Illegal immigration by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free
Most people are aware of this commandment but may not know what number it is.
It is found in two places, Exodus 20:12 where it reads,
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land
the LORD your God is giving you.
It is also repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy with essentially the same wording.
The Apostle Paul also repeated this commandment in the book of Ephesians -
noting that it was the first commandment with a promise,
“so you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
While most people are aware of the 10 commandments -
they often can’t list them all in order or at all.
I even tried this in my church and it took about 10 minutes
for the congregation to come up with all of them.
The 10 commandments have been in the news recently because
Louisiana wants them posted in school classrooms.
Back to the 5th commandment.
How does this commandment have anything to do with immigration in the United States?
Let me ask you a question.
Are we disobeying this commandment if
we honor our father and mother and dishonor our grandparents?
How about our aunts and uncles - the brothers and sisters of our parents.
What about our parent’s grandparents?
No, the command to honor your father and mother doesn’t stop with just them.
You do not honor your parents when you dishonor the ones your parents love.
This leads us to the question of when we can start dishonoring our ancestors.
Is it one generation back in time, or two, or three, or more?
I just returned from covering the PCUSA general assembly
and one of the things I noted was the presence of “youth advisory delegates.”
If you’re not familiar with this, several denominations will send youth
to their conventions as advisory delegates.
They typically don’t have the right to vote but they can speak and give their opinions.
This is often viewed as a way to get the youth interested in the larger church
and encourage them to participate.
I’m not really sure how effective this is but that’s a subject for another blog.
What I want to think about is why they don’t have senior or elderly advisory delegates.
The scriptures are full of sayings about honoring the elderly,
talking about the wisdom they often bring.
Proverbs 1:8-9 advises, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.”
I bring this up because it relates to the 5th commandment.
Have we become so obsessed with remaining young
we have ignored the honor that belongs to our forefathers,
to our parents, grandparents, and to our grandparent’s grandparents?
This all ties back to immigration in this way.
It is a mathematical reality that not everyone who wants to live in the USA
can be accommodated.
In some surveys, over 1 billion people would like to come to the USA.
But what would that do to the country that our parents and grandparents loved.
In addition, what would that do to the poor who already have trouble
finding housing and jobs? What would that do to the environment?
And what would that do to the culture that our parents loved and honored?
Is destroying the country and culture they loved, honoring them?
In the last few years we have seen the 5th commandment broken as
national holidays have been revised and statues torn down
commemorating our ancestors.
If we truly honor our father and our mother, we will seek to honor and preserve
the culture that they honored and loved.
Our country was founded by a particular group of people with certain values -
essentially protestant Christianity.
Yes, I know not everyone was a Christian - that’s a debate for another time.
But in general, our country was a protestant Christian country.
Let me answer a few objections.
This commandment was given in the Bible.
There is no commandment to preserve godless and perverse cultures.
That is because as a Christian, God is our heavenly Father and we honor him
above all else.
What about loving your neighbor - the command of Jesus.
This command of Jesus, quoting from the book of Leviticus,
is illustrated by the story of the good Samaritan.
In this story, we are taught to take care of the people who come across our path.
It is not a command to send out invitations around the world for people
to move into your house.
What about the commands in the Old Testament about
how to treat the stranger in the land? In the Old Testament,
people from other lands could become Israelites by yoking themselves in worship
to God and agreeing to abide by the covenant.
These people were then true Israelites.
Others, who might be in the land passing through, doing business,
or in exile were not made into Israelites but God commanded them
to not have two standards of law. If they were violating the law,
they would be expelled or punished in some way.
But again, they were not allowed to disrupt the covenant community of God.
What about evangelism?
Doesn’t massive immigration give us more opportunity to evangelize the world?
I’ve got two answers to that.
First, the great commission tells us to go - not wait for people to come.
It is our job to go out and proclaim Christ’s victory and salvation, not sit at home
and say the lost can only be saved if they come here.
Second, many people who make this argument have no desire to actually
win these people to Christ and teach them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
There may be more objections and I’m not claiming infallibility.
Let me know in the comments what you think -
does the 5th commandment expand beyond just your mom and dad?
This is Pastor John, Christ is still king, God bless you. Amen.
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