do, too.

This morning, we want to honor all those who have parental roles in this congregation whether they are Sunday school teachers, whether they are Scout advisors, whether they are persons who belong to committees and boards, who take nurturing roles and undertake the care of members and our children. We are a church family and that is the way it should be.

The Bible says that the call to honor parents is never done, never finished. The call is constantly upon all of us. So let us keep that in mind as we go about our daily living and let us honor all those who have nurturing roles in our lives. Happy Mother's Day. Peggy was right. “Dating” our mothers (or fathers) is giving them the gift of time&a special gift in our age