|
A message by
Rev. F. David Throop, Pastor
July 20, 2008 Scripture: Colossians 3:18-4:1 Please pray with me:
Loving and gracious God, we so often think and refer to ourselves as a church family. We talk about ourselves as Christ’s family and as Your family. But are we, really? Dear Lord, during these moments, if there is anything we need to learn anew about being a member of Your family, help us to hear it, to learn it, and then to do it. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
So now, you wives who are present here this morning, just what is your take on what we just shared, “Wives,” Paul writes, “submit to your husbands . . .” Are you wives okay with these words? Or, would you like to say, “Yah, right!” Taken alone, one thing is for certain: I don’t believe Paul would ever have won an election with this kind of advice to the wives of this culture.
And you husbands who are present here this morning, what is your take on what we just read, “Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” Is this why you came here this morning, to hear these words?
And you children, just what is your take on what we have just read, as Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in everything . . .” Agree or disagree? Deal, or no deal?
And you parents, just what is your take on these words of Paul as he writes, “Do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Are there some of you wanting to say, “But Paul, you have absolutely no idea what I have to deal with in our home.”
And seeing that the lion’s share of words are reserved for slaves and their masters, let me ask you who are slaves and masters with us today . . . Oh, we have none? But if we did, the gist of Paul’s words seems okay, does it not? “Work with sincerity of heart and with reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if you are working for the Lord, not for men, since you well know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
As for me, I don’t have any problems with these words to slaves. In fact, I think this advice would work well with all of us who are not slaves. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if you are working for the Lord . . .”
Having said this, let’s get back to these previous words on wives and husbands and children and parents. Do you understand the problem with these verses, the difficulty with what we have just read? Given everything Paul could have written about wives, do any of you find it a bit strange that it all seems to come down to “submission?” And do you find the same true in terms of Paul’s words for husbands, that it all seems to come down to not being harsh with our wives? And for children, of everything Paul could have written, is it at all problematic for any of you that it all seems to come down only to the issue of obedience? And for parents, do you find it a bit bizarre that the only advice Paul gives here is not to embitter our children?
So, what are we to do with these verses? What are we to do with a scattering of verses which seem about as disjointed and as irrelevant as any? What do we do with these verses directly from the word of God, verses which for some people, or maybe even a great many people, create greater difficulties than they do in providing helpful guidance? Just what do we do with them?
Well, if anything, what we do is to read and understand them not out of context but in the context of the rest of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, as well as the context of the scriptures which are the core of our faith as God’s family.
To place these words into context, I believe that we must read them as an unbroken continuation of the verse which immediately precedes this section, as Paul writes, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” In other words, you wives, whatever your relationship with your husbands, live in that relationship in the spirit of Christ’s love, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And you husbands, whatever your relationship with your wives, treat them in the spirit of Christ’s love, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And you children, whatever your relationship with your parents, treat your parents in the spirit of Christ’s love, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And you parents, whatever your relationship with your children, treat them in the spirit of Christ’s love, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I believe this is what Paul is asking here. And to all of society, treat each other in the spirit of how you see Christians treating each other with Christ’s love, as they give thanks to God the Father through him.
The problem was and the problem still is that far too many, even within the fellowship of the Christian church, often try to develop and mold a family far outside the pattern of the family which God intended through Jesus Christ.
Ours is a relational faith, and this is why we so often speak of and refer to the church as a family. From the very beginning, God created us to be a family, to be, first of all, in a right relationship with God, and in order that we might extend that right relationship with everyone else in this family. That is, as God forgives us, we are called to extend that same gift of forgiveness to others. As God loves us and exercises patience with us, you and I are called to be the extensions of God’s loving patience with others.
And these kinds of relationships are encouraged because once we start living our lives in a manner which seems right only in our own eyes, our relationships will fail just as quickly as did so many of the Old Testament people, those who conducted their lives and relationships based only on what seemed right in their own eyes. Throughout the Old Testament, we read those awful words, “And everyone did what was right in their own lives.” And things always, always got worse.
I am certain you all realize that we continue to have an enormous challenge in front of us these days, with so much of that challenge centering on strengthening the relational health of each of our families. On the ABC news this past Thursday evening, it was announced that last year, 2007, there were more babies born here in the United States than in any previous year. Prior to 2007, the birth record in our nation was held by the year 1957, but the new numbers beat the old numbers by about 15,000. In the year 2007 there were 4,315,000 babies born here in the U.S. (from the National Center of Health Statistics)! That number is not too far away from being almost double the size of the entire Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination of only 2.3 million members!
Like each of you, as I hear of these 4,315,000 babies being born across our nation, I begin to wonder about some of them. I wonder about the families into which these little babies have been born. I wonder about their communities. I wonder how many of them were born into a Christian home and into a Christian church.
Some of these babies are going to be surrounded by wonderful families and friends, and they will be brought up in a wonderfully caring Christian church, infants like Elianna Grimes and Joshua Plick, two of Mary’s and my own grandchildren. And I speak of Trey Harmon, infant son of our Associate Pastor, Frank and his wife, Becca, not to mention Annugraha, otherwise known as Annu, infant son of our dear PPC friends, Himkala and Ginindra. And based on the number of rose buds we’ve seen throughout this past year, we know of a great many more infants of the extended PPC family to add to this list. I don’t have any real concerns about these babies. I know their families, and I know that these little babies will be nurtured with a special Christ-like love.
But I do have concerns with those new born infants from 2007 whose parents or grandparents or guardians do not share the Christian faith, or any faith as far as that is concerned, those families who are simply doing what seems right in their own lives, many of whom are simply carrying over some abusive behavior each of them received when they were small children.
This seems to be at least part of the backdrop of the family problems Paul was addressing so long ago, that is, people living in a mostly pagan heathen society and who were trying to shape their families with so-called values originating out of that pagan heathen culture. From what we know from this early era when Paul wrote this letter, and especially in comparison to our own Christian families here, the family unit in those days was experiencing enormous difficulties and challenges, difficulties and challenges so very different from our own.
And whatever it was about the family unit from how Paul saw things and what he had observed, and trusting that more and more husbands were becoming sincerely committed to living a more Christ-like life, Paul urges wives to submit to their husbands in a manner fitting to the Lord. In other words, he had just written, “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” It is the clear presumption that this issue of submission was not submission to a tyrant husband, but rather, a submission to a Christian husband, a husband who was sincerely seeking to exemplify the love of Christ.
And maybe Paul had witnessed some husbands here and there behaving differently than this, being very harsh with their wives. After all, in those days, women were more of a commodity or a play thing than a wife. And as the Christian faith and Church spread, families were becoming different, more caring, and so forth. And women were certainly becoming less of a commodity. But in certain areas, it may have been slow going, and Paul saw some remnants of previous pagan-like behavior. And perhaps because of what he saw, he reminded the married men, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.”
And we can probably say the same thing about Paul’s words directed to children, that if the parents were sincere about being Christian in their parenting, that children should certainly live in trusting obedience to them. In other words, if two parents are working hard to follow the ways of Christ in their parenting, and if those same two parents are also seeking hard to follow the ways of Christ in their marriage, there should really be no concern about such things as submission from wives and obedience from children. And yet, these words of “submission” and “obedience” are still a stumbling block for so many.
A number of years ago, I received a phone call from a young woman who had recently become engaged, and she was trying to find a church setting for her wedding, along with a minister who would officiate. After she had introduced herself, we visited a short while about her interests and so forth. But then, she asked me her real question. She asked, “In your wedding services, in the marriage vows you use,” she asked me, “do you have anything about wives living in submission to their husbands? Is there anything about wives obeying their husbands?” She made it very clear to me by how she asked her question that in her marriage, there would nothing even hinting at submission and obedience.
Well, in response to her question, I shared with her portions of the wedding service I use, including the question of intent and the marriage vows. The question of intent reads like this: “Do you (the bride) take (the groom) to be your husband, promising to live together with him according to God's purpose in Holy Marriage? Will you pledge your faithfulness to him, promising to love him, to comfort him, to honor him, and to cherish him in all faith and tenderness, and forsaking all others, will you keep him only unto yourself, so long as you both shall live?” I told her that we use the same question for the groom.
I then read to her the marriage vow which we use here and which is this: “I, (the bride) take you, (the groom) to be my beloved husband, and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife, to have and to hold you, from this day forward, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, to love you and to cherish you, according to God's holy purpose, so long as we both shall live, and, in this commitment, I entrust you with my life.” I reminded her that we use the same vow for the groom. She felt very relieved with her concerns, and following that phone visit, this couple then made a decision to be married here. And in our time of pre-marital conversations, I had a wonderful opportunity to expand on the meanings of these questions of intent and the vows of faithfulness.
So, a couple like this becomes married. Now what? What happens is that a new family is born. Now what, and how does this family add to or detract from our larger understanding of family?
There are a lot of strange definitions and understandings of family floating around out there. The truth is, for a lot of people out there, realistically a family is defined not so much in terms of relationships but more in terms of a location, a building, a piece of real estate, a street address. For some, a family refers to a place to eat and a place to sleep and a place to be entertained with all kinds of sophisticated and very expensive electronic media. It’s a place to work or to rest from work, a place to fix lunches and do the laundry, a place to park cars at night, and so forth.
And maybe, just maybe, this is what the Apostle Paul had seen too much of in his day. And any time he could say something or write something to encourage developing a family defined more by relationships, he did so.
And so, solely out of concern and with encouragement, he asks wives to submit with a Christ-like love to their husbands who are also learning the ways of Christ. And to the husbands, Paul is simply encouraging them to love their wives with a more Christ-like love, and not to be so harsh with them as they once were before becoming a Christian. And he writes the same to children and to their parents, as he writes now to all of us, pleading with us, “Whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Copyright © 2008 by Rev. F. David Throop. All rights reserved. No part of this sermon may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of a very brief quotation, which will acknowledge the source. |
