Parenting
by Grace & the Greater Purpose of Family
Deut.
6:4-5; Exodus 14:21
By
John Roy
In 1991 a book was written
entitled Preaching Today. The
author was a retired pastor who was sharing his wisdom and wit after forty years
in the pulpit. More or less it was about how to plan a years worth of sermons.
He used the buffet as a metaphor for preaching. The buffet has vegetables,
salads, meat, and bread. His point was in a years worth of preaching you needed
to give the church a balanced diet of preaching.
One his most memorable quotes is;
“Topical
preaching certainly has a place in the modern pulpit. One favorite topic is the
family. I am often asked how much time should a preacher commit to addressing
families and the issues of marriage or parenting? On the subject of parenting I
will offer this brief testimony. When I was a young man I was not shy in
preaching about parenting. As our home became full of children (4) I
designated the Sunday’s between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as a
time for preaching on matters of parenting, this usually meant seven sermons.
When my children turned into teenagers I found my heart strangely warmed by
Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac, when Isaac turned 12. Thus I preached
on this sacrifice several times through the year and reminded the people once or
twice a year to be good parents. By the time my youngest graduated from high
school my favorite passage became “Children obey your parents”.
I no longer mentioned parenting from the pulpit. Now that I no longer
have children at home I have returned to preaching on parenting. So how often
should you preach on matters of parenting? My advise . . .”
Sometimes it is noted that before the Temple, before the
Synagogue, before the church, and before there were 10 commandments, there was
the family. The family was the first institution if you like.
The theory goes in creation
God begins with the most important elements first. He divides first the light
from darkness and then moves on to separating sky from earth. The first thing we
do in a room, a dark room is turn a light on, God seems to follow conventional
wisdom, or maybe he designed conventional wisdom? Each day God creates more, and
the more is not unimportant it is just not possible without the first light and
the dark and the changing of the seasons. The vegetation is not possible without
the light and the water. Then of course the animals aren’t possible without
vegetation. So it all goes back to light. God established priorities. We all do
the same, what is most important we take care of first. In God’s case he
created first the light, the darkness was already available, so God’s first
act is to bring light.
If we apply this logic to the
rest of the created order it looks like this. In a dark chaotic world God
decides the first thing needed, is a family. Particularly a strong male/female
relationship based on companionship and love. Then an extended family of
children and others. The family is to the social order what light is to the
created order. Later God sees the need for commandments, a Temple, and then a
church, yet God first creates the family. God later gives rules, then a place,
then a group of people. Yet all three are shadows of the first arrangement,
family.
In the family we learn rules
and why they are important and these rules give guidance and protection, they
provide the fence we safely play inside, later God would give the 10
commandments. The family is also the place we learn about God and learn how to
live as a spiritual being in a physical world, later God created the Temple,
another place to learn about the Holy. The family was where you belonged; you
became familiar with God’s world and reached out to others. Later God called
the church to a similar task. So the family is the original place for the 10
commandments, it is the original place to worship and it is the original place
to learn how to share your life. God expected a lot from the family.
The family today could be
described as children-centric, families of the past have been spouse-centered.
What this means is, families have put at their center the children or the
marital relationship. At times, kids are the focus, this sport is for them, this
activity is for them, this class for them. The argument goes, we need to give
them a hand up, the world has changed and it requires more not less parental
involvement.
Other times the family has
been focused on the marriage and the children have been an appendage. No doubt
the children and the marriage are important, but they cannot become the focus.
The homes of the ancient
Hebrews provided these welcoming places, nurturing spirit, and guidance by
focusing the family attention on God. These homes were God-centric. Sure the
kids were probably still selfish from time to time, and the parents were still
demanding, but the focus was on honoring God. We honor God by making our home a
welcoming place. We honor God by offering guidance which is pleasing to him, and
we nurture faith by pointing outside of ourselves to a power greater than our
own.
Hear, O
Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord
Your God
with all y our heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must
Commit
yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today.
-
Deut. 6:4-6
These were not idol words, these were the directions the
parents and children followed. The parents did not point one way and walk
another, they walked together arm-in-arm. Our children may leave our home and
never come back to faith, this will be disheartening, but for our children to be
in our home and not experience any faith in their wonder years is disastrous.
Truthfully, these children do not depart from the faith. Nurtured in homes where
these words are lived, children walking away from the faith are the exception
not the rule.
Moses stretched his arm over the
sea, and the Lord sent a strong east wind that blew all night until there was
dry land where the water had been. The sea opened up.
-Exodus 14:21
God tells Moses hold out your hand, I’ll part the sea.
God seems to always be advising his people to do their best and he’ll take
care of the rest. To Joseph, he says, “be faithful.” To Rahab he says,
“trust me.” To Abraham he says, “Just walk, I’ll show you where to
go.” The people of God always have a part but it is only a part. We are the
sidekick. We are Barney, God is like Andy. We are Ethel, God is like Lucy. We
are a bit actor, God is the lead.
It is the REST which
makes us so afraid. What is the rest? For Abraham it is finding the Promised
Land, for Rahab it is being saved, for Joseph, it is rescuing his family. We
cannot do the rest. All we can do is our best, the rest is in God’s hand and
this is indeed “good news.”
I refer to this a parenting by
grace. The rest is grace, it is undeserved, it is what God gives not because we
deserve but because it is necessary. For over a hundred years we have been
debating the most significant factor in human development. Some will argue for
“nurture” the way a person is raised. Others will argue just as passionately
for “nature” the apple does not fall far from the tree theory. Yet God
offers us a third alternative, and I believe a better option. Parenting by
grace. God working in our children and homes, not because we deserve it
but because it is necessary.
Grace is your daughter
marrying a wonderful young man who is more responsible than she and better with
a checkbook. Grace is your mathematically challenged child finding a teacher in
middle school who turns them on to math. Grace is your kid meeting an inspiring
speaker at camp who says what you have been saying but for the first time your
child hears it. Grace is God’s wonderful gift to people who are holding out
their hand. God is once again rolling back the sea.
On the traditional battlefield
there is a long open space where the battle takes place. On one side of the
field there is the protection of the bunkers, here life is easier. On the other
side there is victory, but in between there is a vast open space. Some refer to
it as “no-man’s land.” It is a dangerous place. For us parents this is the
place between our front door and our child’s future. It is school, it is their
first job, it is the football team, it is the college they attend. The
battlefield is everything we can see but is out of our control. It is in this
field where grace is mot notable. You can’t control what goes on at school but
your kid still makes good choices. You can’t control what happens in the
locker room and what is said or done, it is out of your control, but your child
remains faithful to God and acts responsibly. This is grace. It is God working
where we can’t. It is God holding our arm up. It is God taking care of the
rest and often cleaning up our mess.
So the role of the family is
to follow and be faithful to God and to trust God to take care of all that you
cannot control. The part we cannot control is about 99%. Which means two forces
God's grace and human free will play large roles. Spouses and children, as well
as ourselves, make choices, sometimes bad choices and even sometimes fatal
choices. We live in the real world and must admit sometimes we and those we love
make choices which hurt. Our choices may even side track us for a while, as we
pull into dry dock for repairs. We wish it wasn’t so but it is, that is why we
trust in grace. We turn to God to trump our stupidity, to override our
foolishness. In the short run it appears our sin, poor choices, and wayward
hearts can produce more pain than God can handle. Yet, in the long run, grace
will win out, God’s supply of grace is greater than our demand.
A parent and even a child is
like Moses looking out at the Red Sea. We stand on the bank of life with our
kinds and we see the ocean they must cross and we shrug our shoulders and wonder
“how?” How can we nurture when the world offers so much hurt, how can we
teach them about the dangers of credit when they get application for credit
cards at the age of 12? How can we give them direction on all the possible
subjects they may encounter in life? How can we prepare them for their first
heartbreak or their first kiss? How can we prepare them for the temptation to do
nothing instead of doing something? Truth be told, we can’t prepare them. We
can pray for them, we can be role models, we can do our best, all we can do is
what Moses did looking out at the Red Sea, hold out our hand, and leave the rest
to God. He rolled back the sea once. God is gracious enough to do it again, so
just do your best and leave the rest to God.
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