The Fifth Commandment

The Fifth Commandment: Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

The Ten Commandments have set forth instructions on how to behave. We are taught while each commandment does not bear equal weight with the others, we should try live in accordance with the moral compass they provide us.

Jesus, however, taught to us to approach our moral compass differently in the Sermon on the Mount. Each of the beatitudes revealed to us in the sermon should motivate us to behave as though we are called to not just avoid what is wrong but seek to do what is right.

So why is the 5^th Commandment on my mind? It is because of a posting my cousin Rusty placed on the blog he and his wife maintain about their own going life in Christ and their ministry. The posting, which can be reached by this link, http://jonathanministry.wordpress.com/author/jonathanministry/is beautifully, poignantly, and precisely crafted. He tells the story of what has happened to my aunt, his mother, since the day before New Year’s Eve Day last year when she went out to get her mail and went down with a stroke by the mailbox at the street curb. What he said was not a surprise to me because we spent several months caring for her until it became clear she needed to relocate to Reno where Rusty and his family could assume care for her. He described the changes in far more detail with greater compassion and eloquence than I could muster and I thank him for taking the time to put down in writing what we all observed so starkly over the course of the year.

Rusty and his family have defined for me the commandment to honor your father and mother. There is, however, a difference between observing a commandment as proscribed than living it as an opportunity return God’s love by sharing it.

This leads me to my comments about the beatitudes. The 10 Commandments are stark, jolting and sterile. There is no inspiration to suggest they arise or result in loving behavior. They are simply instructions. The beatitudes go beyond this and as I scan Matthew 5 in the context of Rusty’s posting, I see many of the beatitudes differently.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Rusty paints a picture of what has happened to my aunt with great sadness but without anger or regret. What has happened has happened and while we would never say what has happened to her is God’s will, it is part of His plan. He is mourning the changes in her we longed to see diminish but have only become more predictable and defined. We who know and love Joann mourn with him. Because we are sharing our mourning with our world without despair and hopelessness but with faith and hope, God will comfort us. Mary gave us example of how to mourn as she witnessed the suffering and death of her son and we continue to look toward her for inspiration. We share burdens of sadness and grief because in the sharing the burdens are halved. That is the nature of God’s comfort. He has taught us how to mourn. We are comforted. I am comforted.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. I am not talking about righteousness that is rigid, condescending and judgmental. I am talking about seeking to live in accordance with God’s will. Perhaps it would be easier to say we called to live rightly. Rusty and has family have reordered their priorities to become caretakers for the one person who has cared for all of them for so many years. I include myself in the group she cared for with such great love and now she is so far away. They are doing the right things for the right reasons and I am grateful. Despite the sadness in the letter, I also hear the strength of his faith coming through. God is providing the strength they need and Rusty and his family can be assured they can enjoy satisfaction.  They are living rightly.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. This is really the meat of what I am trying to say. To be merciful means we have to reach out, to touch, to console, to comfort … to love. We can’t just avoid wrong acts; we are called to embrace the right ones. We are to seize opportunities to be merciful gladly and not just because we are obligated to be merciful. Motivation and intent count for as much in God’s eyes as outcomes for only he can control how things turn out. We are challenged to bring our best selves to the service of mercy. God will take care of the rest. That is how he shows us mercy.

There is another element to this blessing. Not only are we called to live in accordance with God’s will but we are called to live it joyfully. Even though my aunt is a prisoner of her rebellious body and mind, she is seeking to do things that have brought her joy and allowed her to share her joy all her life. Christmas is a time of joy and the things we do are meant to be done with joy, for joy and to share joy. A Beatitude is a blessing and to be blessed is to be happy. Read this beatitude again but this time say “Happy are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.”

God, I think, organized us to live in families to give us the opportunity to learn out to love and be loved in accordance with his desire for us to love one another as we love ourselves. We can’t do this perfectly or even consistently but we keep trying even as we know are bound to never be able love perfectly on this side of eternity. Sometimes, though, we get it right. Even we get it right we don’t make bad things right, we can’t always overcome the inevitabilities of age and illness but we make things better. Things are better. God has blessed our family.

Thank you Rusty.