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Husband and wife (Tuesday 30th Week Ordinary Time 2020)
Ephesians 5
I wonder if the passage we heard in the first reading today is still controversial among Christians of our generation. Some modern commentators explain that this passage of the Ephesians is just a product of St Paul’s time and age. Thus, we don’t have to be offended even if it seems St Paul teaches husbands should rule over their wives. His culture heavily conditioned this writing. Now let us not hang up on these words. Let them pass over. They are not relevant to our time and culture. Instead, let us develop a new theology based on equality.
But this approach can seriously undermine the authority of the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It may discredit the whole gospel because there is hardly any passage or episode not culturally conditioned or influenced.
We often miss the first sentence of the passage. It reads: “My brothers and sisters, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is the summary and gist of what St Paul teaches. He is not telling one sex to rule over the other. St Paul doesn’t argue that one sex is superior to the other. Here, he is not discussing the allocation of power between sexes. Too often, modern Christians fall prey to this frame of the power struggle between sexes. However, let us not forget that our religion is not about a competition of any kind for self-interest. As St Paul writes, a husband and a wife should be subjected to each other. It’s a mutual and reciprocal subjection. It is not a domination of one sex over the other.
This mutual subjection finds its model in the relation of Christ and his Church. As Christ sacrifices himself for the Church and as Christ and the Church are united through that sacrifice, a husband completely abandons himself for his wife, and vice versa. Each era and each culture may have a different expression of this self-giving and mutual subjection between a husband and a wife. The passage of the Ephesians also reflects its cultural elements. Nevertheless, what our Lord teaches remains the same: the self-donation and mutual subjection according to the mystery of Christ and the Church.
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By Fr Swann KimEphesians 5
I wonder if the passage we heard in the first reading today is still controversial among Christians of our generation. Some modern commentators explain that this passage of the Ephesians is just a product of St Paul’s time and age. Thus, we don’t have to be offended even if it seems St Paul teaches husbands should rule over their wives. His culture heavily conditioned this writing. Now let us not hang up on these words. Let them pass over. They are not relevant to our time and culture. Instead, let us develop a new theology based on equality.
But this approach can seriously undermine the authority of the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It may discredit the whole gospel because there is hardly any passage or episode not culturally conditioned or influenced.
We often miss the first sentence of the passage. It reads: “My brothers and sisters, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is the summary and gist of what St Paul teaches. He is not telling one sex to rule over the other. St Paul doesn’t argue that one sex is superior to the other. Here, he is not discussing the allocation of power between sexes. Too often, modern Christians fall prey to this frame of the power struggle between sexes. However, let us not forget that our religion is not about a competition of any kind for self-interest. As St Paul writes, a husband and a wife should be subjected to each other. It’s a mutual and reciprocal subjection. It is not a domination of one sex over the other.
This mutual subjection finds its model in the relation of Christ and his Church. As Christ sacrifices himself for the Church and as Christ and the Church are united through that sacrifice, a husband completely abandons himself for his wife, and vice versa. Each era and each culture may have a different expression of this self-giving and mutual subjection between a husband and a wife. The passage of the Ephesians also reflects its cultural elements. Nevertheless, what our Lord teaches remains the same: the self-donation and mutual subjection according to the mystery of Christ and the Church.