Wives, submit to your husbands

Wow.

I was not looking forward to this topic.  And can you blame me?  Most of the time when something like this comes up, I'm rather tempted to pretend like I didn't see it.  You know, like when you see something gross at the back of the fridge, really old spaghetti or something, and you just sort of like pretend like it's not there?  You just stack stuff in front of it, and hope that magically someone else will take care of it?  Or the cat makes a noise like a breadmaker, and you just KNOW he's throwing up on the floor somewhere, but you act like you can't hear it?  Or if your baby is starting to smell bad, but you pretend like everything's fine and dandy, and you can't smell a thing?

Yeah.  Like that.

Of all the passages in the Bible that are gonna get me into some srs trouble, this was the big one.  Ephesians 5:22-33. Oh boy oh boy. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, here it is verbatim.

Wives and Husbands

²²  Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the

 Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife 
even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, 
and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, 
so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
²⁵  Husbands, love your wives, 
as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
²⁶ that he might sanctify her,
 having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
 ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, 
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, 
that she might be holy and without blemish.^[a]
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. 
He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹
 For no one ever hated his own flesh, 
but nourishes and cherishes it, 
just as Christ does the church,
³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ 
 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 
and the two shall become one flesh.”
³² This mystery is profound, 
and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
³³ However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, 
and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

                         (ESV)

This is how it appeared Sunday morning, and it scared the heebie jeebies out of me.  And why not? This passage seems designed in a lab to tick off as many folks as possible, those in the church as well as those outside it.  Ain't nobody wants to hear that one, except for a whole buncha out of date dinosaurs who want to control women.  Do regular people want to hear it? Nah, well-meaning Christians want to pretend it's not there, and anti-theists love to point it out as a failing in the faith.  How could a loving God endorse such a backwards, stone age idea, that women should be submissive to men?  For shame.

Of course, I naturally live in a home in which I am well in control all the time, and my wife is totally submissive to me in everything.  I'm the head of the household, and we do what I want all the time.  Don't believe me?  Ask my wife.  Okay, maybe I don't.  Maybe my wife sometimes gets her way, and maybe I get mine.  Or, more likely, maybe neither of us do, because our children tend to dictate how things are gonna go for the majority of the time.  So how do I reconcile all of this with the Biblical idea of headship?

Well, I have an opinion.  And y'all ain't gonna like it.  You're not going to like it, because this whole thing ends up being a little bit close to home.  You see, we Christians, and people outside the church are no different, we tend to conflate a couple of things.  We tend to conflate the idea of righteousness with righteous deeds.  And the two are worlds apart.  We (and by we, I include me) tend to think that if we think the right things about the poor, if we believe that it's in everyone's best interests to help the unemployed, the poor, the downtrodden, all that, then it's as good as helping them. Right?  The reading that I used on Sunday is a classic example of that.  The image that Christ himself paints of the final judgment (and this is the only image Christ paints of the final judgment).  It's from Matthew 25.  

The Sheep and the Goats

³¹ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. ”

Get that.  And who is this about? Poor people, right?  Poor people, sick people, people in jail, all that. But the point I was trying to make on Sunday is that this is also about your husband.  Yes it is.  We think about this reading as only applying to people we've never met, never seen, and who live in some foreign country somewhere.  A problem that we can solve by throwing money at.  But Jesus doesn't say that.  He doesn't say "as long as you did this for poor people, people you've never met, people who you have never seen in your whole life, you did it for me."  No, he says 'the least of these.'  And maybe, just maybe, the least of these is that oaf who lives in your house.  That klutz of a husband who can't cook, can't clean, and stinks up the bathroom.  Maybe part of your call to service to those created in the image of God is to do things for your husband that you'd rather not be doing.  And maybe, just maybe, charity does begin at home.  Maybe when the Bible tells you to submit to your husband as the church submits to christ, it's telling you to model this kind of behavior.  When your husband is hungry, do you feed him? When he is thirsty do you give him a drink?  Do you care for him when he's sick, do you clean his clothes when he's out of clean ones?  All the stuff that you think you should theoretically do for complete strangers, yet quite frequently something you don't do, or at least don't want to do for someone who lives in your home.

Likewise, Gentlemen, don't think you're escaping scott free. Don't think that this is a lesson for ladies only, and you can just say 'yeah ladies.  Get to work!'  Nah, the idea is there that you have some tough stuff to do, too.  Again, as I said on Sunday, the idea is that husbands should love their wives as Christ love the church, giving himself up for her.  And you think that this is a matter of dying for your bride in a crucial romantic, action packed way.  But if it's loving your bride as Christ loves the church, get ready for things to not be a one time thing.  How did Christ love the church?  Yes, by dying for her on the cross, but it's more than that.  It was also an entire life of loving service.  Using his skills and abilities, his power for them, not for himself.  When there were fishes and loaves to be multiplied, it was so others could eat.  It was a life filled with literal and figurative washing of feet.  Making sure that everyone else was well fed, forgiven, renewed, healed and cared for, though it meant that he had no place to lay his head.  He spent so much time telling people what was good and true, even if it wasn't popular, telling folks to pay their taxes and to worship God only.  It was a matter of never going where he wanted, never doing what he wanted, always working for the benefit of other people, and rarely having any time to himself.  It was a life in which he laid down his life not just all at once, but an hour at a time.  A minute at a time, until there was nothing left. It went as far as him being led away from everything he'd held dear, abandoned by everyone, with not even the clothes on his back, bleeding his life out for all mankind.

And we complain if we don't get to watch sportscentre.

Maybe your injunction is just as difficult as that of the ladies.  Maybe everyone has something to do.  And maybe, just maybe, we're each being told to live a life of service, one to the other.  Maybe it's using different language, but amounting to the same thing.  Maybe we're each told that the time for looking out for our own interests is over, and the time for working together is beginning.  Submission and service, working for the other, and laying down our lives a minute at a time.  None of this means that we're supposed to be a doormat, or to allow ourselves to be abused, or neglected, or whatever.  But it does mean that we're supposed to serve the other person.

I realize how unattractive that must sound to modern sensibilities.  I realize that many of you will not be happy with the idea of marriage as a life of servitude, but that's what it amounts to.  But it's not just that.  After hearing all about how perfect you should be as a spouse, there's something else lurking in the background.  The knowledge that you're going to mess it up.  That you're going to say something stupid.  And you're going to have to do the ultimate.  You're going to have to repent, and you're going to have to forgive. 

The best fights are the ones that don't end with a winner.  The best fights are the ones in which everyone ends up repenting, and everyone ends up forgiving.  The best fights are the ones where you aren't keeping score, but realizing that you're probably only hurting yourselves. And maybe the best way forward is to take a step backwards, and admit that you were wrong, or if not wrong, then probably a bit spiteful.  Maybe in this case, competition doesn't make a horse race.  Maybe the two who are as one flesh need to act like it. And you won't get to that point by focusing on who is right.  You'll get to that point by the very very unglamorous notion of service, repentance and forgiveness.  

Do you like this? Probably not.  But ask yourself how far you think you'll get in a marriage in which it's one pitted against the other. If you take it seriously, you're one flesh now, one family.  And your left side doesn't keep score against your right.  You need to work together, and when you can't you need to confess, forgive, and move on.  Wives and husbands need to look out for each other.  They need to bear one another's burdens, and by doing so, fulfill the law of Christ.

Have a good week everyone.

PJ.

Eye-rolling

"You can't tell me what to do!"

That should sound familiar.  If it doesn't, then you've been too busy saying it, instead of listening to others say it to you.  Now, this is the kind of spoiled, petulant sentence you'd expect to hear from someone who has just discovered that they're an adult now, and you can' tell them what to do.  And those of us who have been adults for long enough, we sort of cluck our thick tongues, and suggest oh so very delicately that perhaps folks might want to consider.  After all, we've been around for a while, and we know what's what, and perhaps the younger generation might benefit from our advanced knowledge.

But they'd rather not.

They're convinced, up and down, that they should be the only ones who have anything to say about anything.  They're 19 now, and they don't have to listen to anything anyone says, no matter how well meaning the advice.

And you and I might think that they should. But we're not much good at taking well meaning advice ourselves, don't you know.  You'll remember, no doubt, on Sunday, how I talked about people not liking what they might end up hearing from the pulpit.  Well, I hope I primed you especially well, because you'll never believe what we've got for a reading this upcoming Sunday.

Ephesians 5:22-33

I'll pause for a moment and let that sink in.  Oh wait.  You might not know what Ephesians 5:22-33 is off the top of your head.  Allow me to elucidate for you.  It begins thusly:

"Wives, submit to your husbands..."

Ladies, do you react to this verse with this much glee?

You're not interested in hearing the rest, are you?  You're really not.  Because if you're a sensible, progressive Christian, you've all but buried this passage way at the back of your 'things I want to hear from the pulpit, from a pastor, heck from anyone' list.  It all seems hopelessly out of date, doesn't it?  It would seem quaint, if it wasn't so offensive.  The whole idea of submission gets everyone all up in arms before any actual conversation begins.  We get a little bit bothered by it right away.  And because it's such a hot button topic, it shuts down the conversation before it even starts.  

As well it might.

But I hope you learned something from the sermon on Sunday.  That is, if you were there.  My main point was talking about the reaction that Jesus got when he started talking to his disciples about the necessity of communion, his death and resurrection, and all that.  And when the people heard it, they said, in delightful ESV english

"This is a hard teaching.  Who can listen to it?"

And from that point, many of his disciples turned back.  I have long loved this passage as a very poignant scene being painted in the scriptures.  Here is Jesus, desperately telling his followers about the reason that they should be following him, for the love of God and the life everlasting, all that, and when he levels the boom, and delivers a hard teaching, they turn back.  It reminds me an awful lot of a story my father told me (my father being a most eminent biologist), about a guy who was taking a course, and had a deferred test, for whatever reason or other.  So he went in for the deferred test, and it was a lab test.  Question one was "Describe the condition of the specimen."  

To which the guy said "This is too hard, I'm dropping the course."

And he did.

We're struggling right now with our son, and his reading and math and all that, because he knows how to do it, he knows how to put his shoes and clothes on and all that, but if you ask him to, he will immediately replay with "I caaaaaaaaaan't".  Our attitude as people seems to be that the first bump in the road we hit, we're out.  We're gone.  We want out right away.  We're in no mood to wait around to see things get better.  We want out and we want out now.  If things aren't wonderful, if we can't succeed the first time around, if things aren't totally rosy for us to begin with, then we want out.

And you're going to want out after Sunday.  Believe me, you're going to want out.  I'm going to talk about Christian marriage, and spoiler alert, you might not want to hear it.  You may hear it and say 'well this is a hard teaching, who can listen to it?'  Actually, you're more likely to say 'this is bronze age-mumbo jumbo, written by a misogynist, who had huge problems with women, therefore I have no interest in continuing this relationship with this any further.'

But hold your horses.

The second half of the poignant scene with Jesus and his disciples comes into things after everyone else has cleared out.  And Jesus says to the twelve 'are you going to leave too?'  Everyone else is gone, why not you guys?  And Peter says something that has been a part of our liturgy for as long as I can remember.  I grew up singing this as part of the liturgy, the gospel acclamation.

Alleluia, Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words

of eternal life.  Alleluia alleluia.

It's a beautiful part of our liturgy, and it says more than we think it does.  Right before we hear the Gospel reading, we echo the beaten and thrashed, yet curiously hopeful disciples, saying that we, like they, have nowhere else to go to get life.  Where else could we go. The disciples didn't answer 'wow, Jesus, we totally love everything you say' because they don't.  They didn't say 'we adore when you tell people tough stuff' because they didn't like that either.  Instead, they say 'we have a hard time with this too, but where else could we possibly go?  You have life.  You've had life from the beginning.  You ARE life.'

And knowing that, it makes the bits that you don't like a little easier to get through.  You see, the bits you don't like, those are a problem.  But instead of turning back at the first bump in the road (or more accurately, turning back after this Sunday), we're supposed to get something figured out first:  God is God.  If he has something to say, it's a good idea to listen.  And we may not like it.  We may not agree. We may get all sorts of cross and walk away mad.  I understand that.  I'm a human being too, and I don't overly care for what God has to say sometimes.  

But it's like when your parents give you advice.  You may roll your eyes, you may grumble, you may get a little bit annoyed by what they have to say.  You may be displeased by their interference.  But you can't just shake them off.  Think about why they give you advice, even the advice you might disagree with.  They do it because they love you, and because they want the best for you.  You may dislike the advice.  You may not take the advice, but before you stomp away angry, from either God or your earthly parents, remember that they have your best in mind.  They want you to be happy, they want you to have life, and to have it abundantly.  The Bible frames it with the words 

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

And so it is.  If you've got fear of the Lord down pat, if you know that the advice he offers is in your best interests, then you can listen to it or not, but you'll be way less tempted to just walk away.  Because he has the words of eternal life.

PJ.

"Kitten" Riot get sentenced

Well, it's finally happened.  The ladies from "Kitten" riot, that Russian punk band, have been sentenced for hooliganism.  Two years, they got, for hooliganism, on account of being hooligans.  For those of you who don't know what's going on with this, here's a quick refresher course.

Mm hmm. So, they've been sentenced, and will likely be going to jail for a couple of years.  And the majority of discussion that I'm hearing is about how freedom of speech is being set back decades in Russia, and about how church and state should separate.  I'll deal with each of these things in turn.

Firstly, vis-a-vis freedom of speech, and my support of it.  I am very in favor of freedom of speech, including speech that I don't like.  And this was speech that I wasn't really on board with.  I'm not a real fan of their music (really, Pastor Jim doesn't care for punk music.  I'll give that a second to sink in).  I was also a little perturbed by their lyrics for the song, which I won't repeat here, by virtue of this being a sanctified blog.  But if you want to find them, or an english version of them, it's out there.

Happy to give you the video in Russian.  It doesn't take long, does it?  Not a super long concert that gets them arrested and carried away.  But you can see from the second it gets going, that people want it to stop.  The good staff of the cathedral are not interested in this concert proceeding, and seek to have it grind to a halt. And they try to stop them from playing.

And I don't believe that their free speech was violated by this.

I'll explain myself.  I'm in favor of "Kitten" riot being allowed to say what they like.  They can be as anti-Putin, or as anti-church, or any mixture of the two as they like.  I don't care for it, but I wouldn't say that they shouldn't be allowed to say what they like.  Of course they should.  But I'm not in favor of them commandeering the cathedral to make their point.  However valid of a point it may be.

It reminds me of graffiti in a way.  Graffiti in this area is largely illegal, even though it happens all the time.  If you get caught 'tagging,' you can face some penalties or other.  And why might that be?  Doesn't that violate your freedom of expression as well?  Isn't telling people what they can and cannot spraypaint a violation of their rights?  Not at all.  If you want to Banksy yourself up, and put street art up all over the place, then you have some choices - get the permission of the people who own the wall that you're about to repurpose, or second, build your own wall, and illustrate that.  Otherwise, what you're doing is ruining something that someone else has paid money for, something that doesn't belong to you.  And that's not okay.  In the same way that you'd resent someone coming into your home and writing their name all over your kitchen walls.  You'd likely claim 'hey, that's mine!  Get off!"  It's the same thing, just with an increased sense of justification.

Can you write what you like?  Absolutely.  Can you write what you like even though I disagree with it?  Sure!  Can you write what you like all over stuff that isn't yours?  I'd say no.

The principle carries over to staging a punk rock protest in a cathedral.  If the people who own and operate and administrate the cathedral don't want you having a  protest there, then you probably shouldn't.  It's not yours.  If you would have asked, they would have said no, and they clearly wanted you out of there from the second you started.  You can say what you like, but not wherever you like.

Which brings me to my second point.  Separation of church and state.  Happily enough, this story about the conviction of "Kitten riot" comes on the same day that the CBC is running a story about Kelowna mulling over flying a pro-choice flag from city hall.

One of the commenters had this to say:

Public institutions have a mandate to serve the public, 

and refrain from pandering to special interests. 

Private citizens have the right to live their lives according to their 

own conscience. They may not hijack public offices for personal propaganda.

Fly your flag, fly it in the face of the truth. Religion does not belong anywhere near politics.

The poster in question would like religion and politics to stay far far apart from each other.  Okay.  But does that idea go both ways.  I have been told many times (over the internet), that I am free to be as religious as I like, as long as I don't force my beliefs down anyone else's throat, which usually means that I can be religious as long as I don't talk about it outside of home or church.

Ah.  If we believe in a separation of church and state, that means that political buildings should be neutral in regards to faith, and religious buildings should be neutral in regards to politics.  It cuts both ways.  I would imagine that were I to break into the house of commons and start conducting a full liturgy, I would be asked to leave very quickly (in this country, I might not be arrested, though I might if I refused to leave).  You may very well agree with the sentiments behind the punk band's song, and support them in their efforts, but is this what the church is for?  

I for one, and quite in favor of separation of church and state, mainly because the marriage of the two creates a horrible, moribund church.  It's funny that most atheists that I meet are very in favor of the separation of church and state, when in reality, they might want to consider being pro union of church and state, the Christian church at least.  Further to my point, check out these nations with established churches:

Weekly church attendance statistics

Country	Attendance (%)	Country	Attendance (%)	Country	Attendance (%)	Country	Attendance (%)
Austria	18% [8]	Belgium	7% [9]	Canada	20%[10]	Denmark	3% [8]
Cyprus	25% [8]	Czech Republic	11% [8]	Estonia	4% [8]	Finland	5% [8]
France	12% [11]	Greece	27% [8]	Hungary	12% [8]	Iceland	10% [12]
Ireland	46% [13]	Italy	31% [8]	Latvia	7% [8]	Lithuania	14% [8]
Malta	75% [8]	Norway	3% [14]	Poland	63% [8]	Portugal	29% [8]
Slovakia	33% [8]	Slovenia	18% [8]	Spain	21% [8]	Sweden	5% [8]
United Kingdom	14% [15]	United States	43%[16]

The UK has an established church, as does Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, and Greece.  So does Malta, which seems to be bucking the curve.  Oh dear.  Canada does not, and nor does the United States.  And the United States is the shining star of separation of church and state, and the originator of having such a thing be in a constitution.  They say that government should make no law establishing or favoring one religion over another. And so the individual men and women of that nation have had to shoulder the burden of their belief on their own. And you know what?  it's worked out pretty well for them.  Sitting back and waiting for the state to run your church, having them operate them through tax dollars, only creates in the Christian a sense that this isn't something that they actually need to work on for themselves.  

It reminds me so much of the story of Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode his ass into town.  And everyone there was tossing down their cloaks on the road, and waving palm branches, and shouting loud hosannas in a public space.  Almost like a pro-Jesus protest.  And when they did have this annoyingly loud pro-Jesus protest, they were urged to shut it by the local temple authorities, who told him "Teacher, order your disciples to stop."  And Jesus replied with the salient quote:

"I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."  (Luke 19:39-40)

Lots of people want to remove government endorsement of religion, which I get.  But then that places it in the hands of the people, and they may very well be MORE vocal, MORE committed, and MORE enthralled than those who are in power, and who have to worry about votes.  You put that responsibility into the hands of the people, and like in the United States, they may very well take it seriously.

So, to recap.  I am in favor of separation of church and state, and I think it makes both things better.  Lashing your church wagon to the state donkey only really ends up in disastrous results, usually for both.  I am in favor of free speech, and I acknowledge that it's the offensive speech that needs to be protected.  Nobody needs to protect the freedom to say that puppies are cute, or that sunny days make for better baseball.  You need to protect the right to say stuff you don't like.  However, I am not in favor of using a church as a staging area without permission.  Ask nicely, and if they say no, then go elsewheres, in the same way that you would if a group came to your home and asked to perform a black mass, or a Christian prayer service. You may be fine with it, but you'd probably like to be asked.

I am in no way a legal expert, though, so I don't dare comment on legal proceedings, especially in Russia.  But I don't think they should be jailed for any longer than they already have been.