23.05 | Given, Not Taken
Ephesians 5:22-6:9
‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. …Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…’
Ephesians 5:22, 25
There’s a well-loved story about two silver candlesticks.
The story is found in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Misérables, which tells the story of Jean Valjean. Valjean had been imprisoned for 19 hard years, for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister’s family. On his release, he was taken in by the kindly Bishop Myriel. During the night, however, Valjean — in the grasping anxiety of one who’s learned to distrust — steals the bishop’s silverware and leaves. He’s quickly accosted by the police, who take him back to the bishop as the shamed and accused.
It’s the pivotal moment of the novel (or musical). The bishop, rather than joining in the accusation of Valjean, tells the police that the silverware was not taken, but rather had been given. But, he says, Valjean left in such a hurry, that he forgot to also take the gift of two (highly valuable) silver candlesticks. The police leave satisfied, and Valjean’s life is turned around by this extraordinary act of kindness. He carries those candlesticks throughout his life, as a reminder of the act of grace that transformed his heart.
There’s an extraordinary difference between that which is taken and that which is given.
Today’s passage causes most of us some anxiety. We read words about submission and obedience, and we fear that these things will be demanded by the abusive. In a world where the strong and powerful have so often lived out such humiliating taking from the powerless, we bring a lot of baggage to this passage.
But we need to look a little closer. Because Paul is writing about something inherently more beautiful.
There’s a clue in noticing who he is addressing in each statement:
Wives, he says, submit…
Husbands, love…
Children, obey…
Bondservants, obey…
Paul is not speaking about something to be taken by the abusive, but something to be freely and generously given by the empowered. He is not speaking about demeaning acts of enforced submission, love or obedience; he is speaking instead about the willing acts of the most perfectly secure. He is speaking of the heart that knows its inherent worth so deeply that its submission and love and obedience is freely offered as an act of grace. Paul is not inviting the Ephesians to the grasping fear of Valjean, but to the radical generosity of Bishop Myriel.
The passage is bound together by the words that precede it, taken from yesterday’s reading:
…submitting to one another, out of reverence for Christ.
In an age where the morality of the Western world, drawing on deep Christian roots, has looked to correct the power abuses of the strong over the weak, our vision of reality can become reactive — settling for a ‘gospel’ of personal protection, individual rights, and entitlement. But today’s passage invites us to something infinitely more beautiful: a community full of lives of mutual, self-giving love, seeking in all things to willingly choose the wellbeing of those around us, in these temporary structures of the world in which we find ourselves.1 It’s a glimpse of a different paradigm. It’s an invitation to a deeper way. It’s a taste of the culture of heaven, shaped and inspired by the Cross of the Jesus who abandoned all privilege to hand the candlesticks of grace to a shamed humanity.
The invitation is to willing submission that looks to honour and empower, to trust and elevate.
It is to sacrificial love, that looks to serve and beautify, to unleash and mobilise.
It is to willing obedience, that looks to learn and respect, to honour and to uphold.
Thus is the narrow way of the Kingdom, where mutual honour and interdependent self-giving becomes the very atmosphere in which the wounded hearts of the fearful are healed unto the extraordinary generosity of the Way of grace.
Reflect:
Spend some time with the story of Valjean and Myriel. And look at the person of Jesus reflected in this story. Let it soak into your soul.
And now consider your day in light of this. Where may He be inviting you to the lower path of personal surrender, that those hurting lives you touch today may be lifted higher?
Pray:
Father,
My prayer begins by
Looking to Jesus.
So often, I focus on a Gospel,
That crucifies Him,
But elevates me.
So often, I focus on what He gave,
And what I have gained.
So often, I live as one who takes,
And not one who gives.
But, loving Father,
I catch a glimpse today,
That you call me deeper still,
Unto walking in the Way of my crucified Lord.
That the truest outplay of empowerment,
Is the willing offering of all that I am,
In the greatest love.
And Father,
It is clear to my heart,
That this is vastly beyond me.
And so,
In my little choices today,
Would you empower this greater heart of love in me,
That I may stand in the perfect dignity
Of those who have learned to beautifully submit,
To sacrificially love,
And to willingly obey,
In the culture of your Kingdom.
And to live in your Way.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
1 Kings 3-4 | Psalm 68:19-35
This theme of how to inhabit the temporary (that is, of this age) structures of the world with a Kingdom mindset occurs a number of times in the New Testament. These passages generally include marriage (for, as Jesus said, there will be no marriage in the age to come), the nuclear family, and how slaves and masters should interact. The idea in each of these is how to live out our heavenly (i.e. future) identity amidst (present) structures that will soon come to an end. See also 1 Corinthians 7, Colossians 3:18-25, 1 Peter 3:1-7, Titus 2:1-10.