Many scholars and preachers treat today's passage as an extension of last week's exhortation for husbands and wives to submit to one another. They call the section between chapter 5 verse 21 and chapter 6 verse 9 "house codes." Paul almost certainly drew from well-known early Christian teachings in drafting these verses. They are important largely because Christians - like Jews - were seen as subversive elements in society and especially as a threat to the family structure. Christians needed to show they did not threaten order and decency. And to some extent these passages were written to counter slander and accusations. And of course when Paul first wrote this, he didn't put so much as a paragraph break between the first verse in this chapter and the last verse in the previous one, let alone start a whole new chapter!
But I think that the break is important, because there is a fundamental difference between the instructions on how husbands and wives should relate to each other, and on how parents should treat their children, and how to manage employee-employer relations. Because as we saw last week, the relationship between husband and wife is not ultimately one of subordination but of equality. Although in both law and in custom men had authority over women, God's purpose in creation is for equal partnership, equal dignity, equal submission. But children and laborers are not in the same position. In fact, culturally their status was even lower than women. But instead of turning the relationships upside down, Paul affirms the authority inherent in these relationships.
Now, Paul doesn't tell the Ephesians - and by extension the other churches in the Mediterranean world - to stop freeing their slaves, or to stop treating their slaves like brothers and sisters in Christ. Nor does he go back on other statements he makes elsewhere making slave and free equal in the sight of God. Instead, he gives both fathers and children, slaves and masters, theological motivations for not shaking up the social applecart too vigorously. It is not just out of a desire not to scandalize the neighbors, but a recognition that in these relations - even when redefined through a relationship with Christ - there is lawful authority.
Children are told to obey their parents. Paul doesn't say, "obey your parents if they are Christians." He says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." [v.1] Obedience to parents is part of obedience to God. God built parental authority into the created order as an essential ingredient of social stability. But just as husbandly authority has been abused since the fall, so has parental authority. Parents could kill their children, or sell them into slavery or prostitution. Exposing unwanted children - that is, leaving the newborn out in the open either to die or be picked up by a soft-hearted stranger - was common practice. Unfortunately, part of our society's reaction to overly harsh treatment of our children in the past has led in many cases to parental abdication of their god-given responsibilities given originally in Deuteronomy,
"You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul... Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land...." [Dt11:18 -21]
Paul reinforces that commandment when he concludes the passage with "fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. [v. 4]
But as important as the relationship between parents and children is, I really want to spend most of today's sermon on verses 5-9, which starts: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ." Many people today use this passage and a parallel one in Colossians to argue that Paul approved of slavery, and that Christianity was in some way complicit in this country's ugly history with slavery. When I was examined for ordination back in the Twin Cities Presbytery, someone asked me how I could view Paul's writings as authoritative for modern Christians since he approved of slavery.
But that's not what's going on here at all. All of a sudden, slaves had a higher master then their earthly owner. Slaves did not really belong to their owners, did not really serve them or seek to please them, and were in fact no different from their masters at all except in temporary social condition. They, like their owners, were both equally slaves of Christ and as such were to treat each others as such. In an odd sort of way, this passage - unlike the one dealing with children - does echo the exhortation to mutual submission that Paul gives to husbands and wives. The difference being, of course, that the slave's job is to perform certain tasks and duties as assigned by the head of the establishment, whether it was a business or a household.
On the other hand, Paul is asking slaves to do something really hard as well. Consider that slaves were really good at fake submission. They were also notorious for being lazy and dishonest, and why shouldn't they be? In many ways they had to be, for their own safety. And why shouldn't they take every advantage they possibly could? But Paul tells them to
"obey ..., in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women." [v. 5-7]
No more nipping at the master's wine or taking a cut for going to the right butcher; no more selling gossip to the scandal sheets or spitting in the soup. God was watching - and not only for judgment. When you were working for Christ, you could take pride in what you were doing, even if your master got all the credit. Remember that slavery was taken for granted. It was the most common form of economic arrangement between unrelated people outside the family or clan business except for trade. That is, if you needed extra people to work in your tannery, you didn't go out and hire someone, you bought an additional slave. And people became slaves in various ways: you could be born into slavery, your parents could sell you, you could sell yourself if you got into financial difficulties. One of the commonest ways to become a slave was being captured in war. There were Greek slaves, Roman slaves, Egyptian slaves, and German slaves. Neither race nor national origin had anything to do with it.
For many slaves life was very harsh and cruel. But it really depended to a large extent on your owner. Slaves didn't only do menial work, as field hands, miners, or street sweepers. They did practically all of the work, including accounting and management and publishing. Many were better educated than their owners. They could own property - even other slaves - and could earn their freedom.
There were some laws to prohibit gross abuse, but by and large owners could treat their slaves as harshly as they liked. Since slaves were assumed to be dishonest and lazy, threats and punishment were considered necessary to get any work out of them, and a slave's testimony was valid in a court of law only if obtained under torture. So was Paul telling slaves to submit to abuse? Peter gives us a clue, saying,
"Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval." [1 Pe 2:18-20]
Paul was not telling slaves that their condition was pleasing to God. He is saying that circumstances, no matter how awful, are not to govern our behavior. Our relationship with Christ is far more important than circumstances, and can flourish in any setting. Whatever our condition, our conduct should reflect the character of Christ.
"Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ." [1 Co 7:20-22]
Does this mean that we are never to advocate a change in our society's structures? Of course not! In the early centuries, for the church to advocate the end of slavery would have been the death of Christianity. Things were bad enough as it was. But as Christian principles spread throughout society, they laid the groundwork for the eventual abolition of slavery and other age-old systems of oppression and injustice. It took far too long, but at least in the Western world people are rightly outraged and repelled at the thought of owning another human being.
And the abolition of slavery did not mean the abolition of injustice in the work place, or of abusive relationships between employee and employer. People are still exploited and dehumanized, cheated and mistreated, used and discarded. And in many cases there is less economic incentive for employers to treat their employees justly than there was under slavery, when keeping your slaves fed and clothed made them more productive, and therefore more valuable.
But it isn't just employers that need to take this passage seriously. Many people today are caught in "the system" just as surely as slaves were bound by their society's rules. They become resentful and uncooperative or passively wait for some external force to miraculously alter their situation. What Paul told first century Mediterranean slaves is directly to the point. Our jobs - our circumstances - our status - do not determine who we are. Our position in Christ, our relationship to him and our power from him enable us to honor Christ and make a difference wherever life puts us. Everything we do involves a direct encounter with Jesus Christ. Brother Lawrence's great little book "Practicing the Presence of God" is the classic proclamation of this revolutionary truth. Christ meets us weeding the garden and scrubbing the pots and seeing the credit for our work go to another.
Paul's teaching on slaves and masters apply far beyond just employee-employer relations. The thing to take home today is that every relationship we have is a reflection of our relationship with Jesus. As we interact in relationship with husbands and wives, employers and employees, our mechanic, our waitress, or our customers are all occasions for honoring Christ. Every job that we do - whether for money or not - is an opportunity to serve Jesus.
Society sends out signals that assign value to us depending on what we wear or what we drive, how much we earn and what we do to earn it. A place for everyone, and everyone in their place - even in super-egalitarian America. But Paul is telling us that society does not assign us either our value or our identity. Our roles and tasks, our toys and trinkets may appear important, but our value and identity comes from somewhere else.
It is most common for people to value the rich and influential and to ignore or despise the poor and powerless. We don't have slaves, but we have people who we never see, people who don't count. They are faceless numbers when the time comes to downsize, they are "those people" when some revolutionary tries to bring affordable housing, a halfway house or drug rehab center into our upscale neighborhoods. You can hardly open your Bible anywhere without discovering that these attitudes are not pleasing to God. "...just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family," said Jesus, "you did it to me.'" [Mt 25:40] When we ignore the downtrodden, we ignore Jesus himself. And when we serve them, we serve Jesus himself.
But the opposite is equally sinful. We are not to glorify poverty or demonize the wealthy. Poverty doesn't make a person virtuous, and wealth doesn't make a person evil. Poverty opens the door to greed and envy, wealth opens the door to idolatry and pride. But rich and poor alike are judged according to their relation to Jesus Christ. Likewise just because authority has in the past been misused, it does not follow that all authority is abusive. Some authority is built into the fabric of God's very creation, and our response to earthly authority - whether we wield it or submit to it - reflects our acceptance of God's authority.
Part of our society's legacy from the sixties is an attitude toward authority that is pretty much knee-jerk rejection. One of my dearest friends back in the 70's wore a lapel button that said "Question Authority." Our seminaries teach a form of Biblical interpretation called "a hermeneutic of suspicion" which basically says the same thing. Don't submit to any authority - not even God's.
Well, we certainly don't want to go back to the feudal system, where serfs served the barons and the barons served the king, and authority was accepted without any questioning at all. The divine right of kings went out centuries ago. But deifying our own desires is equally dangerous, and deifying "the people" is even more so. When people get together, somehow they seem to reinforce their worst impulses. The louder the voice of the mob, the easier it is to ignore God. Peer pressure today says,"break the rules." But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. [Pr 3:5-7]
Authority should be questioned - but only in the light of the wisdom of God. "We must obey God rather than man," [Acts 5:29] said Peter and James when ordered to stop preaching Christ. But the rest of the time, we are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ himself, and in the certain knowledge that whatever we give up for his sake - whether it is privilege or status or a cherished grievance - will replaced by something far more valuable.
