Three Mini-Sermons (not necessarily in this order): It’s better than it looks, The whole elephant, That’s so first century

We’ve been talking about being the church and the reading this week is Ephesians 5:15-20, and next week starts at Ephesians 6:10, which means we skip over this portion in Ephesians called the household code – Ephesians 5:21-6:9.  How participation in the church plays out in domestic relationships.  After hearing that passage read it’s probably evident why in a progressive/liberal type congregation any preacher with any sense at all of what’s best for himself or herself would steer clear of this passage — just give thanks that the creators of the lectionary had mercy on us without including this in the recommended readings.  But it’s there, and it’s referenced often, especially at weddings, and it asks to be interpreted. 

The way we’re going to come at this is that I’ve written three mini-sermons on this passage, each one representing a different approach to interpretation – ways of interpreting this passage or any scripture.  I’ll give all three mini-sermons, but so as not to favor any one of them, or to appear to give any the pre-planned last word, I will present them in random order, drawn from a hat.  Before we draw, let me give the titles of each mini-sermon and a couple more words of introduction.

One is called “It’s better than it looks,” and this stays right within the text.  We’ll look more in depth at this passage.  Another one is called “The whole elephant” and takes into account the full council of scripture.  This approach insists that in order to properly understand a passage we must weigh it against all of scripture.  The other is called “That was so first century” and looks at this from a cultural perspective.      

I do need to say that the views expressed in each message do not necessarily represent those of your pastor.  I will be assuming a certain perspective each time, and speaking as if I held that perspective.  Although I will say that I have tried to highlight the good of what each perspective has to offer.  You listen for what resonates and rings true, and what sounds off base. 

(Below is the order in which they were drawn from the hat on Sunday)

“That was so first century”

This is an important book.  It is our scriptures, our sacred text.  We read from it every Sunday, hear sermons based on its passages, and study it in our private devotion.  We claim this as our faith story and our spiritual heritage.  The Bible is our central book. 

It’s not a single book, of course, it’s a collection of books, 66 total, 39 Hebrew, Old Testament, 27 Greek, New Testament.  These books were written over a period of hundreds and hundreds of years, whose stories span well over a thousand years.   

You know and I know that this book did not drop out of the sky in finished form, straight from heaven to earth.  These books were written by various authors in various places, underwent multiple editing processes, each layer of development making its own contribution, each with particular insights into life and each with particular biases.  

There is no such thing as being able to stand outside one’s time and place.  We are culture-bound creatures, gifted by and limited by the sensibilities and understandings of our time.  We should never confuse the human word with the divine word.  Saying that scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit does not mean that every word is a direct channel from God to us.  What’s most important is that we discern together, as a community, in our place and our time, what the Holy Spirit continues to be saying to us, taking into account the Scriptures and taking into account our own experience, recognizing that we also carry our own gifts and limitations in our time.

This epistle, this letter that we have been studying, was addressed to the church of Ephesus, a particular church at a particular time in a particular place.  They had their social norms.  They had the way their society was ordered with which they couldn’t deviate too much.  As we’ve learned Ephesians is believed to be written by a follower of the Apostle Paul, several generations after Jesus actually lived.  The words that we have here are a sign that the church was already, even toward the end of the first century, starting to lose its radical edge.  In Galatians, an earlier book the Apostle Paul himself had written, it says: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).  And now, this. “For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church…”Slaves, render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.”  The shock waves of the Jesus movement were starting to dissipate in their intensity, going from a revolutionary force in society to trying to find ways to adapt to the culture of the time.  To be faithful to God, but not too radical so as to upset the boat.  A little less Galatians 3 and a little more Romans 13 – “Let every person be subject to the governing authority.”  In this part of Ephesians we can see how Christians were trying to navigate these difficult waters of faith and culture.  Slavery was such an entrenched practice that the goal was not to abolish it completely, but to mitigate its effects within the Christian community.  If both master and slave were believers, they could treat each other respectfully, honoring one another while maintaining their respective roles.  In God’s eyes, they were brothers and sisters.

Even if these words were radical at that time, speaking directly to women and children and slaves and giving them a seat at the table, we have moved beyond the place where these words can be helpful to us.  They have been too abused, too misused, reveal too much of human fallenness and too little of God’s steadfast love that we should hold them in the same category as certain other Scriptures, like Old Testament law codes, that we just don’t follow anymore.  They are interesting for academic study, but they are not appropriate for a worship setting.  The creators of the lectionary were wise to exclude them from the readings.  For us, these words are descriptive of a certain time and certain place, not prescriptive for our time and our place.

Let’s consider that our brothers and sisters in the early church were fallen creatures just like us.  Let’s take the best of what they have to offer us, and leave the other as signs of where we have been but not where we are going.  We have no desire to undo the difficult, courageous work of the abolitionist, civil rights, and women’s rights and feminist movements of the last while.  We see God’s hand at work in these movements, as we progressively learn more about what it means to be a whole human being in the human community.  Hebrews 4 says that the Word of God is living and active.  God’s Word is not trapped in the fallen culture of the past, but is working – active, alive – to redeem the present culture.  May we listen for this Word in our time.     

 

“The whole elephant”

Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb of the six blind men who come upon an elephant, each one encountering some part of the large creature, each convinced in their own mind that this one part represents all that there is to the creature.  There is a version of this parable that was written as a poem, written by John Godfrey Saxe’s ( 1816-1887).  This is how the poem goes:   

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -”Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” said he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” said he,
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” said he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Given that we now have come upon this creature, this piece of scripture, that others have come upon as well and had their say about, here is a somewhat silly poem I wrote that hopefully has some parallels to that proverb.

When paging through the Holy Book

For guidance in the ways of life

Whenever you arrive at Ephesians 5

You’re bound to feel some strife

Especially,

If you’re the wife.

 

Wives submit, slaves obey

Is this what they call good news?

If it’s between the Bible and progressive society

We all must choose

I confess

Scriptures lose

 

To follow scripture and our conscience

There must be a way,

To love the ancient wisdom

And the human equality we value today.

About women and slaves

What else does scripture say?

 

There is that first beginning

Before the awful curse

Male and female created in God’s image

Creation beautiful and diverse

God said that was good,

We made it worse.

 

And then as things went downhill fast

Humanity more depraved

And empires rose through domination

More and more power and control to crave

The God of the Bible did not back Egypt’s regime

But the Hebrew slaves.

 

The prophets had the vision

That the world would someday heal

That sons and daughters would prophesy

That all who hunger would have a meal

That the curse

would be repealed.

 

When Jesus was placed within the grave

Rather than leaving him to become a fossil

It was the women who encountered the risen Christ

And became the first apostles

It was the men who said

Resurrection? Impossible.

 

And as the church began to spread

And scattered communities would form

For women to be leaders and deacons

Was not out of the norm

Women and men working side by side

Slowly took the Roman empire by (peaceful) storm

 

OK, timeout from the silly poem.  In his book Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women Willard Swartley writes that of the 27 individuals Paul greeted by name in his letters, 10 were women.  Two of them being Phoebe and Junia, who both appear at the end of the letter to the Romans.  And I’ll read those excerpts.  If you’d like you can turn to back to Romans 16.  Verse 1: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe a deacon (or minister) of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.” 

And Junia shows up in verse 7: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives (or colleagues) who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.”

I couldn’t figure out how to make all that rhyme.

So is the Bible cutting edge,

Or sadly out of date,

Does is call for revolution,

Or a status quo type state

And if different parts say different things

How do they relate?

 

When fixed upon one passage

Thinking it’s the only feature

Remember we’ve been told a proverb

That can be our teacher

Listen to all the other blind people in the room

And consider the whole creature.

 

“It’s better than it looks.”

It may be hard for us 21st century egalitarian minded Americans to get it when we read this, but if we are willing to come to this passage with fresh eyes, we may see that this has potential to be a text from which we can learn.  It may even be a liberating text.  We see lines like “wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord,” and “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling,” and we would quickly like to discount the whole passage, or push it away in disgust.  Maybe even raise our fist toward Paul and blame him for two millennia of patriarchy and slavery.  But this would be a tragic misunderstanding of the apostle’s intentions.  We can’t allow the way scripture has been twisted out of shape to have the final word.  We must claim it for the good news that it proclaims.  Read with an open mind, this Ephesians passage contains teachings that lead to what Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder refers to as Revolutionary Subordination.           

Let’s look more closely at the passage.  It’s tempting to go directly  to verse 22 that speaks to wives, but prior to this there is an important statement made that applies to all parties about to be addressed.  Verse 21 states “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  This introductory remark is addressed to all who claim to participate in the church.  It sets our relationships in the context of reverence for Christ, and it asks that being subject, or being subordinate, or being under the authority of one another is the role of all of us.  Before individual roles or persons are considered, all members are told: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  So there is no justification in what follows for any claims that one party or role or person can dominate or subjugate another.  We are each to be willing to be under one another’s authority – and that authority is one of Christian love, not abusive power.

Since that verb – u`pota,ssw , to be subject or submit, is so prevalent in verse 21, applying to all, it’s not surprising that verse 22, now speaking specifically to a group of people, wives, should read “wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord.”  Perhaps even more surprising, though, is that that verb u`pota,ssw is not present in the Greek text in this verse.  Verse 22 contains no verb.  It very clearly makes a connection between the wife’s relationship with the Lord and with her husband – but doesn’t lead with that verb.  The reason for the inclusion of that verb in the translation of verse 22 comes from verse 24, where it is mentioned again, and thus implied throughout the whole relationship – “Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.”

Since everyone is expected to be subject to one another, this is a common task.  And when husbands are addressed, they are given a task that demands their whole lives.  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  Husbands are asked to sacrifice their lives for their wives, after the model of Christ for the church.  This is a reverse of what often has happened through history.  Usually it has been the wife who sacrifices herself for the good of the husband or family without seeking her own will.  If husbands would love their wives as Christ loved the church, it could be liberating for both.       

Beyond this note to wives and husbands, notice how this passage is structured.  There are three sets of relationships that are spoken to.  Wives and Husbands.  Children and Fathers.  Slaves and Masters.  John Howard Yoder compares this passage to Greek Stoicism of the day, which also had codes of behavior for dignity and ethics, but was addressed to men, fathers, and princes.  Stoic instruction was not addressed to wives, children, and slaves.  Yoder observes that here, from Paul, “The admonition…is addressed first to the subject: to the slave before the master, to the children before the parents, to the wives before the husbands.”  He goes on to say, “Here begins the revolutionary innovation in the early Christian style of ethical thinking for which there is no explanation in borrowing from other contemporary cultural sources.  The subordinate  person in the social order is addressed as a moral agent.  She is called upon to take responsibility for the acceptance of her position in society as meaningful before God.  It is not assumed, as it was in both Jewish and Hellenistic thought, that the wife will have the faith of her husband, or that the slave will be part of the religious unity of the master’s household.  Here we have a faith that assigns personal moral responsibility to those who had no legal or moral status in their culture, and makes them decision makers.” (JHY, Politics of Jesus, 1995, pp.171-172)

As a final note, just as this passage began with a note of equal responsibility – “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” it also ends with a similar note, the final words of 6:9: “for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with this One there is no partiality.”  Sounds like a liberating text to me.