Cathie Smith’s Sermon – 8/30/09
reality and Truth
Ephesians 5:21-6:9
School started this week for our students in Fox Chapel. At least at our house, this is good news. The kids really pretty much enjoy being back at school, seeing their friends and favorite teachers, and even getting back into school routines. They do miss, however, the more easy going schedule of the summer, like sleeping in a bit later, staying out a little later at night, reading books just for the fun of it, and watching a little more TV than usual, are more limited than in the summer. As a student myself, getting ready to begin my last year in seminary, I too am adjusting to the end of summer. While I’m a bit sad about the sleeping in and staying out, unlike my kids, I will not miss the TV thing as much. Before seminary, I watched more TV, but I really don’t watch a lot now. I used to really enjoy drama series like ER or Lost. But when evenings for TV watching are taken over by studying, you can lose place in a story line and lose track of characters easily in a show that depends on seeing it consistently. So, over the last 4 years, I’ve stopped watching drama series type of programming and if I’m going to watch TV, it’s probably going to be some form of reality TV.
Reality TV works for me because you can easily miss a week or two or three and still be able to keep up with it. The seasons are not long, and don’t require a huge commitment of time. Maybe it’s a guilty pleasure, but I justify it as a temporary treat to watch a little reality TV here and there, when I have time, or need a study break, or a break from my reality of my crazy schedule. It is funny to me, however, that this type of programming has been labeled reality TV. There is very little that is real about reality TV. The situations are fabricated, the contestants hand picked, and the editing is done to create the story line that the producers want to present. In interviews after the show is over, former contestants on these shows often complain about the lack of truth that came across in the show. The relationships, the arguments, the alliances, the personalities were all portrayed, they say, in a way that was not true to the way it all really happened. Reality TV they warn us, is not Truth TV. It seems that when you boil it all down,
Truth and reality are actually very different things.
The scripture passage that we read this morning from Ephesians is about Truth and reality, and what happens when they come together. We have a hard time reading and hearing this passage, because it seems like it is condoning, and even commanding, attitudes and systems that are abusive and degrading to certain groups of people. But to understand this passage and to be able to claim it as having authority for us today, we need to separate the reality from the Truth. In a reality TV show, like Survivor, the temporary reality for the contestants is living on a deserted island. For the men and women who appear on The Bachelor, reality, for a time, is going on dream dates in exotic locations. For the contestants on The Amazing Race, reality, for one month, is traveling around the world at a breakneck pace. For the 15-20 people that are on a reality show, these fabricated situations are, for a time, reality. But for me, and for you, I assume, these situations, living on a deserted island, dating 20 people at once, or eating cockroaches in China, are not part of our reality. Because reality is subjective. Reality depends on condition, time and place.
The readers of Ephesians lived in a different reality than we do today, because they lived in a different situation, time and place than we do. In order to find the Truth in this passage, we need to understand the reality. The belief in Greco-Roman culture and government, at that time and place in history, was that households were the smallest unit of the state. If order was maintained in households, they believed; then order would also be maintained in the state and the state would survive and flourish. But, if order in households was broken, then the stability of the entire empire would be at risk.
So there were these written codes that laid out the specific roles and responsibilities of household members as a way to try to maintain household order, and thus, order in the empire. According to these codes, the male head of the family (paterfamilias was the term used for this person) was responsible for the discipline and management of the entire household. All members of the household; his wife, his children, and his slaves, were expected to follow him in everything, including his religious practices and beliefs. One typical household code lists out these responsibilities very simply: Master rules the slave. Slave obeys the master. Paterfamilia (or male head of household) rules the child. Child obeys the Paterfamilia. Husband rules his wife. Wife obeys her husband. It was a relationship based completely on ruling and obeying. Failure to maintain this kind of system of discipline within the household was seen as failing the empire and was subject to penalty from the government, loss of business revenue, and loss of social standing. Household codes were reality. They were seen as necessary to that situation, time and place. Not only for the welfare of the empire, but to provide for the care of women, children and slaves. Women had very few rights at this time, they were often legally treated as property of their husbands; they were dependent on their husbands for most of their financial and political needs. Not because they wanted to be, or because the husbands cruelly forced them to be, (although sometimes that may have been the case) but because they needed to be. That was reality. Children and slaves, likewise, depended on the father or master for the things they needed for survival. So, even though these attitudes of dependency and obedience may make us uncomfortable to read about because they do not sit well in the reality of our time and place; they were, at that time, and in that place considered to be right, normal and necessary. Complete dependency and obedience were reality, even if they weren’t Truth.
Our reality is different, in the time and place in which we live, but there are still roles and expectations that society has placed on us. If a household code or a society code was written
for people living in this particular place, in this particular time and situation, what would it look like? I think it probably would say things like this,
These attitudes and expectations may make us uncomfortable to hear, because they are our reality. As much as we may not like them, at this time and in this place, our society considers them to be right, normal and necessary. These are the expectations we live with, that we get from one another, and that we place on one another. We do it in our families, our friendships, our community and even in our church. For us, in this time and place, these attitudes and expectations are reality, even if they aren’t Truth. It’s easy to point our fingers at the reality of family life for the Ephesians and accuse it of being unhealthy and abusive, since wives didn’t have rights, children had no say, and there were slaves! But is our reality really any better today? We are stressed, sleep deprived, our tempers are short, divorce rates are up, and there are all kinds of abuse in family relationships because we are subject to our calendars, our finances, our jobs, and the unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves and on the people we love the most.
What this passage is showing us, however, is that even though reality is not Truth; Truth can transform reality! The typical household code said that families had to operate under a system based on ruling and obeying. But, that code, that reality, could be transformed by Truth. In the same way, our “codes,” our reality, that says we need to be all and do all to matter and to survive can be transformed by Truth. Because Truth, unlike reality, is eternal, it does not change, it is not relative to condition, time or place. The Truth in this passage for the Ephesians is still Truth today. Truth: We, as Christians, as followers of Christ, whether in our churches or in our families or our friendships, are the body of Christ. And Christ is the head of this body. Truth.
Think about what that means. Christ is the head of this body. We have all heard about people who have been in diving accidents, or riding accidents like Christopher Reeve and have had those connections from their brain to their body severed. When this happens, the body cannot function properly. The result is paralysis or even death. The body needs the head, the head controls the body. When the body is being properly controlled by the head, the body experiences balanced growth, proper bodily functioning and reactivity, and life. The head serves as the source of life and growth and direction for the body. If then, we, as Christians are all members of the body of Christ; then Christ is our head, our source of life and growth and direction. If we try to give someone or something else “headship” over our lives, our church, or our families, we will not be able to function correctly as the body, because we will be subjecting our lives, churches and families to a “head” that simply can not provide life and growth and right direction. And the result will be, or may already be, spiritual and relational paralysis which manifests itself in selfishness, unrealistic expectations (those codes our society lives by), in disappointment, discontent, abuse and neglect, and broken families and communities and a divided Church.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, because Truth transforms reality in all times and all places and all situations so that we, as the body of Christ, who have experienced this Truth: that in Christ, we are all equal, that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no black or white, no male or female, no slave or free, no young or old. We are all members of one body, all of us, regardless of status, gender or race or age. And this body has one head, Christ. So, in this body, there can be no partiality, because no one is seen as being better or more important than another. No one has the right or responsibility to place unrealistic expectations on another. But, rather, we are freed to see each other as equal members of one body, all relying on the “headship” of our Lord and Savior for growth, direction and life together. We do not need to seek power and control in our family relationships, we do not abuse or neglect our responsibilities to one another, we do not impose unrealistic expectations on one another and we do not let someone or something else take the place of Christ as the head of our church or our family or our lives.
This is all wonderful and happy, and if this was a musical, it would be time for a song and dance number about how we are all “one” and Christ is our head and everything is different now. But it’s not a musical, and there is no dance number, because Truth and reality are not the same thing. It is great to be able to sit here in this haven, in this place set apart within this building; this time set apart on a Sunday morning, and talk about Truth; but reality is still hanging around outside the door, peeking in through the windows, leaking in through the windows, and it won’t go away. The Ephesians could not stay hidden inside the safety of their church or the confines of their homes 24-7, and neither can we. As the body of Christ, the believers in Ephesus, and we who are believers here in this time and place, are called to live in the reality of that world out there..
The Ephesians knew the Truth, but the reality still existed. Women and children and slaves still had to depend on their husbands and fathers and masters because reality made it necessary, BUT the way they lived out their roles and expected each other to live out those roles in that reality was transformed by Truth. The household “code” in our passage today is a transformed version of those traditional codes, a good news version, a radical version, a freeing version, of what society expected. The reality of their world said that wives should be completely obedient to their husbands. But Truth transformed reality so that wives could be freed to love their husbands and submit to them in the way they submitted to Christ, out of love and gratitude for the way he loved and cared for them. The reality of that time and place said that children and slaves should be subject to their fathers or masters. But Truth transformed reality so that children and slaves could be freed to act in obedience as a way to honor God, and not out of fear. The reality for the Ephesians said that husbands, fathers, masters, and those who carried the responsibilities of all three roles, had power and authority to control everything about the lives of those in subordination to them. But Truth transformed reality so that the heads of households could be freed to treat everyone in their households with the love of Christ, and submit their own needs and wants and agendas to the best interests of those in their care.
Even today, we have the same problem; Truth and reality are still not the same thing. The reality of our time and place says that we, whether we are men or women or children, married or not, should be everything and do everything regardless of what toll the pursuit of everything takes on us and on our families. Because this is our reality, we have to, to some degree, meet these crazy expectations put on us, because we do have to pay the bills and save for retirement. We do have to create a safe and pleasant place for our families to live and grow. And we do have to provide education, experiences and a future for our children and grandchildren. But, the way that society expects us to do this creates incredible stress and pressure on us and on our families, our community, and even our church.
Our reality is in desperate need of transformation. The good news is that Truth can transform this reality if we subject our lives, our church and our families to that Truth, to the headship of Christ, and not the headship of calendars, finances, work and societal expectations. Because if Christ is the head of our lives and church and families, then we can be freed to submit to one another in love, to put the needs and well being of one another ahead of our own selfish desires and agendas or what society expects of us. We can be freed to refuse to hold one another up to unrealistic images and expectations, and we can encourage one another to strive to meet Christ’s expectations for us, and not the ones put on us by society. Truth does, and can and will transform our reality if we dare to claim it as Truth. Captial T Truth. Truth that is unchanged and unaffected by time or place or situation. When we give Christ his right place as the head of our lives, our church and our families; then Christ, the Lord of Life, who is the ultimate source of life and growth and right direction, who frees us to be subject to one another out of love and gratitude and reverence for him, the Lord who is Truth will transform our church, our families, our community and our lives. He will transform our reality.