The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
We
have heard for the past several weeks of Jesus’ desire to give himself
completely for us, to the point of offering himself on the Cross for our
salvation and of giving himself to us as our true food and drink (cf. John
6:1-69). Today, he asks us, “Does this shock you” (John 6:61)?
No
doubt there are many today who are indeed shocked at so great a love. In an age
of ever-increasing self-absorption and of strident, independent individualism,
so self-less a love seems unfathomable. Yet this love is true; it is real.
Jesus did - and does - love us with a love greater than we can comprehend. Yet
some doubt such a love and others do not desire to be loved so intimately. At
what point in this spectrum do we fall? Today, many people’s ability to accept
the love of Jesus is related to their upbringing, to the manner in which they
received love in their families.
Saint
Paul realized this profound relationship between marriage and God’s own love.
This is why he said, “This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to
Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5:32). The portion of his letter to the
Ephesians which we have just heard finds little support in society today. For
this reason, many marriages have failed because spouses have not rooted their
love for each other in the love of Jesus Christ; they have not measured their
love according to God’s way of loving.
We
strive for independence because of our fallen and sinful condition and long for
what we call freedom, but which – in reality - is really mere license. When we attain
what we seek we do not find ourselves, but rather slaves to our own desires and
passions. Saint Paul shows us the way out of this vicious cycle of
self-enslavement and opens for us the path to authentic freedom.
“Follow
the way of love,” he says earlier in the same letter, “even as Christ loved
you. He gave himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). Who would say that Jesus was not
free? Indeed, he was – and is - freer than any one of us has ever been. It is
true that he was obedient to the Father even to the point of death, but it is
equally true that he freely chose obedience. His was the obedience not of
enslavement, but of love; it is this obedience of love that Saint Paul urges
wives to live when he says, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as
to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22).
Before
we grow angry with Saint Paul and think him a bigot, we must remember what he
writes just before this so-called controversial statement: “Be subordinate to
one another out of reverence for Christ,” words he addresses to everyone (Ephesians5:21). As Christ loved us, so we are to love one another. Because wives are to
love their husbands as they would love Christ, they should be subordinate to
them “because the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of his
body the church” (Ephesians 5:22).
Before
saying anything further, we must consider what it means to be “subordinate” to
someone.
The Greek verb is hypotasso, which means literally ‘to
place or arrange under.’ Here it occurs in the middle voice (hypotassomai) with the meaning ‘to place
oneself under,’ or more simply, ‘submit oneself to’ or ‘defer to.’ It is clear
from the context that voluntary
subordination is intended, like the other voluntary expression of Spirit-filled
life mentioned [by Paul].[1]
This
voluntary act of deferring to one another is placed by Saint Paul in the
context of “reverence for Christ.”
The truly unusual nature of this
instruction is that Paul tells his readers to submit themselves to one another,
still addressing all the members of the community. At first this seems
contradictory. How can two individuals place themselves ‘under’ each other? …
The meaning of this unusual instruction becomes clearer in the light of similar
texts that teach about relationships in the church… Reciprocal humility and
love determine even the relationship that entail authority… Undoubtedly, behind
this teaching stands Jesus’ own teaching about leadership as service (Luke22:25-27), which was demonstrated and explained when he washed the feet of his
disciples (John 13:13-15), foreshadowing his humbling himself for our sake on
the cross.[2]
Here
we see clearly that “God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.” [3]
The
head of the body always looks to the good of the body, to its health, safety,
and satisfaction. This is how Christ cares for his Bride, the Church; this is
how husbands are to care for their wives. What is more, Saint Paul says,
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over
for her to sanctify her” (Ephesians 5:25). Every husband, then, must be filled
with so selfless a love for his wife that he is ready and willing to lay down
even his very life for her. “While on rare occasions dying for one’s wife may
be literally necessary, [Paul] means it in the everyday sense of husbands dying
to self by prioritizing their wives’ needs and wants before their own.
Essentially, Paul is saying, ‘Husbands, seek the good of your wives regardless
of the cost to you.”[4]
If a husband loves his wife in this way, there is no difficulty in deferring to
him. Again, we see clearly that God’s way of loving becomes the measure of
human love.
Certainly,
to live in this way is no simple task and for this reason, in his goodness,
Christ the Lord has raised marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament and has
bestowed his grace upon it to enable husbands and wives to live in such a way
that the love of Christ for the Church is reflected in their marriage.
Christ’s grace is not an external
addition to human nature, it does not do violence to men and women but sets
them free and restores them, precisely by raising them above their own
limitations. And just as the Incarnation of the Son of God reveals its true
meaning in the Cross, so genuine human love is self-giving and cannot exist if
it seeks to detach itself from the Cross.[5]
We
can say, then, that the love of husband and wife is in some way a Eucharistic
love, a love that must imitate the selfless and self-giving love of Jesus
Christ. Husbands and wives must give themselves to each other completely, just
as Jesus gives himself completely for us. When a husband cares more about
himself than his wife, a marriage begins to fail. When a wife cares more about
herself than her husband, a marriage begins to fail. This, too, is a hard
saying and one largely rejected by our society, to great harm for all.
It
is only by following the way of love, it is only by deferring to one another
out of reverence for Christ, that we find true freedom; it is only by imitating
the self-giving love of Jesus that we find everything we seek in life. May the
Lord, then, lead us deeper and deeper into the mystery of his love until our
love perfectly reflects his own, until the measure of our love is the measure
of his love. Amen.
[1] Peter S. Williamson, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture:
Ephesians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009), 155-156.
[2] Ibid., 156-157.
[3] Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas
est, 11.
[4] Peter S. Williamson, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture:
Ephesians, 166.
[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Address to
Participants in the Diocesan Convention of Rome, 6 June 2005.
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