Twenty-First of Year B
August 2009
When you read any book of the Bible it would be a mistake to take it for granted that it is talking to you directly today. Each book of the Bible was written for a particular purpose, to a particular person or group of people at a particular time in history.
Therefore it contains references and examples and allusions peculiar to the people of that particular time and place. Scripture scholars have two approaches to interpreting today’s second reading. This letter to the Ephesians was written about 60ad.-70ad. specifically to the people of Ephesus.
In the Greco-Roman culture of the time (and Ephesus was part of that culture) family life was very structured. Men generally, and husbands in particular, were the bosses in every sense of the word and there was a lot of criticism aimed at Christian teaching about gender equality. This criticism came from both men and women who feared for their traditional values.
So today’s reading from Ephesians tries to propose the Christian way of family life and the equality of men and women in God’s sight, in such a way as not to panic the local traditionalists.
So the author uses a certain slight of hand.
Wives are told to ‘be subject to their husbands as to the Lord.’
The traditionalists can now relax and nod to each other with approval.
As was intended the latter have missed the point. The point is ‘as to the Lord.’
We all, both men and women, spend most of our lives ignoring and even openly disobeying the Lord. Yet there is no growling thunder or reprimanding roars from heaven, or cuffs to the back of the head from an outraged Lord. The Lord continues to forgive, love and cherish us.
Then he draws the parallel between the relationship of man and wife and that of Christ and his Church.
Again the meaning of this would be clear to the Christians but not so to non-Christians.
In conclusion husbands are told to treat their wives as they treat their own bodies. That he must love his wife is he loves himself (and we all know how dearly men love themselves). Then at the end, to forestall any objections, wives are told ’let every wife respect her husband.’
This is not a hint that wives need not respect their husbands.
Another relevant observation is that at this early stage in Christianity the understanding of the message of Jesus of Nazareth was in the infancy of its development. If we read further on in Ephesians ch. 6 we read; ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters …. as you obey Christ.’ In other words early Christianity saw nothing wrong with the then universal practise of slavery.
Greek philosophy pervaded the whole of society at that time (as it still does to a large extent today). Greek philosophy, though excellent in many respects, regarded females as failed males. Something went wrong between conception and birth which caused a child to be born female. Keeping the latter attitude in mind we can see that even early Christian teaching was way ahead of its time regarding gender equality and marriage.
So in understanding today’s second reading you must take all the above into account.