Honoring the Dishonorable

Last week, I took a glance ahead at the calendar. December 2 stood out prominently. My father was born on that date in 1934. He would be 86 years old, had he survived to see the day arrive. It’s been sixteen months since we buried him in a plot in Elkhart, Indiana.

This has been the year of the “cancel culture.”

Perfect people without flaws of character, behavior, attitude, or belief have determined that most of our nation’s people of distinction were far to dishonorable to be honored. Many monuments to Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant and more have been defaced or torn down by the unflawed.

Anyone who fought on the wrong side of the Civil War—Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, etc.—merit special acts of disgrace for their support of institutional slavery.

Also worthy of dishonor have been a number of well-known individuals in pop culture, sports, politics, and academia who dared speak against the current politically correct mantra—even if they’re right. Swimming against the current is a most dishonorable thing to do if one is a celebrity!

The message of the “cancel culture” is loud and clear. No one who has said, done, or believed anything deemed dishonorable deserves to be honored in any way, for any reason.

That brings me back to my dad and leaves me in a bit of a quandary.

The Ten Commandments, the expression of God’s moral law, are divided into two tables. The first table—commandments 1-4—have to do with man’s relationship to God. The second table, the balance of the commandments, concern man’s relationship to man. The first of those commands is simply stated.

“Honor your father and your mother.”

It’s repeated in Leviticus 19. Jesus cited it on at least three occasions. And Paul included it in a series of exhortations to various members of a Christian household.

God’s moral law begs a couple questions.

What if?

What if my father or mother, or both for that matter, meet the criteria for being “canceled”?

To many, my dad was an upstanding guy, and that’s fine. But they didn’t know him very well. He had his flaws as a father, as do all dads. I’ve yet to meet a guy who could look back on the years of rearing his kids and proclaim perfection. But dad had enough “dad flaws” to evoke some hard feelings and provoke a measure of alienation.

He had plenty of flaws as a man, as well. Some of his attitudes toward others weren’t charitable. He was never to be blamed for anything. I don’t ever recall hearing him say he was wrong and ask for forgiveness.

As a husband? Well, so much could be said that won’t be. Suffice it to say, my mom was a saint for what she endured—for years! I honestly don’t know how she did it.

In other words, my dad was dishonorable in a number of ways. Yet, “honor your father…” comes without qualification. So that brings up the second question.

How?

How does a child honor a parent that has been, well, downright dishonorable? And how do you do it without making it seem like the dishonorable stuff doesn’t matter? There’s the rub, isn’t it?

I certainly don’t have all the answers to the question, but I’ve determined I need to try to obey God’s law, so that requires some answers.

A good starting point, it seems, is looking at biblical examples.

Take Jacob, for example. He was quite the con. “Deceiver” or “supplanter,” his name means, and rightly so. Conned his brother, deceived his father. He had twelve sons from four different women—all living at the same time, mind you. As a dad, he played favorites with Joseph and Benjamin, creating severe tensions in the family.

And yet, he had a funeral like no other! You can read about it in Genesis 50. Seventy days of official mourning in Egypt followed by a caravan procession to Canaan for burial, with another week-long period of mourning at the burial site.

How about King Saul? Tried to murder David. Used his daughters in an attempt to trap David. Almost murdered his own son, Jonathan, because of his friendship with David. He was quite a mess spiritually, too. His last act of a religious nature was to visit a witch in an attempt to conjure up the spirit of a dead man.

And yet, what a eulogy spoken by the man he tried to kill!

“Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! In life and in death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions. You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.”

2 Samuel 1:23–24 (ESV)

Speaking of David. Let’s see, how many wives did he have? Hint: he wasn’t monogamous. Then there’s the Bathsheba incident. And what he did to her husband to try to cover his adultery. As a dad, he was found wanting a bit, too, if you recall. Didn’t deal with his rapist son Amnon nor his murderous son Absalom.

The point of this inexhaustive sketch is simply to point out that the existence of flaws doesn’t cancel out giving a measure of honor.

But again, how to honor a flawed parent?

Ever been in a courtroom, perhaps served on a jury? What happens when the judge is about to enter the room? The bailiff calls out, “All rise! The honorable so-and-so….” Now you happen to know the judge is a skunk, don’t care for how he rules 90% of the time. But when the bailiff gives the order, what happens? All rise. Even you. Even though you don’t like the judge, his character, his behavior, and so on. Why do you rise? Because of his position.

Position

I honor my dad because of his position. Perhaps he’s done a terrible job fulfilling the responsibilities of the position, but it’s his position nonetheless. There’s a measure of honor due him simply because he played a crucial role in giving me life. I honor him by recognizing the position he holds. Incidentally, his is a position delegated by God, right? The true Source of life gave me life through my father, and gave my father the position and the accompanying authority. That in itself is worthy of honor, in much the same way that we are responsible to honor those in authority over us, as Paul wrote:

Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Romans 13:7 (ESV)

Effort

I think I should honor him, too, because of his attempts in life. However feeble and inadequate, dad tried to be a dad. He provided for us when he could have squandered precious resources on himself. He made annual family vacations a priority, and some good memories came from those times. There were other things he did, too. Attempts.

The more I learned of the family dysfunctions in his own childhood, youth, and early adulthood, I came to see some of his flaws as inbred or learned from his dad. At a certain level, I believe, he attempted to battle against these flaws, but in the end not very effectively. I’m also quite confident he tried to keep his kids from following in his and his father’s footsteps. Perhaps this was behind some of the overbearing discipline and efforts to control.

Learning

Perhaps another way to honor him is by acknowledging lessons learned. By his own failures, he taught me paths to avoid. But he taught me positive lessons, too. When I was in college, surely a freshman or sophomore (when you know it all!), I wrote him a letter encouraging him to take a hardline approach toward one of my siblings and his “vice,” as I perceived it. Dad replied that such an approach would foment rebellion, not willing submission. Although I disagreed with him at the time, he was right. I think he’d learned a lesson himself from some of his own failures.

Discretion

I’ve tried to be discreet in discussing dad’s shortcomings and failures. That in itself is a way to honor him. It does no good to trumpet a man’s sins for all the world to know. It’s enough that those closest to him know and were hurt by them. What is accomplished by broadcasting to a wider audience? No, “love covers all offenses,” said Solomon the wise, whose father conspired to have his mother’s husband killed. Solomon never brought it up.

Consideration

Regarding honoring one’s parents at this stage of their life, Matthew Henry remarks that we do so by:

Endeavoring, in everything, to be the comfort of their parents, and to make their old age easy to them, maintaining them if they stand in need of support.…

Kent Hughes elaborates a bit on this, suggesting that to honor one’s aging parents involves consideration—“namely, remembering them, taking time to be with them, including them, doing them acts of kindness.”

Dad’s last few years were not happy, pleasant ones, even before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. A lifetime of harmful, relationship-killing choices will do that to a person. For much of my life, though, I was in the dark about so much of his errant behavior. When it all came out, he knew that I knew. He knew I never excused it, glossed over it, made light of it, or held him guiltless.

But I trust when he breathed his last, he also knew that I had honored him as best I could. At least, I hope I did.