Today I am going to spend a few minutes talking about family. Family is something we all have in common. Every one of us has had a mom and a dad. A good number of us have chosen to add a husband or a wife to our family and over the years several of us have accumulated a few children into our families. Everyone here is part of a family. Even if you currently find yourself without parents, or a spouse, or children, you have your brothers and sisters in faith here at Messiah and the guidance God gives to the biological family will serve you well in your interactions with your spiritual family.
As I talk to you today about family, my comments are going to be guided by a section from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, specifically 5:21-6:4. Ephesians 5:21-6:4 is all about the family. Indeed, there are at least four sermons that could be preached from this text. There is a sermon for wives, a sermon for husbands, a sermon for parents, and a sermon for children. As I dug into this text, I was seriously tempted to throw my current worship plan out the window and preach a four-week sermon miniseries on the family using just this text. Maybe in three years when this text comes back around in the lectionary, I will do just that. Today however, I decided to focus on something that ties these four sermons together and that something is submission. In Ephesians 5:21 saint Paul encourages the members of a family to, “21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
The word submit gets a bad rap. It has a negative connotation. When most people hear the word submit, they think of servitude, slavery or oppression. Submission brings to mind images of weakness, disgrace, and humiliation. Most of us would be insulted if we were described as submissive; most of us would bristle if we were told to submit. Which is too bad because submission doesn’t mean what most people think it means. The word submit describes an order or arrangement, submission is about structure and organization. If you are the kind of person whose cupboards are full of glasses lined up in a row, or carpets have purposefully parallel vacuum tracks or closets have clothes grouped according to color, type, or season, if you like excel spreadsheets, if you like to wear your right shoe on the right foot and your left shoe on the left foot than you like submission. Submission is not about value or worth, submission is about form and function.
Seminary professor Armin Panning used the example of a baseball pitcher and catcher to illustrate what submission looks like among people. Professor Panning would tell his students, the pitcher and the catcher each have a position on the team, and it is important that they play their assigned position; one player needs to be on the mound and the other player needs to be behind the plate. It is imperative that the pitcher and the catcher work together to win the game, but the things they do to win that game are quite different. Typically, it is the catcher who calls the pitches, and the pitcher submits to that call. That doesn’t mean the pitcher can’t shake off the pitch or that there might not be the occasional conference on the mound, but in general the catcher calls the pitches, and the pitcher submits to that call. Now, nobody would suggest that the catcher is, therefore, better than the pitcher or that the pitcher is, therefore, inferior to the catcher. In fact, when the Atlanta Braves assign value to these two positions, the pitcher gets paid twice as much as the catcher. Professor Panning used this illustration to teach his students that submission is not about value or worth. Submission is about form and function.
So, what might submission look like in your family? Well, first let me tell you what it doesn’t look like. It doesn’t look like a negotiation between two obstinate diplomats where each is trying to find a way to get leverage over the other; maybe not outright hoping a member of your family will screw up but knowing when they do you will be able to use it against them for the rest of their lives. Submission doesn’t look like a manipulation between the strong and the weak where one family member dangles some prize or award before the other family member to get their way, thus reducing the other members of the family into dogs begging for a treat from the master’s hand. Submission doesn’t look like a wrestling match where one family member is trying to impose their will on another family member either through stubborn defiance, incessant nagging, or endless whining. This is not what submission looks like this is what narcissism looks like. Narcissism is a love of self above and at the expense of all others. Narcissism is the opposite of submission. Narcissism is sinful and, in a family, it is incredibly disruptive and if left unchecked it can lead to permanent and irreparable damage. Unfortunately, there is a narcissist that lives inside everyone of us. Which means our families are full of narcissism; full of people who are so obsessed with their own value and worth that they end up causing disruption and damaging the people in their own families.
Thankfully we all have one family member who resisted the temptation of narcissism and showed us what perfect submission looks like. In the little town of Bethlehem, Jesus showed us what submission looks like when He allowed Himself to be born into the house and line of David. In the waters of the Jordan river, Jesus showed us what submission looks like when He allowed Himself to be baptized by John. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus showed us what submission looks like when He prayed, “Father… not my will, but yours be done.”[1] On the cross of Calvary, Jesus showed us what submission looks like when He allowed Himself to be pierced for our transgression and crushed for our iniquities. In the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus showed us what submission looks like when He paid the wages of our narcissism in full.
From the day He was born till the day He died Jesus lived a life of perfect submission. Because he did, your narcissism has been forgiven. You have been forgiven for the disruption you have brought into your family and the damage you have caused your parents, your spouse, your children. You have been forgiven the sins you have committed against both your biological and your spiritual family. My dear brothers and sisters, I tell you, in the name of your submissive savior, you are forgiven.
Now I think you are ready to see what submission can look like in your family. First to the wives Paul writes, “22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” And in the second half of verse 33 he writes, “the wife must respect her husband.” As I said, there is an entire sermon here. But today allow me to simply summarize what submission can look like from a wife. Submission from a wife looks like recognition and respect. A submissive wife recognizes God placed her on the mound and her husband behind the plate. A submissive wife typically trusts her husband to make the right calls but even when a conference on the mound is needed, she neither demeans nor degrades her husband, but rather respects him enough to listen to his opinions and does all that she can to support his decisions. A submissive wife is focused on form and function instead of value and worth.
It is of course easier for a wife to be submissive if her husband shows his family that he also knows what submission looks like. And just to be sure he knows, Paul writes twice as much about the husband’s submission as he wrote about the wife’s submission. Paul writes, “25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself…”. There is a lot there; another sermon to be sure, but the husband’s section began with, centered around, and concluded with the word “love”. So, it seems clear the best way to summarize the way a husband submits to his wife is love; the kind of love that is more than just mood or emotion. The submissive husband loves his wife’s soul, her holy and blameless soul. So, he brings her to church, he leads her in devotion, he prays with her and for her. The submissive husband loves his wife’s heart. He nourishes her hopes and dreams and provides an environment where she feels safe and secure. The submissive husband loves his wife’s body. He provides for all her physical needs, including the “one flesh” needs that God reserves for husband and wife. A submissive husband is focused on form and function instead of value and worth.
When a wife submits to her husband and a husband submits to his wife it creates the ideal environment in which children might grow. To those children Paul writes, “1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Yet another sermon could be preached but in short, submissive children honor and obey their parents. The submissive child recognizes they don’t know everything and that their parents have, simply by the length of their years, experienced more things, learned more lessons, gained more wisdom than their children. So, the submissive child listens to what their parents have to say, hears the lessons they are trying to teach, and then does what they tell them to do. And when their parents get it wrong; when their parents overreact, when their parents jump to conclusion, or fail to understand, a submissive child explains themselves, but they do it with humility and respect. A submissive child is focused on form and function instead of value and worth.
Submissive children are a blessing; a blessing that need to be nurtured by submissive parents. To those parents Paul writes, “4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” One last sermon could be preached. The theme could be, “don’t be an exasperating parent”. I am sure that is a sermon I need to hear but, in short, a submissive parent doesn’t set unrealistic expectations, or impose overbearing limitations, or have unreachable standards. A submissive parent knows such things set the child up for failure and frustration. So instead, a submissive parent takes the time to train and instruct. A submissive parent teaches their child the why and the how a thing should be done. They explain it to them, demonstrate it for them, and then assist them in doing it themselves. And then the submissive parent does that again and again and again; they keep teaching the lesson until the lesson has been taught. Then after the lesson has been taught the submissive parent continues to encourage the child with gentle corrections and generous compliments, and the submissive parent does this not just till the child is through puberty, or just till they send them off to college, of just till they get them married off. The submissive parent is a parent for life and will continue to give their child gentle corrections and generous compliments until the day they die. A submissive parent is focused on form and function instead of value and worth.
Submission is not about value or worth, submission is about form and function. It’s about a wife respecting her husband, a husband loving his wife, a child honoring their parents, and parents teaching their children, this is what submission looks like in a family. This is what submission can look like in your family, but let’s be honest, it’s not going to be easy. The little narcissist in you wants you to focus on your value and worth at the expense of your family members and the little narcissist that lives in them will want them to do the same to you. Which is why it is so important for the members of a family to “21 Submit to one another… out of reverence for Christ.” Jesus was submissive so that you could be forgiven your narcissism; Jesus was submissive so that you could be set free from your narcissism. Because of your submissive savior, you are not a slave to the sin of narcissism. In Jesus, you can be submissive. In Jesus, you can submit to one another. I’ll pray it for your family. Please pray it for mine. Amen.
[1] Luke 22:42