Three Words

             Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:21-33)

There is one general “submit to one another” command here. It is followed by two verses that instruct wives to submit to their husbands. After that, there are nine verses about husbands loving their wives. There are two basic ways to see this. First, in terms of which member of the couple is likely to have the harder time and need the most instruction. Secondly, the idea that to whom much is given, much will be required. If the husband is to be the head of the household, it is his responsibility to do his part more carefully, more fully, and with greater commitment than the rest of the household, to set the example for the rest. Now I will step down from that soapbox.

This passage was the subject of discussion in my Sunday School class, and several words were used that caught my attention. We have all heard of “unconditional” love. If I may be so bold, it seems to me to be seen as requiring us to say, “That’s OK, keep doing what you’re doing,” to the person we claim to love whether that person beats or rapes our child, slaughters 60 million people (like Chairman Mao)…no matter what they do, we must “love and accept” them.

The term the discussion leader used was a little different. He said, “uncompromising love.” I’m still not sure quite what to do with this term. It seems to have the same “unending love” concept, but (at least in my mind) it lacks the weakness by which the lover must accept, approve, or even celebrate whatever the beloved does or dictates. Uncompromising love says, “Because I love you, I will draw these lines beyond which you may not go.” In a quick search, I found a blogpost that discusses the idea: Teacher of Love: Uncompromising Love.

I still need to read that at least ten more times, but moving on, the second word that came up was that this passage describes teamwork. The third word was “competition.” Marriage and family are meant to be a team, with each member working for their own benefit by working for the benefit of the whole team. A great football player might wow us with his skill, but so interfere with the other members of his team that they lose the game. A football coach (or owner) can so dominate the team that they destroy it. Another team may have less spectacular athletes, but their ability to work together toward their mutual goal results in their victory over the “great” player’s team. Marriages and families can either be a team that cooperates or there can be one superstar who dominates all.

I suspect that we could say that what Scripture calls for us to do is to be uncompromising in our love as we put aside our dreams of superstardom in favor of building a team or building the team members.