Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
As I prepared for today’s reflection I followed my normal habits. I read the passages briefly in advance in anticipation of sitting with them longer to listen and formulate what was on my heart or in my head. As I realized that I would be reflecting on this portion of Ephesians chapter 5, I found myself distracted and uneasy. I know when I hear others reflect on this passage I have trouble listening with my heart and more easily listen with my critical brain. And yet I feel like the Lord has put a reflection on my heart that I want to share. So, whatever your prior feelings about this passage, please approach it again with me, doing as St. Pauls asks in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test everything; retain what is good.”
There is much of the Bible that has become difficult for us modern readers to chew on. Some of those portions are because we don’t know how to read them as they were meant to be read. Some are because we truly need to be stretched and challenged. Some are because we are so disconnected from the time of composition that we trivialize deep and profound truths. I don’t know in which category I would place this passage, but I think we need to tread delicately around it.
That delicacy involves us seeking the wisdom in Paul’s advice and in defending the analogy.
When it comes to the wisdom, I think it is important to step back and ask “what does St. Paul’s advice guard against?”
I think Paul’s advice asks the couple to give up trying to control one another, to die to selfish pursuits, and to seek the benefit of the other first. This dimension ensures the family is living lovingly internally, but the family needs movement, motivation, and an outward impulse as well. St. Paul is demanding that families have a missional focus. There needs to be a force in the family that works against apathy, sloth, indifference, and an internal only focus. There needs to be a force that stops serving one another from becoming a stagnant form of internal deference or worse a disinterested approval of each other seeking their own brand of happiness. Put in an era of limitless entertainment, and perpetual scrolling we need help looking up from our phones long enough to come under the mission of our family which is ultimately the mission entrusted to us by Christ.
As a man reading this passage I don’t see this as a free pass to reinstate sexism, but rather as an indictment of how seldom I help lead my family to seek and embrace our mission.
Secondly, there is the analogy. Ultimately, St. Paul says this, “but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.” I don’t know how you tend to interpret this passage but amid debate over what the passage does or does not say about the role of husband and wife, it is unequivocal about our role in relation to Christ and I think that is Paul’s greater concern.
Jesus seeks not to control us, but to nourish and care for us. He died for us and put aside self-interest to save us. He is the one that breaks through our indifference, apathy, and sloth. He sends us out, not on missions of our own devising, but under his mission, under his orders. We are submissive to him. Subordinate to him. He left his home to join himself with us to present us without blemish.
And if we see each other in that light. If we see one another clothed in that much love and serving under one common mission giver, isn’t it easier to love, support, serve, and encourage one another?
- Spencer Hargadon