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1 Corinthians 13:4-8a; Ephesians 5:21-6:4
May 10, 2015 • Portage First UMC
Ah, family—right? Family can be the very best thing in our life and the biggest challenge in our life—sometimes all in the same day! We pick our friends and we choose our church family, but our biological family or our adopted family—those we don’t choose. As Bishop Desmond Tutu said, “They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.” But, let’s be honest, sometimes family doesn’t always feel like a gift. Sometimes, when you’re not all getting along, or when you have teenagers in the house, or when there is a crisis evolving, family can seem like a challenge. When you think of “family,” what words or images come to mind?
Naturally, the word “love” comes into play when we talk about family, especially on a day like this one, a day dedicated in one way to mothers and in a bigger way, to families in general. Since we’re spending these weeks considering what it looks like to love one another in a variety of life situations, it only makes sense to spend today talking about what it looks like to experience real love (agape) in the midst of our families. And to do that, we’re going to go back to the passage we’ve been dwelling on for these weeks, Paul’s famous description of love in 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-8. As I’ve reminded you, Paul wrote these words to a local church, trying to help them learn to love each other instead of spending their days in conflict and sin. But even though Paul didn’t have families specifically in mind when he wrote about love, these words certainly ought to define not only our church relationships but also those relationships that are closest to us, the ones related to us by blood. Those relationships deserve to find “a more excellent way” to live. So what does, or should, love look like in our families?
Some say that the future is not a promising one for the American family. Some futurists say with confidence that the day of the nuclear family—two parents, 2 1/2 kids and a white picket fence—is over. And yet, fully 76% of people surveyed say that family is the most important thing in their lives. One of the things that leads researchers to conclude is that the definition of what makes a “family” is changing or perhaps already has changed. Single-parent families are the fastest growing demographic in our own community, and that reflects a trend around the nation. There is also a rapidly rising trend toward multi-generational families—nearly 6% of all families have three or more generations living together under one roof, and that percentage has nearly doubled since 2000. Some researchers believe that is because there is still a deeply-rooted belief in the Biblical command to “honor your father and mother,” even if people don’t realize it’s a Biblical command. It’s become something rooted strongly in our heritage. More than 80% of Americans say they feel “very obligated” to help if their parents needed it, and around 77% feel obligated to help their grown children get through hard times. Some of you have experienced some or all of that yourselves, but all of these numbers and pictures really tell us one thing: families have undergone great change and great stress in these first fifteen years of the twenty-first century. And yet the command to love remains the same. So how do we do that when things are changing so rapidly?
Well, no matter the configuration of your family or who you understand to be part of your family, the Bible is pretty clear when it talks about caring for and honoring family. It’s not just a nice thing to do, and it’s not something we do out of obligation. Caring for and honoring our family is an act of worship, because it reflects God’s agape love for us. You remember, as I said last week, that the kind of love Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape, which is the Greek word for unconditional, no-strings-attached, without-obligation love. I usually say it means “I love you just because you are.” In some ways, it’s the New Testament equivalent of a word you’ve heard me use before from the Old Testament—hesed, “when the one who owes you nothing gives you everything.” That’s the kind of love Paul is describing in this chapter, and it’s the kind of love that really can’t be understood or experienced outside of a relationship with Jesus. Now, as I said last week, we’re going to focus on just one verse this morning and then I invite you this week to think about and work out how the other verses in the passage we read apply to your families. So, on this Mother’s Day, to our families, Paul says this: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (13:4).
Those are five big words to think about. Love is patient; that word literally means “long-suffering,” and some of the translations even put it that way: “love suffers long.” Love is the mother who stays by the bedside of her sick daughter all night long. Love is the husband who is there for every cancer treatment, every doctor’s appointment, every night when the pain is just too much. Love is the parent who will do anything to find healing for their child. Love suffers long, and love is kind. The word Paul uses there means “gentle or benign,” and when I first thought about “benign” I was trying to make the connection to the translation of “kind.” Then I thought about those who have been through cancer treatments, or even the couple of occasions Cathy or I have had some odd tissue that the doctors wanted to “take a closer look at.” You wait and you wait and you wait and it’s with great relief that you hear the word “benign.” Rather than being some sort of passive or weak word, the word “benign” has great power and does, in fact, bring great kindness to your life. Paul is saying love does not invade harshly; love brings kindness.
So those are two things love “is” in this verse, and Paul matches these two with three things love “is not” or “does not” do. Love does not envy. The word there primarily means “zealous,” like you’re enthusiastic for something. There was a branch of Judaism in Jesus’ day that were called the “Zealots,” who believed in armed revolution against Rome. They were so passionate about freedom for their country that they would do anything and kill anyone to see it happen. That’s one (very destructive) form of enthusiasm, rooted in an envy of what someone else has (in their case, freedom). The early Methodists were called “enthusiasts” because they were zealous or passionate about their faith; others ridiculed them perhaps out of an envy for what they had. But what Paul is talking about is that sort of passion turned against someone else—a spiteful, envious attitude toward good things that have happened to someone else. Real love is not zealous toward evil thoughts; love does not envy, and it does not boast. One way we might understand this is that love is not self-centered; it’s not narcissistic. It’s not only concerned for its own well-being or its own success. A person who only focuses on themselves is not a loving person. Now, there are folks, and you’ve probably known some, who claim that what they do is for others, but it’s really about their own recognition and being noticed by others. Have you ever been talking with someone and all the while they are scanning the room, almost desperately looking for someone (anyone) they know? Those sort of folks usually will abandon your conversation when they see someone else and almost run to shake their hand. We expect that sort of behavior from politicians, but not from friends. People like that want to be noticed, to be seen. It feeds their ego and their need to be needed. Love does not boast; love is not centered only on itself. A positive way to say it might be, “Love is other-centered.”
And the third thing in this verse that love is not is proud. Some translations say “love is not puffed up,” which is a very literal translation of the word. The image, of course, is of a balloon into which you put air—hot air—to puff it up, make it bigger…and bigger…and bigger. And you know what happens when you keep puffing it up, blowing it up. Eventually it will break. Pride is like a whole lot of hot air. Have you known people who have an opinion on everything? Or they seem to love to talk just to hear themselves talk? Or folks who can’t imagine that they could possibly be wrong? We’ve all probably been “that person” from time to time, but there are folks who seem to be like that all the time, at least in public. I knew a guy once who liked to draw people into talking about controversial topics just so that he could tear them down and rip their arguments apart. There was no love in that. There was a sense that he just wanted to be right or feel as if he were right all the time. Love is not like that. Love is not proud; it is not puffed up.
Now, it’s not hard to see how these attributes of love can affect life in our families. “Love is patient,” and when we are not, tempers flare and words are spoken that we wouldn’t ordinarily say. So love takes the time to listen before reacting. Sometimes what we think we hear is not what we’re actually hearing. “Love is kind,” and when we’re not, conflict becomes the norm rather than the exception. And conflict, like a cancer, can destroy relationships. Love “does not envy,” and when we do, distrust grows. In a setting that was meant to be full of “security, affirmation and new energy,” we find ourselves wondering if the other person really does have our best interests in mind (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, pg. 72). Love “does not boast,” and when we do, when we are excessively self-centered, we will tear apart the very fabric of relationships because we live and act as if we do not need anyone else. Those who are narcissistic find it very difficult to really love anyone else. And love “is not proud.” Does that mean we shouldn’t be proud of our accomplishments? No, that’s not what Paul is saying. Paul is warning against those times when we are proud at the expense of others, tearing others down so that we can be “the best.” That’s destructive pride; mutual pride is spurring our family on so that all are at their best. Love is never proud to the point of tearing others down.
And that’s just one verse, or five attributes, of love! Just thinking about those has probably brought to mind some events or actions that we might not be so proud of. How in the world can we get to that kind of love? Elsewhere in Paul’s writing, he gives some specific instructions of what a Christian family life might look like, and so for the remainder of our time this morning, I want to turn to Paul’s writing to the church in Ephesus. This passage, situated in chapters 5 and 6, has often been misunderstood, misinterpreted and taken out of context. It’s been used to demean women in particular and provide unhealthy family dynamics in general. Honestly, it’s given Paul a bad name as people have labeled him a woman-hater. But to read these verses that way is to miss what he’s saying, particularly what he is saying about the meaning of “submission.”
In the past, older Bibles put a paragraph break after verse 21, which made the average reader believe that verse belonged to the previous passage. So you’d begin the paragraph with, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands…” (5:21). And out of that flowed a whole lot of bad theology and bad preaching. This verse has been used to justify much poor treatment of wives, up to and even including physical abuse. I remember a church in Muncie that had a class on “how to make your wife submit.” I did not sign up for that class! It doesn’t help that the first century, out of which Paul wrote these words, didn’t treat women well either. Women were just above property. One rabbi advised it was better for men not to talk to any woman, not even their wives (cf. Snodgrass, NIV Application Commentary: Ephesians, pg. 302). And the history of the church’s teaching on and treatment of women has remained poor for much of our history. And it all has to do with that paragraph break. But, you see, in the original text, there is no such thing as a paragraph break. Nor are there verses or chapter numbers; those were all added later and are often less helpful than they should be. Verse 22 is not the start of Paul’s thought here; verse 21 is, and that verse sets the tone for everything else we read here. Paul sets this as his general theme: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:21). Submit to one another, he says, and then the rest of this passage is a description of what that looks like.
So what does it mean to “submit” to someone? The key here, I believe, is the context Paul sets. Family relationships only really make sense when Christ is involved, when the family members are focused on and loyal to him first. Our relationships are meant to be lived out “in reverence of Christ” and in an attitude of submission. That’s the context for all the individual instructions, which read sort of like a code of behavior for the home. Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. Children, obey your parents. And fathers, don’t exasperate your children. That’s a lot, but they are all in the context of verse 21: submit to one another. And they are really all intertwined, because love doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It only happens as we share it with others. The word Paul uses that we translate as “submit” means “to place under,” or “to arrange,” to put in proper order or to influence. That’s a lot of meaning wrapped up in a single word, but again consider the worldview Paul is laying out here. “Submit to one another,” he says. Well, that doesn’t make any sense in our world of hierarchies and clear chains of command. If we’re submitting to each other, who’s really in charge? If we’re allowing the influence of the other into our lives, who’s making the decisions? Except decision-making and chain of command isn’t what Paul has in view here. When he talks about submitting to one another, he’s thinking of situations where each has the best interests of the other always in view. In other words, mutual submission means putting the other person—your spouse—first and being willing to place your own needs, desires and preferences in second place.
So, to wives, Paul says, “Submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord” (5:22). Remember that Paul lived and wrote to a culture where women were not valued, where even married women were considered “impure” because of their “regular bodily functions” (cf. Wright 67). They were seen as lesser beings. Paul is not, contrary to the way we normally hear it, demeaning women. In the church, women were finding a new freedom, a new value, that they had not experienced in the culture or in Judaism for that matter up to that time. So here, Paul is calling for a mutual submission, an agape love, self-abandoning love. He calls wives to submit or work with their husbands, not taking their freedom as a chance to break away from their husbands or to dismiss them in any way. And then he calls husbands to an even larger role. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (5:25). The “love” there is agape again, but the description of that kind of love is what we want to focus on. The kind of love husbands are to have for their wives is the kind Christ had for the church. And how did Christ love the church? He gave his life for the church. He died to save the church. Paul says that’s the kind of love husbands are to have for their wives, the kind of love that would die for the other person, the kind of love Jesus was talking about when he said, “Greater love [that word agape again] has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The husband takes Jesus as his role model, so that bullying and arrogance are not an option. If self-sacrifice is not the model for a marriage, then the whole thing collapses, and many of us have seen that or experienced that (cf. Wright 66-67). But when a husband takes Jesus as his role model, when he lives toward his wife the way Jesus lives toward the church, she will respond with the same. That’s the picture of mutual submission, a picture that gives all persons equal value (cf. Snodgrass 305).
Cathy and I will soon be celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary, and I’d like to tell you it’s been smooth sailing all the way. Hearts and roses for twenty-six straight years. But I’d be lying, and everyone here who has been married any length of time knows that. There have been times in our marriage where we’ve gotten off track, where one or the both of us have begun to put our own agendas ahead of the other, where we have demanded our own “rights” rather than seeking the best for each other. Truth be told, I’m more guilty of that than she is; I’ve said repeatedly she is better than I deserve. For us, the biggest challenge happened around our tenth anniversary. Ten years together, and we really weren’t sure how to move forward. Christopher was four, I had been through heart surgery, and we were both finding challenging pieces in our careers. And when we became focused on those other things, it became easy to draw apart from each other, to begin to demand and expect our own way. There were times when I think we both thought it would have been easier to just give up. I’ve talked to many others throughout my years of ministry and I’m convinced we weren’t unique. Many, many couples report challenges around the tenth year. But, for Cathy and I, giving up wasn’t an option. I remember the very conversation that was a turning point. We were driving home from Merrillville (living in Jasper County at the time) and I don’t even know what we were talking about, but it suddenly hit both of us how we had been treating the other. Words had been spoken that were hurtful and, more than that, things had been done that could have been damaging to the relationship. In that car ride home, we both sought and received forgiveness from the other and began to work again at mutual submission. And it still hasn’t always been “smooth sailing” from that moment on; it’s hard work, but it’s worth every moment.
Wives, allow your husband to influence your lives. Husbands, be willing to lay down your lives for your wives. And then Paul addresses children: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (6:1). I’ve pulled this verse out a time or two; not that it does any good, but I quote it from time to time to both Christopher and Rachel! And Paul backs up this instruction with a reference to the Old Testament; in fact, he goes back to Israel’s foundational document, the Ten Commandments. It’s God’s original “top ten list,” and one of the “big ten” is to honor your parents, your father and mother (cf. Exodus 20:12). This has nothing to do with whether we consider them “worthy” or not. There are no conditions given, just a command to honor, a command that is repeated five times in the New Testament. So it’s also not just for the “way back then” or just for the Jewish people or even just for the Ephesians. Honoring parents was an essential foundation for the covenant between God and his people—us. Honoring parents is second only to honoring God himself. It’s vital to peace, harmony and security in the community (Snodgrass 321-326).
What does “honor” look like? The word translated as “obey” can also mean “give ear to, listen to.” So when children are young, it probably looks pretty much like doing what you are told by your parents. As children grow, as we become adults ourselves, that call to honor doesn’t stop, but it changes. It becomes more along the lines of seeking out and seriously considering what your parents say. And those for whom Mother’s Day or Father’s Day are difficult days, those who have lost one or both of their parents, know what it’s like to lose that input. I’ve heard several folks say they wish they could go back and ask mom or dad one more time what they think about this event or that. We take our parents’ input for granted, and sometimes in an effort to “find ourselves” we spurn that input, and yet parents, Paul is saying, have life experience we don’t have. As we grow, it’s not a matter of doing whatever they say; it’s a matter of honoring their life, honoring their input, giving an ear to what they have to say. We parents are often smarter than our children think we are!
Several years ago, a Dutch magazine published this description of the way a child responds to and interacts with his or her father, and mothers are subject to the same ages and stages. The description went this way: “At age 4, the child says, ‘My daddy can do anything.’ At age 7, ‘My daddy knows a lot. A whole lot.’ At age 8 he says, ‘Well my father doesn’t quite know everything.’ At 12 he says, ‘Naturally, my father doesn't know that either.’ At 14, ‘My dad is so hopelessly old-fashioned.’ Age 21: ‘That man is so out of date.’ At 25 years, ‘Dad knows a little, but not too much.’ At 30 years, ‘I must find out what Dad thinks about this.’ At 35 years, ‘Before we decide, let's get Dad’s idea first.’ At 50: ‘What would Dad have thought about that?’ At 60 years: ‘My Dad knew literally everything.’ At 65 years he says, ‘I wish I could talk it over with Dad one more time’” (http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/a-new-beginning/read/articles/what-dads-leave-behind-8460.html). I know my parents got a whole lot smarter after we were married and especially when we had our first child!
So wives giving respect to their husbands, husbands loving their wives, children obeying their parents, but then there is one more piece, and it’s specifically addressed to fathers. Fathers, who, in the Roman Empire, had absolute power of life and death over their children. Fathers, who would decide when a child was born whether the child would live or be left out to die of exposure. Fathers, who were responsible for the education of their sons after age seven (daughters were often just trained in household duties). Today Paul would probably address his remarks to both parents, but in his setting, he’s especially targeting the cultural role of fathers. In an age when they had so much familial power, Paul urges fathers to have a Christ-like attitude toward their children. “Fathers,” he says, “do not exasperate your children” (6:4). Don’t make them angry or provoke them to irritation. Don’t make them bitter or cause them to rebel. In other words, a parent’s behavior toward their children should be such that it points the children toward Jesus. “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord,” Paul says (6:4). Point your children toward Jesus; it’s our responsibility as parents to help our children know him. So we bring them to church and we take them to Bible School and Sunday School and youth group and we demonstrate with our own lives the priority faith has. Now, we’ll never know, really, if we have succeeded or not, but I’ve had glimpses along the way. Such as one Sunday after church, when we were home preparing lunch and Christopher (who was about 5 or 6 at the time) was at the table, breaking bread into small pieces. I asked him what he was doing, he held up a piece of bread and said, “This is the body of Christ, given for you.” Or when I see Rachel encouraging the person whom others leave out because they’re a bit different, loving people the way Jesus loves them, I get a glimpse. But only a glimpse, because ultimately I have to entrust my children to Christ and hope and pray they will live the best ways they have seen Cathy and I live (and that they’ll forget the times we fail).
This is what agape looks like in the family: patient, kind, not envious, not boasting, not proud. Wives giving respect, husbands loving, children honoring and fathers (and mothers) instructing, all of us living in mutual submission to each other and, most importantly, to Jesus Christ. And what does that look like in your life? You probably already know. That little nagging feeling you’re getting this morning at the back of your brain? That’s the Holy Spirit pushing and prodding you. There’s something you need to do this week to make your family relationship better, more loving, more like agape. So what is one step you will take, one thing you will do to live agape among your family members this week? Maybe you need to speak a word or write a letter of apology for that thing you didn’t intend to be hurtful but was nonetheless. Or maybe it’s time for a dinner out—a nice dinner out—where you can talk through the issues that are threatening the relationship. Find some quiet space and work it through from start to finish. Or perhaps you’ve been working long hours and you owe your family that vacation they’ve been hinting at. You need time together. Some of our family’s most memorable moments have happened when we’ve been away from all the distractions that our normal routine brings and we’ve been able to just spend time together. Take that vacation, that trip that you’ve been planning to take and honor one another by planning it together. Or maybe the next time there is a disagreement between you and your spouse, or you and your child, your act of agape is to take a step back and not say that harsh thing you usually say or that you really want to say. You know the one, the thing that will put him or her in their place and end the argument? You realize, don’t you, that it doesn’t really end the argument. It just pushes it off until another time when it will flare up with even greater intensity. Take a step back and don’t say that thing; instead, show agape and listen. Or, perhaps, an act of agape and honor would be including the others in your family in the decision-making. Some of us (mostly men, but sometimes women as well) are really good at making decisions without consulting anyone else, even those the decision will affect. What a powerful way to show honor and respect by sorting through the issues and making the decision together. Or perhaps it’s something else in your situation. The question that Paul confronts us with today is this: what is it you need to do, actively do, to live out agape among those you love the most?
Honor. Submit. Respect. Words we would do well to add to our permanent vocabulary, and more than that, add to our permanent, daily actions, our way of living. After all, love is patient and kind. Love is not envious or boastful or proud. Love seeks the best for the other person, and we desperately need to show agape to the others in our families. Submit to one another, then, out of reverence for Christ. Let’s pray.
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