St. George's Sermons

Place du Canada, Montreal

The Rev. Brett Cane, August 24, 1 997

 14th Sunday after Pentecost, 9am Holy Communion

"God Gives Us a Blueprint for a Happy Marriage"

Ephesians 5: 21-33

Opening Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, yoll have given us the command and power to submit to one another; teach us now by your Holy Spirit, how that is to be experienced in our relationships, especially our marriages, that we may live out fully the reconciliation and love given us by our Heavenly Father. Amen.

Introduction

 In our sermon journey through Paul's letter to the Ephesians this summer, today we have come to one of the most controversial passages in the Bible. I have a book of ecclesiastical cartoons called The Adventures of Father Faber. It shows Father Faber in his pulpit, completely surrounded by a protective shield with a small slit for his eyes, and the caption reads - "My sermon for today is from Ephesians, chapter five: "Wives submit to your husbands." After hearing those verses read, this is just what I feel like!

 The seemingly offensive passage reads:

 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 And then it continues: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church... and so on.

 I am sure many of you - especially the women - are saying "How old fashioned! How can you talk about wives submitting to your husbands with all our modern ideas of equality and liberation. This is from the dark ages. And what does he know about it - he's a bachelor anyway!"

 It is very true that these verses have been misused in times past and even at the present to hold women in a position of subservience to their husbands and even to sanction abuse. This misuse has obscured what is probably one of the most beautiful and workable descriptions of the marriage relationship in the whole Bible. Its central message has been lost and we are the poorer for it. I would like wade into the difficulties of this passage today because, when seen correctly, it describes God's gift of his blueprint for a happy marriage.

 Marriage in the ancient world

 In the last three chapters of this letter, Paul is describing how God's gift of reconciliation with himself and one another works out in every-day life. We have come to the section where Paul looks at how the new freedom and reconciliation Christ brings can work out in the home. He deals first with husbands and wives, then children and parents and finally servants and masters. We will look at the relationship between husbands and wives.

 Before we can fully understand the passage we need to realize the sad state of marriage and the almost universal disdain for women in the ancient world. William Barclay summarizes it as follows:

 The Jews had a low view of women. In his morning prayer there was a sentence in which a Jewish man gave thanks that God has not made him "a Gentile, a slave, or a woman." In Jewish law a woman was not a person, but a thing. She had no rights whatsoever, she was absolutely her husband's possession to do with as he willed. . .

Mutual submission in Christ

The key to is found in the opening verse of our passage: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (vs. 21) Paul has just finished telling us to "be filled with the Holy Spirit" and this is to be the result - mutual submission. This is the kind of attitude we need in all our relationships not dominance or subservience or manipulation, but an attitude that respects the other person and seeks out his or her interests ahead of your own - that's what submission means.

The controlling factor in all of this is found in the words, "Out of reverence for Christ" - it is Christ who is to govern and control our relationships - he is to be the model.

This most important factor is the one that is most often lost when people look at this passage. Men (and some women!) can hear the words, "Wives submit...the husband is the head as Christ is the head, as the church submits to Christ, wives should submit to their husbands", and feel that men are given first-class treatment here and women end up second-class or even in the baggage compartment! We men like the job title: "Head" - it flatters our egos. But the problem is, we have not looked at the job description.

This is found in the next verses, where the husband's responsibility is given in much greater detail. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. What did Christ do for us? He gave up everything! He gave up the glory and security of heaven, the power and position of the Son of God for obscurity, misunderstanding, suffering, and finally death. This is the job description for husbands! This is what they were to do for their wives! In the ancient world, men would have found this totally revolutionary.

So now we have a clearer picture. The basis for relationship in Christian marriage is not control .or domination, but love - self-sacrificial love, love that is like that of Jesus for us: patient, kind, not envying, not boastful, not conceited nor rude, never selfish nor quick to take offence (cf. lCor. 13). Love has also been defined as "seeking another's greatest good".

So the passage comes out like this: Wives submit: they put their husband's interests ahead of their own, husbands love: they seek their wives' greatest good at whatever expense to themselves. This is what "mutual submission" means in the marriage relationship.

Working it out

So how does all this work out practically? First, it means that marriage is not a fifty-fifty proposition, it is a commitment that involves 100% from each side! You see, if you say things are fifty-fifty, then from your perspective, the deal is never really fair because you feel that you are giving 53 or 56% and the other only 47 or 44°~0. Jesus didn't say, "I'll go so far, but you have to meet me half-way". He, gave 100% and so must we in order to make a marriage work.

Secondly, because Paul expresses the perspective on the marriage relationship differently for each partner, it says that men and women have different functions in relation to one another in marriage. For the husband, headship in the pattern of Christ is not in terms of dictating conduct or manipulating to get his will, but in terms of loving responsibility and care. It is not dominance or power. The husband is to care for his wife as he cares for his own body. In this way the husband provides what I call an "umbrella of protection" over his wife. This is not a smothering control but an environment of security where his wife is free to be, to grow as a person, to develop her potential, even at great cost to the husband. This is how Christ relates to us and what headship implies.

The wife, on her part, is to submit - not in some sense of "unthinking obedience, but in grateful acceptance of his care."² As she puts her husband's interests ahead of her own she is to support him, and to give him the sense of confidence he needs. Speaking architecturally, the husband needs a firm foundation upon which to go forth to initiate and to act. I believe this attitude is expressed in Paul's final admonition: "the wife must respect her husband" (v. 33).

Too often have I seen a husband dominating his wife like a self-seeking tyrant, smothering or restricting her. And I have seen a wife belittling and denigrating her husband destroying all his self-respect and confidence. When this happens, the true pattern of marriage is broken. Neither can be fulfilled.

You see, the husband can only provide a protective shelter when he is based on a firm foundation The wife can only provide a firm and supportive foundation when it is sheltered from that which will disintegrate and erode it. Both are essential to the other.

Conclusion

 And so we return to where we started - mutuality - mutual submission. But how can we live like this? A glance around and within us shows that we can not reproduce this pattern by ourselves How can married couples hope to have stable, healthy, and mutual relationships?

 The key lies in the phrase I mentioned earlier that comes just before our passage and from which it springs: "be filled with the Spirit." It is only by allowing the Holy Spirit to have full reign in our lives that we can possibly hope to reproduce his love in our human relationships. It is only when we are first of all submitted to Him, to the one who gave Himself totally for us - to do His will, to be filled with His power - that we can submit ourselves to one another. This is what makes Christian marriage "Christian." We submit out of reverence for Christ. This is God's blueprint for a happy marriage.

 Notes:

1 William Barclay, The Dailly Study Bible; The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. Rev. ed. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1976) pp 168-171

 2 John Stott. God's New Society: The Message of Ephesians. (Downer's Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 1979), p 226