marriage is sacramental
patriarchy, flat-eartherism, and the heavenly nature of Christian matrimony
One of the most important New Testament passages on marriage comes from Ephesians 5:22-33, the first ten words of which scream off the page at modern people: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Whatever side of the political/cultural/theological divide we find ourselves on, the word “submit” seems to be written in neon, flashing back at us the foreignness of the Scriptures, and, perhaps, their illegitimacy in contemporary culture.
This reaction makes sense. We’re triggered by oppressive authority. The last thing we want is to find ourselves subject to or complicit in social structures that keep some people down based on that which they can’t control—race, gender, orientation, etc. If there were a verse that seemed to promote and perpetuate the patriarchy, Eph. 5:22 might be it.
This reaction is rooted in a moral stance that I sympathize with. There have been real injustices committed by the powerful against the powerless in Western history, and this includes the patriarchal posture that would subsume women and their personhood under their husbands. That historical consciousness is essential to keep us from repeating the wrongs of our ancestors. We shouldn’t lose that.
spiritual flat-eartherism
At the same time, if we aren’t careful, that stance can lead us to a modern brand of spiritual flat-eartherism. And that dangerous tendency is in large measure the reason why I started writing this newsletter.
Spiritual flat-eartherism says that the horizontal plane of human existence is all there is. We can’t confidently know anything about higher truth or spiritual reality. Only that which we can see, smell, taste, touch and feel has any significance. When it comes to meaning and truth, it is up to us to construct from the bottom “up.” But in a flat world, “up” doesn’t mean much more than political or economic power.
Even for those of us who are Christians, if we have been formed by a flat-earth culture in the way we live our everyday lives, it will be difficult for us to imagine a world in which heaven takes logical priority over earth. We tend to define God and the things of God from the bottom up. We begin with us and make humanity the measure of everything, including the divine.
In my commitment to working out a sacramental vision for all of life, I can’t let the politics of today or prejudices of the past keep me from receiving the heavenly reality breaking in through the Scriptures. That’s why I am convinced that the most important word in Eph. 5:22-33 is not the word “submit.” In fact, it couldn’t possibly be the most important word in that passage, because it’s not in that passage. “Submit” is not in v.22 in the original Greek at all. It’s only in v.21.
entirely missing the point
The most important word in the passage is in v.32: “mystery.” The word mysterion in Greek is most often translated into Latin as sacramentum, where we get the English word “sacrament.” Our modern reading of Ephesians 5 is a tremendous example of entirely missing the point. We split hairs over power dynamics and what the word “submit” means, but St. Paul just isn’t really all that interested in our concerns. He isn’t thinking in that flat-earther mode. The idea of marriage sends his thoughts soaring to the heavens.
St. Paul makes it clear here that marriage is sacramental. Marriage isn’t about lines of authority at all. For those of us who are called to it, marriage is about awakening to and communing with God in and through one another. Union of husband and wife and wife and husband is not an end in itself. That union is a way into a higher and deeper and realer and truer thing: communion with God in Christ.
Marriage is about awakening to and communing with God in and through one another.
I find the sacramental vision of C.S. Lewis immensely helpful on this point. He invites us to imagine the wondrous sacramental reality of our neighbors at the end of The Weight of Glory. And those of us who are married have no more important neighbor than our spouse.
It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
In marriage, we have the unspeakable privilege of making Christ present to one another. Rather than get hung up on power dynamics, we highlight the verse before Paul turns to marriage and “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). We submit to one another in awe and reverence that Christ is present in the other. That, through my spouse, I can see and love my Lord Himself.
And so, the call to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ is a call to treat one another sacramentally. Husbands do this to the extent they put themselves last, giving self to wife to make her flourish and full of joy. And wives do this to the extent that they allow the husband to love sacrificially, making space for him to give self to her.
Flat-earther power plays make a mockery of the sacramental nature of Christian marriage. With a renewed sacramental vision, the beauty and glory of marriage—as it participates in the reality of Christ and His Church—is allowed to shine through.
Let’s talk! I’d love to know your thoughts and continue the dialogue with you. Leave a comment below!