Holy Trinity Episcopal Church

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August 31, 2006

Fred Heard - August 27, 2006

Sermon—August 27, 2006 Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Father Fred Heard

Ephesians 5:21-33, John 6:60-69

It is always interesting to me to enter into a discussion when people start quoting their favorite Bible verses. Sometimes, their favorites are really from the Declaration of Independence or one of Shakespeare’s plays.
It gets awkward when they turn to you and insist that you provide the scriptural citation and with a straight face you must tell them it’s Romeo and Juliet!

And so today, we confront the elephant in the living room! You remember a few weeks ago when I quoted the bumper sticker that reads, “It’s in the Bible and I believe the Bible, end of discussion.” Mary Lambert has been a member of a First Baptist church in Watertown, New York for the past 60 years and she has been a Sunday school teacher there for 54 years. Last Thursday she was dismissed because the Diaconate Board adopted the scriptural qualifications which prohibit women from teaching men. The letter suggested that women should learn in quietness and be in full submission to men. They said Adam was formed first and he was not the one deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and became the sinner. The letter was signed by the wife of the pastor who is also a city council member in Watertown.

In this morning’s second reading we read, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” Misinterpretation of our second reading has actually led to women’s deaths over the years and has certainly played into the thinking that led to Mary Lambert’s dismissal as a Sunday school teacher. Interpretations of this scripture is one of the reasons that former President Jimmy Carter moved his membership to a more accepting and open Baptist church. But lest you think it is a Baptist problem, Adair’s mother, a devout cradle Episcopalian, had taught Sunday school for many years in Oregon and was told when she was pregnant with Adair’s youngest brother that it was “unseemly” to be around the children while she was pregnant and it would be best for her to take the year off from teaching. She never returned to church.

Unfortunately, there are Christian women whose husbands abuse them and then cite Ephesians 5 as their authority for the abuse, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” Something is wrong when a portion of the Bible is used as justification for abuse of anyone.

When I was in seminary, the day came when the New Testament professor was to lecture on Paul…great groans came from the class members. I will never forget the professor’s comment. He said, “Don’t be hard on Paul—he really was a liberal and has been given a bum wrap…by misinterpretation.”…and so what about this misinterpretation—well let’s look at it and I hope you will take this message and spread it throughout our community.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, Paul says without qualification that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. He says that in Christ men and women stand on level ground. Where do society and Paul come from in reaching this point where Paul is so much inclined toward liberation of women? Ancient Greece followed the teachings of Socrates. He maintained that being born a woman is divine punishment and that a woman is halfway between a man and an animal. Socrates did suggest that a woman could serve in the armed forces because a female dog is as useful to a shepherd as a male dog. Aristotle noticed that a swarm of bees is led by one bee…a king bee, since males by nature are more fit to command than are females. Aristotle maintained that men show their courage by giving orders, while women show their courage by following orders. In ancient Athens women took no part in public affairs, never appearing with men at meals or social occasions. Things were better for women in Sparta and Egypt but neither influenced the world as Athens did.

In the Roman era which followed the Greeks, women were permitted to accompany husbands socially but were still regarded as humanly inferior. It was little better in the Jewish world. It was improper for a man to speak to a woman in public, even if she were his wife. If a married woman spoke to a man on the street, the rabbis said her husband could divorce her on the grounds that her conversation was insipient adultery. Now this is the background that Jesus and Paul emerged from as they conducted their ministries so think what a revolutionary Jesus was—every day he spoke to women in public! They even spoke to him! Women—married and unmarried were included in Jesus’ group of disciples. It was a woman who wiped his feet with her hair. Don’t you think Paul knew what Jesus was doing? Paul mentions female supporters by name. In the gospel, there are two women who struggled “beside me.” He doesn’t say under me. Paul refers to a married couple as fellow workers in Jesus Christ. He refers to them as Prisca and Aquila with her name first—which just wasn’t done. At the end of his Roman letter, Paul mentions several church leaders by name, and that list includes eight women.

One qualification for being an apostle was to have been an eye-witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Women were the first witnesses. Women preached and prayed and traveled with Jesus and it truly makes one wonder why they were good enough to minister in the company of Jesus Christ—but not, in the minds of some, good enough even today to be ordained and even serve as Bishop and Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Notice that verse 21 precedes verse 22 in today’s reading: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is for everyone…mutual subordination, mutual subjection, mutual self-denial. “Be subject to” does not mean obey. Paul never says that a wife or a husband is to obey the other.

In Ephesians, the theme is the unity of Christ and his people. Paul emphasizes this same unity between a husband and a wife and Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5:31-32 we read, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.”

English is a difficult language because one word can have so many different meanings. So when we read that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church—the key word is head. We turn to English and for our purposes the head is either a part of the body attached to the neck or a political head or chief boss or governor. Just as English has different words and meanings, Greek does also and that is the case with the words obey and head. In Greek and Hebrew, there were different words and meanings for head and obey.
The Old Testament was first written in Hebrew and later translated into Greek. Most of the Jews did not know Hebrew. Paul did—but he always quotes the Old Testament in Greek so that he might be understood. In Hebrew Rosh is the word for head when describing a chief, ruler, or a boss or commander. In Greek, the word for the same definition for head is ARCHON. Indeed, the President of my Greek fraternity in college was called the Archon.

When speaking of the “force of life” the word for head was KEPHALE. Paul speaks of the husband as the Kephale of his wife, not the Archon. In military parlance, Kephale is also used to speak of the front line soldier who is the first in line of fire. Paul often used military metaphors and compared the Christian journey to soldiering. Paul, then, believes the husband is like the soldier who incurs great vulnerability—the great risk— and is self forgetful…all for the sake of others.

The theme today in Ephesians is the unity of Christ and his people and the unity of husband and wife—it is not the hierarchy of either. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Recognize each need in the other and help each other at whatever cost. Jesus said in today’s gospel, “I am the bread which came down from heaven…the one who eats this bread will live forever.” The “one who eats this bread”—neither male nor female is designated—but the one. Jesus has the words of eternal life. Those words do not include abuse or superiority…They are the words for all for all of the ages. AMEN