A priest and a nun were driving home late one night from a church conference when a blinding snowstorm forced them to pull over and seek accommodations in the one hotel in a little town far from their destination. The hotel had only room left, and so reluctantly the pair decided to take it. The priest quickly volunteered to sleep on a pallet of blankets on the floor and let the nun have the bed. Shortly after turning in, the nun called out to the priest, “It is so cold outside and it is so cold in the room. Would you mind getting me another blanket?” So the priest left the cozy warmth of his own bed and got up and got the nun a blanket. They had been settled again for a little while, when the nun again called out to the priest, “It’s still so cold in here. Would you get me another blanket?” The priest dutifully rose again and fetched another blanket for the sister. Not too many minutes had gone by, when the nun again called out to the priest, but this time she said, “You know, it is still so cold in this bed. Don’t you think that under the circumstances the Lord would understand, and you and I could pretend for just this one night that we were husband and wife?” The priest answered, “I suppose you’re right, sister. In that case, get your own blanket!”

The Apostle Paul has been telling the Christian brothers and sisters in Ephesus about their status in the world as blessed children of God. He has helped them understand their place in the cosmic scheme of things. And now he is in the process of sharing with them the implications of their intimate relationship with God, how this relationship has the potential and promise to make them into people who are filled with the power and love of God, transforming everything about their lives. Paul himself had experienced a literal transformation of his personality and the direction of his life, and he proclaimed that such a radical renewal was available to anyone who would take the chance by putting their trust in God. With today’s passage, Paul turns his attention to the kind of change that is accomplished in the hearts and lives of Jesus’ followers in the sphere of their family and other relationships. He talks about husbands and wives, about children and parents, and about the larger sphere of our relationships in our work lives.

The priest in our little story a moment ago clearly had a rather dim and negative view of the kind of relationship that exists between husbands and wives. But Paul says that Christians have a different idea. That idea is expressed in one single but profound sentence: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

From there, Paul goes on to talk in some detail about how this mutual subjection might work itself out in several key relationships. He says that wives must be subject to husbands. He says that husbands must love their wives with the same kind of love that Christ loved the church. He says that children must obey their parents, and that fathers must discipline and instruct their children in the ways of God. And he says that slaves must work as faithful servants of their master, and that masters must treat their slaves with great respect and care. In the case of at least two of these three examples, you and I have some serious questions to ask. I’ll try in the briefest fashion to answer some of our questions, but remember, the first thing Paul said was that we are to be subject to each other because of our common reverence for Christ. And we’ll come back to that.

Husbands and wives. Billion dollar industries exist just to make it easier for women and men to get along, and for those who choose to marry, to get along with each other as husbands and wives. And by now, we’ve all heard the arguments pro and con for the supposedly biblical idea that husbands are supposed to be the bosses when it comes to marriage. Taken selectively and taken at just face value, there are places in scripture that seem to promote the idea that men have the upper hand in marriage. In significant ways, this was the practice of the society from which Jesus and Paul came. But there are other scriptures and other themes of the whole of scripture that seem to elevate the place and role of women, including many from the actual words and stories of Jesus. We cannot study them all here, but on balance, it is clear to me that Paul’s thought was dominated by the sentiment with which he begins this section: mutual subjection. Yes, Paul encourages the women to respect the leadership of their husbands. But then he turns right around and demands that husbands love their wives with the same kind of sacrificial love that Christ loved the church. That is a pretty rigorous standard! He goes on to teach about the nature of a believer’s relationship with Christ as having the same intimacy and unity as that which exists ideally between a husband and wife, even quoting from Genesis. On the whole, it seems to me that what Paul is really after here is to promote marriage relationships filled with such love and respect and honor between partners that it becomes unnecessary and irrelevant as to who has the dominant power and who is supposed to obey whom.

Slaves and masters. In Paul’s world, several kinds of slavery existed, and not all its forms were as bad as the kind of slavery practiced at one time in this country. No form is good, however, and so we wonder how Paul can even mention the need for slaves and masters to get along. Should he not instead be advocating for the abolition of slavery? In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s time, any form of slave rebellion was immediately quashed with murderous tactics, and not even the most politically enlightened thinkers had gotten so far as to advocate its abolition. It would take centuries, of course, for Christians to understand the full implications of the gospel when it came to the matter of slavery. Here, in Paul’s time, he makes a significant step forward by calling slave and master to recognize the deeper relationship of submission and love that they shared because of their mutual relationship to Christ. Abolition would come later. Here, the primary concern is, again, people being subject to the other, regardless of their status of slave or master.

Finally, we come to the situation of children and parents. Here Paul seems to be on more modern grounding. Children obey parents and parents teach their children. That sounds simple and right. The important thing here, though, that we must not miss, is that children should obey so that they will be blessed. And the purpose of parental discipline is so that children will learn of the Lord. Children don’t obey because parents are bigger and control the money. And parents don’t discipline because they are bigger and control the money! Each is in a relationship of mutual subjection that promotes blessing and goodness.

And that brings us around again to what I believe is the main point Paul is trying to make. He has been sharing with us about cosmic and eternal truths concerning the meaning and purpose of all things. But now he is showing us how these truths have day-to-day impact in our lives, how the blessings and love of God make a difference in the real world in which we live. In our marriages, in our families, even in our larger sphere of relationships of work and commerce and friendship, what God has done in Christ makes a difference. You and I must not fail to notice that in each example Paul gives, his primary concern is that people would so love and honor and respect and value each other that their relationship would produce mutual benefit. In each case, Paul advances the understanding of the quality of the relationships that God would bless. Rather than treating each other like property or mere business partners, husbands and wives are to hold each other with great care and affection. Rather than treating children like family assets and guarantees for old age, they are to be nurtured and valued and taught how to have a relationship with God. Rather than treating them as mere property or animals, masters are to treat slaves as equal persons in the sight of God, and slaves are to seek to honor their masters with the same attitude of service that Christ demonstrated for the world.

It all begins and it all ends with this amazing attitude that is ours through the power of Christ: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. It is amazing how the issues that exist between us tend to melt away when we practice mutual subjection, mutual respect, mutual love and honor, each between the other.

An elderly woman and her little grandson were spending the day at the zoo. They decided to wait in the line where an artist was painting children’s faces with the paw prints of various animals. The little boy’s face was covered with bright freckles, and a little girl standing in line next to them said, “You’ve got so many freckles that there’s no place left over to paint!” The little boy was embarrassed and he dropped his head in shame. His grandmother knelt next to him. “I love freckles. When I was a little girl, I always wanted freckles,” she said as she traced her finger across the child’s cheek. “I think freckles are beautiful.” “Really?” said the little boy. “Of course,” the grandmother said, “Just name me one thing that’s prettier than freckles!” The little boy thought for a moment as he peered intensely into his grandmother’s face, and then he softly whispered, “Wrinkles.”

“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Amen.

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