Richard Davenport
August 25, 2024 – Proper 16
Ephesians 5:22-33
Following on last week’s lecture by Jesus on the nature of bread and the need to eat his body and drink his blood, we have this doozy from St. Paul. All sorts of unpopular things. It’s interesting to me that no one really gets bent out of shape about what Jesus says in John 6 these days. Instead, people get much more upset about what Paul has to say here. It’s understandable too, since it grates on our modern sensibilities.
It’s worth backing up some and taking a look at what St. Paul is getting at. Throughout his letter, he’s been writing to the church in Ephesus about what it means to be a Christian. Ephesus had always been a pagan stronghold. The temple to the Greek goddess, Artemis, which was in Ephesus, is considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. St. Paul runs into trouble there as he preaches the Gospel in the book of Acts. It isn’t just that people worship Artemis, but also that the worship of Artemis pays the bills for a lot of people. They are all highly motivated to ensure nothing changes that.
St. Paul does find people who want to hear more and who are interested in what he has to say about God, sin, forgiveness, salvation, and all of the rest. Some are Jews and some are Gentiles. But, St. Paul isn’t so much addressing where they come from, what nationality they are and all of that sort of thing. In fact, he points out how none of that matters for those who are baptized. They are all one people now through their baptism into Christ.
Becoming a Christian is already a tough thing. Even the little baby steps you take as you hear the Gospel and trust what God says are not so easy. We take it for granted a bit because we’re already here and already trusting God, but it didn’t start out that way for any of us. The desire to be our own god and the reality of our own sin is a hard thing to deal with. Unfortunately, according to St. Paul, it isn’t enough to just trust God. As he says in the previous chapter, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.”
“I’m supposed to not be like the Gentiles? What does that mean?” St. Paul starts listing lots of different things, not being callous, not being covetous, not being sexually immoral, not being greedy, not being crude, and a few other things. It’s a long list. It’s a list that’s rather tough to get a handle on, especially depending on what sort of life you led before this. As when Luther explains the meaning of the Ten Commandments, it’s helpful to hear, not only the things we shouldn’t do, but then to hear the things we should do.
It’s with this mindset that St. Paul goes into his explain here today. “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Were St. Paul in the presidential election race in our country today, I’m not sure he’d be polling so well among women. “Down with the patriarchy!” is a popular motto in our society. Men have been in charge and have made a mess of things. It’s time for women to rise up and do the job right. Men are cruel. Men are the oppressors, always throwing their weight around and seeking power. Why should women submit to them when they’re the ones causing all of the problems.”
That’s how the thinking goes at least. St. Paul is decried as a misogynist, as someone who only wants to keep women down. He gives men a tool, a command from God that husbands can wield anytime their wives don’t do whatever their husbands think they should.
Ouch. I suppose it’s a good thing St. Paul isn’t trying to win any popularity contests. It’s also interesting that those who read this particular passage often stop right there and never see St. Paul’s command to men. Those who take offense at his words also don’t bother to read it as St. Paul presents it. He doesn’t give men a weapon to bludgeon women with when they fail to live up to expectations. He talks to women directly. This, “submit to your husbands” thing is something they should be striving to do themselves.
Maybe that makes things a little better, but it probably doesn’t feel much better. At the same time, we men need to take a hard look at what St. Paul says to us. “Love your wife as Christ loves the church.” Oof. That should lead you to ask, “What does Christ do for the church?” but the better question is, “What wouldn’t Christ do for the church?” God who comes to earth, taking on the body of a mortal man, suffers horrible torture and is finally put to death in the most painful way possible all while being abandoned by everyone he loved, including his on Heavenly Father.
It’s not a really popular sentiment either. That kind of sacrifice isn’t something anyone is very excited about. It’s one thing to offer my seat on the bus to my wife, or maybe women in general. It’s one thing to pick her up an extra drink when I’m at Panera, especially since I’m going there anyway. But putting my life on the line? Willingly putting myself in danger for her? Ehh…that’s a little different.
St. Paul’s words confront a church that doesn’t understand what it means to be Christian. It’s not enough to know what you should avoid, what you should run away from. You need to know what you should be aiming for. What’s the goal here? St. Paul states that the goal in the marriage relationship is wives to learn submission and husbands to learn sacrifice. Not that husbands should demand submission or that wives should demand sacrifice, but that each should take it upon themselves to fulfill what has been given to them.
It’s easy to blame society, and certainly the world around us carries its fair share, but each of us is just as guilty. That desire to be god, to be the most important, to be the one everyone fawns over and worships. It lurks in each of us and that desire surfaces any chance it can get.
Jesus shows us what submission looks like. He shows us what sacrifice looks like. He shows us what love looks like. Jesus is the Son of God. He submits himself to his Father’s will, even though he is every bit as holy, righteous, and power as his Father. The Father doesn’t demand Christ’s submission. Jesus gives it freely. Jesus is also God, yet he sacrifices himself for his fallen people. Not because he has to. Not because anyone demands it. But because he chooses to. He models this love in his relationship to his Father and in his relationship to us.
It’s easy to be forgiven, at least in a manner of speaking. It doesn’t require anything from you. That’s the nature of God’s free gift. That’s why Christ submits to his Father’s will and why he sacrifices himself on your behalf. It’s all so your debt would be paid and you would be free. All of that is yours because Christ lived out that submissive and sacrificial love. All because he loved you.
But love isn’t a one time thing. It isn’t a passing moment in life, quickly shared and then quickly forgotten. It deepens and grows as the relationship grows. That fact alone doesn’t tell you what the relationship is supposed to look like or how it’s supposed to work. We look to Christ and see his love, his perfect love, in action. How does he act toward his Father? How does he act toward us? This is what we strive for and seek to emulate.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians starts out by telling them how they came to be saved. It’s in Ephesians that we get the verse that we Lutherans love so dearly, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” All of that is done. It’s all taken care of, all because of his love for you.
His love for you doesn’t end just because that particular problem has been taken care of. It continues. It deepens and grows as our relationship with him grows. But what does that relationship look like? That’s what St. Paul tells us. He shows us how to model that love with each other and the most essential place we do that is in marriage. The husband has his job and models love in a certain way. The wife has her job and models love in a different way. Why? Because when you see the two together, you see the relationship Jesus has with his people.
We benefit by following Christ’s example. He loves us perfectly, so as we learn to emulate him, our own lives can’t help but become better as well. We learn to love one another better, not just as husbands and wives, but each of our relationships is strengthened as we learn what perfect love looks like and are guided by God to work toward that with everyone in our lives.
Though being given the direction to show love more fully in our lives is a huge blessing all on its own, God gives us a special privilege. We become a living demonstration of the relationship between God and his people. Seeing a husband and a wife living their lives together is to see, even imperfectly, the kind of love Jesus has for all of his people.
It’s both his message of love to us, showing us what he has done for us, a guide on how to show that love to one another, and a demonstration of what those who have not yet seen or heard God’s love can have if they trust him. This is the kind of relationship he wants with all of us. He has sacrificed himself, given his own life to save us and redeem us. We humble ourselves before him because we know he has sacrificed himself to save us and he continues to love us, not just in words but also in actions.
We see in Christ a love that is willing to forgive all past transgressions, all wrongs done, all insults and slights. Christ’s love is one that is willing to forgo punishment, to stay the declaration of exile and isolation. His love is such that he wants to mend and restore, to forgive and to start new. His love is such that he is willing to do this daily, even many times a day if need be. Every time we confess the wrongs we’ve done and the damage we’ve caused to our relationship, he gives us the chance to start fresh, to let the pain and agony he suffered on the cross be enough punishment for all offenses.
St. Paul’s direction here is not meant to be restrictive. It is not meant to be a weight crushing us and keeping us down. He gives it so that we may see God’s love more fully and then learn how to live in that love. St. Paul wants us to see clearly a love that not only makes our lives better, but also makes us better. Living out this love, we can better appreciate what Christ has done for us and then show others what love really looks like.