Holy Family Year C December 30, 2018
Fr. Albert St. Peter’s, New Iberia
Subordinate. Submissive. Obedient. Authority. To many in the world, these are dirty words – unpleasant and meant to be avoided or resisted. People resent parents for controlling them, they resent organized religion for having rules, the resent the speed limit for holding them back. But they also want peace and peace requires order and order requires organization and organization requires authority. A family without authority will be broken just as a society without it will fall to chaos and a faith without will be devoid of practical meaning.
When scripture speaks of the family, it uses these unpopular words. A father above his children, a mother in authority over her sons. Wives be subordinate, Husbands honor your wives, children obey your parents. Even Jesus “was obedient” to Mary and Joseph.
So why are people so upset at the idea? Why buck authority, why reject organization, why resent having to be subordinate? Because we get authority exactly backwards. Our second reading contains one of the most hated verses in scripture: wives be subordinate to your husbands. To even say that out loud risks being called a misogynist, a caveman, a tyrant. It gives feminists and most modern people the revolting sense that you are trying to take away women’s freedom and dignity and equality, as if Christians see women as property.
But that’s absurd; It completely disregards what’s actually said. It’s kind of a grammar mistake. People see the verb “submit” and tune out the rest. But who is the subject? The woman, the child, the believer. It does not say “husbands, control your wives.” It does not say “mothers dominate your children.” It does not say “priests lord it over your congregation.” It’s not about control. God’s Word addresses the individual and calls them to a free act of submission. That’s because God knows that, ultimately, submission benefits the person submitting more than the person in authority.
Yes, submission is good for you. Think back to Adam and Eve, the first family. Why would God even put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden? Why put something there and then make a rule about it? Why not just avoid the risk? Because God is a Trinity – One God, Three Persons eternally giving themselves to each other in love. We are made in that image: submission and love go together.
In other words, God put the tree there and then the rule in order to give Adam and Eve a chance to obey him. Obedience to the right authority is good for human beings. Deep down, we all want to obey something or someone. If it’s not God and our better desires, then it is sin and selfishness, but we always end up obeying something.
Adam and Eve learned the hard way that, because they did not submit in love to God, they had to submit in sorrow to death. But the Son of God took on flesh to set that right. His obedience in the garden repaired Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden, “not my will but your will be done.” And then on the cross, “into your hands I commend my spirit.” Jesus shows us that love is a self-gift; It requires submission.
But loving submission does not start with a heroic death. Even Jesus Christ practiced that obedience somewhere else first: the family. The family is the domestic church, the first school of religion, the first school of love. It is in the family that human beings first learn the value of submission and how that makes love possible.
And that love, that kind of submission, is only fruitful if it is freely given. As one theologian put it: love is freedom putting on the form of unfreedom for the sake of the beloved. If it is coerced, it is not submission but domination and that is not love. That’s why Scripture speaks to the one submitting. It tells us “choose to submit to the right authority so that you can begin to really love.” This aspect of freedom is crucial if we are to protect against a misunderstanding and abuse.
Loving submission is not losing your free will. It is not becoming a robot. It is freely choosing to continually give that will to another, legitimate authority. It is ultimately an act of trust in God and His design: all authority comes from him. It is his design that establishes a hierarchy in the universe. That hierarchy is not about being better or worse, but about order and providing the opportunity to enter into this profound dynamic of love and self-gift that has its origins in the Trinity.
And that is the other safeguard against misunderstanding and abuse. It must be a legitimate authority coming ultimately from God – Jesus in the temple reminds us of that. Parents have authority over their children, but that authority does not empower them to command evil and sin. The authority of spouses over one another does not empower them to objectify or control the other.
That’s why, every time Scripture does address the one in power, it commands them not to lord it over others, to avoid causing resentment, to avoid being caught up in the vanity of feeling superior. So, yes, the bible says, “wives be subordinate to your husbands,” but we must understand those words in the Christian sense. For the Christian, humility is glory, obedience is love, and authority ceases to be authority when it violates God’s design. It cannot justify abuse. It cannot justify domination. It cannot justify violating the dignity of those who submit.
Family is not an obstacle, an impingement on freedom. The obedience of Christ shows us that what makes a family holy is the submission of each member to God – to each other out of love for God. The family is the school of love. Submission is not a loss of your humanity, but an opportunity to fulfill it. Seize that opportunity while you can. For today may be a submission to an imperfect mother, or caring for a difficult elderly father, or humbly honoring an unpleasant spouse, but tomorrow might well be submission to the one power no one can escape: death. That submission can lead to even greater life, but only if we’ve learned to embrace it for what it truly is: the fulfillment of our humanity, the goal of our freedom, the free gift of oneself for the love of another.