Our Sacred Relationship with One Another

       In To a God Unknown, John Steinbeck describes the impact of a pioneer mother in the early days of California – a mother whose constancy and fairness made her respected and listened to.

       “Rama had a way of making her field: cooking, sewing, the bearing-of-children, housecleaning, seem the most important things in the world.  The children adored Rama when they had been good, for she knew how to stroke the tender places of the soul.  Her praise could be as delicate and sharp as her punishment was terrible.  She automatically took charge of all children who came near her.

       “Burton’s two children recognized her authority as far more legally constituted than the changeable rules their own soft mother made for the laws of Rama never changed, bad was bad and bad was punished, and good was eternally, delightfully good.  It was delicious to be good in Rama’s house.”

       Steinbeck’s Rama knew the way to exercise authority.  For her it was the most natural thing in the world.  And for a child to submit to her authority was equally natural.  But submission to authority is not always so natural.  Authority has become a dirty word and the thought of submission to authority is abhorrent to many people.  Children say to each other on the playground, “You’re not the boss of me!”  And adults say it to each other in the home, in the office and in the church – though usually with better grammar.  

        When the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 5:21 that we are to “subject ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ,” he outlines a huge principle for our life together as the people of God.  This is the foundation for everything we are going to look at for the next three weeks.  The word he used, “subjection,” is “hupertasso” which has a military origin.  It literally means “to rank under”. 

      Paul is not advocating a rigid hierarchy where people are placed in rank and shown their places in no uncertain terms.  He’s not suggesting that we adopt the old Rolling Stones piece,  “Under My Thumb” as a praise song.  Rather he writes that individual Christian men and women should gladly rank themselves under one another.  In Romans he writes that our only competition with each other should be a competition of giving away first place.  We should “outdo each other in showing honor.”  Jesus says that those who are to be leaders in His community must exercise that leadership by being the servants of all.   This doesn’t mean that we always do what people want us to do.  Jesus sure didn’t.  But it does mean that we put the interests of others first.

       Teachings like this are clearly counter-cultural.  We pull away from words like subjection, servant hood, and self-denial.  Words like self-fulfillment and self-actualization touch our ears gently.  Self-denial cuts to the quick of our feelings, and challenges us at the core of our beings. 

       We do not need to be reminded that there is much in us that is self-seeking, self-serving, and self-indulgent.  We even glorify it with books such as Winning Through Intimidation and such one-upmanship fads as “power lunching.” I like what Jerry Seinfeld said about the message of a suit – “We should listen to this guy.  His pants match his jacket.  In formal terms this is called  “power dressing.”   

       The attitude of the world is often.  “I’ll meet my needs and to heck with you,” or “I like you but I like me better, so if something better comes along for me, I can forget you.”  But we are called to something better as the people of God. We are called to a lifestyle that is characterized by the word “subjection”.

       Paul uses the word ranking under, hupertasso, some twenty-three times in his letters.  We are called to subject ourselves to civil authorities, to church leaders, to parents, to masters and, as in this passage, to each other.

        It may seem unreasonable at first sight for the Lord to make such demands of subjection on His people.  But then we remember that there is order in all areas of God’s creation.  Then we see that this command is not a tyrannical imposition confining us and cramping our ability to enjoy life.  It is actually God’s revelation on how to live in keeping with the way He has made us rather than living at cross purposes with ourselves, with others and with God Himself.  Voluntary ranking under is essential to order in human life.  Without order we can produce only anarchy and anarchy leads to pain, not pleasure.

       An admirer once asked conductor Leonard Bernstein what was the hardest instrument to play.  He said without hesitation, “second fiddle.”  I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French Horn or second flute, now that’s my problem.  And yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony.”

       Now as we talk about ranking under I suppose each of us can think of all the arrogant and pushy people who ought to be hearing this.  And as they listen, they are probably thinking about us.  But the call here in Ephesians is a call to all Christians to be in subjection.  It’s not just a call to one particular group -- although Paul does go on to give specific examples that we will talk about.

       The overall theme of Ephesians is that it is God’s plan to unite all things in Jesus Christ.  The first three chapters of the letter deal with the theological issues and ideas.  Paul tells us about God, about his plan for our sin to be conquered, and all about how things come together for humankind in a relationship with Christ.  Paul wants us to be sure to know our inheritance in God…its riches…its glory, and how God wants to give us more abundant blessings than we even think to ask for. 

       In chapter 4 verse 1 to chapter 5 verse 20, Paul speaks of the quality of this new life…the practical way of interacting in the church.  Within the church Paul calls for a new relationship…one of real unity.  Paul speaks of the church not as an organization but as an organism.  The church is flooded with gifted persons, not office holders.  The church has a head who cares for it rather than a manager who controls it.  Within this united organism are to be new relationships.  Here are some he mentions:  People are to use their gifts for others, they are maturing.  We speak the truth in love.  We practice proper morality.  We are angry but we don’t sin.  We don’t hold our anger.  Our talk is edifying for one another.  We walk in the light and we walk wisely and harmoniously.  Finally, beginning in verse 21, we are “subject to one another.”

       The source or the model of this subjection is Jesus Christ.  After Jesus washed His feuding disciple’s feet in the Upper Room He said, “I have given you an example that you should also do as I have done for you.”  Peter, who was there in the Upper Room, remembered His action and later wrote that we are to “clothe ourselves in humility toward one another.” (1 Peter 5:5)  The idea that Paul presents…here and in other places such as Philippians 2…is that we are to live a life of subjection because Jesus lived a life of subjection and showed that such is the only way to “find life.” Paul writes:  “Have this mind in yourselves which we see in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus is our model.

       Dr. David Hubbard of Fuller Seminary expressed this modeling with a story of the times he used to travel with his father through fog so thick that a driver could scarcely see two feet ahead of the car.  His older brother Paul used to have to get out of the car and hold a flashlight on the edge of the road so that they could move ahead.

       Dr. Hubbard likened the fog to the confusion in today’s morals and values.  He said that the life and example of Christ is a light to give direction and true freedom.       “Christian freedom is not freedom to ad-lib or to free-lance.  We are not free to fumble and grope our way through life.  Freedom is not the liberty to move through a cafeteria of worldly values and to eat whatever we want.  True freedom is relief from entangling reliance on selfishness and apathy so we can begin to obey God.”

       Hubbard writes, “The social nature of life tells us that we must have standards to live together.  Paul calls us to take our standard and our model from the one who knows us best, the one who has the most at stake in our lives, the one who gave Himself for us in love so that we might know the true meaning of life.”

       Jesus is our model for what our authentic human life should look like.  And this life is one of subjection to one another in love.  In verse 20 Paul wrote that our lives are to be characterized by thanksgiving.  Mutual ranking under is what thanksgiving looks like in social relationships.    In Colossians, as Janet looked at two weeks ago, we are to live so that  “whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  Paul then goes on to explore what this looks like in out sacred relationships. 

       Now in Ephesians 5:21, the instruction to be subject to one another is an aspect of the being “filled by the Spirit” Paul speaks of in verse 18.  It all goes back to that. 

       What does it look like to be filled with the Spirit?

       Sometimes a person who claims to be filled with the Spirit becomes aggressive, self-assertive and brash.  But the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of humility and those who are filled by Him will display the meekness and gentleness of Christ.  It is one of their most evident characteristics that they subject themselves to one another.  They also subject themselves to Christ, for their mutual subjection is out of reverence for Christ.  Those who are truly subject to Christ do not find it difficult to be subject to each other as well.  Spirit filled believers love God and loves each other, which is hardly surprising, since the first fruit of the spirit is love.

       After talking about being filled with the Spirit in Ephesians, Paul goes on the talk about remarkably ordinary matters such as gender relationships, husband-wife relationships, parent-child relationships and employer-employee relationships.  Those are some of the Sacred Relationships we are looking at during this Lenten study. 

       That fits.  It is an inescapable fact that to Paul the fullness of the Spirit, whatever else it involves, is to be experienced and demonstrated in the most normal of circumstances and the most common environments.  The fullness of the Holy Spirit is not so much demonstrated by a certain style of worship as by a certain style of life.   It really doesn’t mater how high you jump when you feel the Spirit.  What matters is how you walk with other people once you hit the ground.

       The attitude of a Christian in a place of authority is not to be one of pride of position but one  of humility of mind.  In biblical understanding, power doesn’t exist for the sake of the one who has the power but for the sake of those who are being served.  All relationships, as Paul points out in both Ephesians and Colossians are double edged – which means that they cut both ways.  The privileges are never all on one side.  So the best way to find our whether or not you really  have a servant heart is to as yourself how you react when someone treats you like a servant. 

       In a day filled with charismatic but sometimes narcissistic leaders, we have come to the place in the church that to sit through a committee meeting can be a prophetic statement -- a statement that “I am going to listen to these people and consider the needs of these people before the needs of my own ego.”  There must be willingness in the Christian community to serve any, to learn from any, and to be corrected by any regardless of age, sex, class, or any other division.

       There is a story about a young second lieutenant at Fort Bragg who discovered that he had no change for the coke machine.  He stopped a passing private and asked him, “Do you have change for a dollar?”  The private said cheerfully, “I think so, let me take a look.”

       The lieutenant drew himself up stiffly and said, “Soldier, that is no way to address an officer.  We’ll start all over again.  Do you have change for a dollar?”

       The private came to attention, saluted smartly and said, “No, Sir!”

       The young lieutenant got his salute but he didn’t get his change.  Leaders in the Christian community need to decide what they want.  To demand respect on the basis of position in not the point.  The point Jesus made is that the one who would be a leader of His church would be so through the path of servant hood…because that is the same road Jesus followed.

       Beginning next week we are going to begin to look at the teaching of Ephesians and Colossians on marriage and employer-employee relationships.  There’s something to come for everyone.

       But before we get into what Paul says about these vital areas of our lives, it is essential to understand the basis of all that Paul will be saying.  This is found in Ephesians 5:21…”and be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  We cannot place an emphasis on wives, children or employees or any other group being subject to anyone else without a prior awareness that being in subjection is something that all believers…whether men or women, parents or children, employers or employees must do.  Relationships for the Christian aren’t expressed by a hierarchy but by a dance. In the light of Ephesians 5:21 we must understand that there are times when men must be subject to their wives and parents to their children and even employers to their employees.  If this seems ridiculous to anyone then let me remind you that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Lord of glory was subject to a young woman named Mary as Luke 2:51 clearly states.

       Mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ is the key to health in all of our other relationships.  Before you can be Christian parent and Christian child, you must be able to see yourselves as brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Before you can be husband and wife, you must first be brother and sister in the faith.  When this happens, and when we live together in Christian community in an attitude of mutual subjection, everything else falls together naturally and joyfully.  That’s the way God designed it.  That’s the way God intends it to be.  That’s the way He is calling us now to live in the sacred relationships He gives us.