There’s no “I” in Help-Meet

Back in college, I remember friends who spent long hours debating whether or not, in a wedding ceremony, the individual candles that were used to light the unity candle should be blown out after lighting said unity candle. They wanted to make sure the symbolism was just right. It was a few years before all the uproar caused by the “S” word – submission.

When the whole “Wives submit to you husbands” thing was big, I was about to be a newlywed in a military community in Germany. My about-to-be-husband and I attended a non-denominational home church made up of military families, and it seemed to me that the preacher spoke on that subject all the time. He had a phrase that he would use almost every time he spoke on the subject. I think he’d say it to try to dispel some of the tension rising in the room because I don’t remember him ever moving on to the husband’s part of the equation. Anyway, he’d smile and say, “You know, ladies, the man may be the head of the household, but you ladies are the neck…you tell us which way to turn. *chuckle, chuckle*”

It was usually at that moment I felt like punching him. Submission is hard for me to begin with but don’t be condescending while you’re telling me I have to do it. In retrospect, though, I realize what that pastor as well as many other well-meaning pastors of that era were talking about was not submission, but subjugation. There’s a huge difference. The problem is that even the dictionary overlaps the two words.

“sub·mit  [suhb-mit]
1. to yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.
2. to allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment: to submit to chemotherapy.
3. to defer to another's judgment, opinion, decision, etc.: I submit to your superior judgment.”[1]

“sub·ju·gate  [suhb-juh-geyt]
1. to bring under complete control or subjection; conquer; master.
2. to make submissive or subservient; enslave.”[2]

For me, the main difference is that you choose whether or not to submit, but you don’t have any choice about being subjugated. The enemy works really hard to make sure that when pastors speak on submission in the marriage relationship that we hear subjugate. It doesn’t help that often pastors dwell on the wives’ side of the texts and kind of zip right through the husbands’ part of the deal.

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Ephesians 5:22-33

Paul spends a lot more time describing the husband’s responsibility to love his wife than the wife’s submission. The problem is that we live in a sinful world and most of us are afraid that if we submit to someone, they’ll subjugate us – and that’s not the relationship that Paul was talking about.

We forget that our example is Jesus. Yes, Jesus asks us to submit to Him, but look at what He’s done with us in mind. 

“The world’s Redeemer was treated as we deserve to be treated, in order that we might be treated as he deserved to be treated. He came to our world and took our sins upon his own divine soul, that we might receive his imputed righteousness. He was condemned for our sins, in which he had no share, that we might be justified by his righteousness, in which we had no share. The world’s Redeemer gave himself for us.” (E.G. White, The Review and Herald, March 21, 1893)

It’s just my opinion, but it seems like we spend quite a bit of time worrying about getting what we deserve. Advertising really pushes that button hard – that somehow we all deserve more than we’re getting. When we worry about what we think we deserve, we can’t submit to God or anyone else. But when we remember that Jesus gave up everything He deserved because we were more important to Him, we can see and begin to understand what a loving relationship should look like.

When God created Eve, He was giving Adam someone who could be equal – someone with whom he could share every experience. It was a relationship that was supposed to have demonstrated how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One and yet Three. God never intended that Adam should push Eve around or make her to feel “less than.” He never intended for Eve to fear or resent Adam because she had to quit doing the things she liked, to do what he liked. God made Adam and Eve to work as a unit with two equal parts. Each part was complete on its own but could only be fully successful when firmly bound to its other half. Two individuals joined so tightly together that each person’s first thought is not, “How can I get what I deserve,” but “What can I do for this person to show them how much I love them.” How did Jesus show us how much He loves us?

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” Philippians 2:5-7

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[1] submit. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/submit

[2] subjugate. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subjugate

Oh, What You Said!

It’s not a four letter word, but it’s a word we, especially Americans, extra-especially Texans, really, really hate… Can you guess what word it is?  OK, I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to promise not to get too upset… Are you sitting down?  Submission – ummm, I’m telling!

So, it’s not a bad word, but it’s a word most of us aren’t comfortable with.  Folks get all excited when somebody starts talking about how one group of people needs to submit to another group of people.  Somebody will make a comment about the text in the Bible that says that wives should submit to their husbands (“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Ephesians 5:24NIV) and people just start going off the deep end all over the place!  Have you ever noticed that?  Why do you think that is?

Some folks would say that we have come so far as a race/species that we are self-sufficient and don’t need to-and shouldn’t-submit to anyone.  The problem with that argument is that the first two people on earth had problems being submissive right off the bat.  So did at least one of their children.  In fact, it goes back even farther than that, doesn’t it?  Lucifer had issues with submitting to authority, and he makes sure that we do to.

What does it mean to submit to someone?  When most of us think of a definition, we go straight to the most negative definition, “abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant; ‘slavish devotion to her job ruled her life’; ‘a slavish yes-man to the party bosses’- ‘she has become submissive and subservient’ [syn: slavish] “  submissive. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved July 06, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/submissive

I don’t know about you, but the thought of being slavish doesn’t sound like much fun to me.  We certainly don’t want to consider ourselves slaves.  Only weaklings submit their will to anyone else, right?  But look what the Bible says in Romans 8:6-8: “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” NIV

Well, that definitely puts a different spin on the whole idea. Those verses make it sound like we cannot please God unless we submit to Him.  In fact, Mrs. White goes beyond that:

“I know that human beings suffer much because they step out of the path that God has chosen for them to follow. They walk in the sparks of the fire they have kindled themselves, and the sure result is affliction, unrest, and sorrow, which they might have avoided if they had submitted their will to God and had permitted Him to control their ways. God sees that it is necessary to oppose our will and our way, and bring our human will into subjection.
“Whatever path God chooses for us, whatever way He ordains for our feet, that is the only path of safety. We are daily to cherish a spirit of childlike submission, and pray that our eyes may be anointed with the heavenly eyesalve in order that we may discern the indications of the divine will, lest we become confused in our ideas, because our will seems to be all-controlling. With the eye of faith, with childlike submission as obedient children, we must look to God, to follow His guidance, and difficulties will clear away. The promise is, "I will instruct thee and teach thee . . . : I will guide thee with mine eye" (Ps. 32:8). . . .
“If we come to God in a humble and teachable spirit, not with our plans all formed before we ask Him, and shaped according to our own will, but in submission, in willingness to be taught, in faith, it is our privilege to claim the promise every hour of the day. We may distrust ourselves, and we need to guard against our own inclinations and strong tendencies lest we shall follow our mind and plans and think it is the way of the Lord. . . .
“Our heavenly Father is our Ruler, and we must submit to His discipline. We are members of His family. He has a right to our service, and if one of the members of His family would persist in having his own way, persist in doing just that which he pleased, that spirit would bring about a disordered and perplexing state of things. We must not study to have our own way, but God's way and God's will.” That I May Know Him 249}

So, we can’t please God without submissive hearts and spirits, but we can’t even please ourselves.

Abraham and Sarah are given as examples of that kind of submission.  And just so we don’t get discouraged right away, Abraham and Sarah also are examples of what can happen when we get impatient and don’t submit ourselves to God. 

I think we’re mostly comfortable with those pictures of submission.  In theory, we agree that we need to submit to God’s will in our lives, and when we take things into our own hands, they usually don’t go so well.

But there’s something else in that story that becomes very uncomfortable for us (well, for me anyway) to think about.  It’s that pesky idea of one person submitting to another person.  I’m not just talking about wives to husbands, because as I read it, everybody gets the same message at some point or another.  Uh-huh, I saw that eye-roll.  You aren’t any more comfortable with it than I am.

In Ephesians 5:22-33; 6:1-9; Romans 13:1-5; Colossians 3:18-22 and, most simply, Ephesians 5:21 (“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”) we read that God wants us to submit to each other.  So, if we want to submit to God, we have to also submit to humans.  How far do you think we have to take that, do you think?

When we think about the husband/wife or parent/child relationships, we can kind of go along with those, right?  At least in those situations we can usually count on the positive feelings from the people we’re submitting to.  And we know that God wants what’s best.  But those verses don’t stop there. 

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.” Ephesians 6:5-9 NIV

Slaves?  Slaves?  We’re not slaves.  Those verses were written for another time and place.  They aren’t talking about us.  Are they?

Well, no, but I think these verses have some very important things to say about the spirit of submission that can be applied in all the other areas. 

Be honest with yourself now, how often have you (me too) done a task just well enough to slide by, or only tried to look busy when your boss was walking through?  Is that the kind of submission God wants?  ‘Fraid not.  Your boss doesn’t want it either.

And what about when you believe your boss/husband/parent is wrong?  Not going against God in anyway, but just wrong…do you have to submit then?

Think about Sarah’s life with Abraham.  We don’t think much about her part of this adventure.  Can you imagine your husband walking in and saying to you, “Morning dear, we’re moving.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know.”

And your response would be…?  Would you submit at that point?  Or would you have some opinions to share before you started packing?

What about later when Abraham told the pharaoh that Sarah was his sister.  Maybe the first time, we would have played along without any discussion, but what about the second time?  What do you think that discussion might have sounded like in your family?

I don’t believe that Sarah was a passive, weak, dependent person; I do believe that after giving her thoughts she submitted to Abraham’s will.  She trusted God enough to be able to trust Abraham.  Just like Isaac trusted God enough to trust Abraham on Mount Moriah.

“We shall see the salvation of God if we trust in God in the darkness as well as in the light.
“All trials, all afflictions, all peace, all safety, health, hope, life, and success are in God's hands, and He can control them all for the good of His children. It is our privilege to be suppliants, to ask anything and everything of God, submitting our request in submission to His wise purposes and infinite will.” E.G.White, Our High Calling 318

Clinging to Inadequacy

Commentary on Sabbath School lesson for 4.16.11

“Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need”[1]

These are some of the words for Rich Mullins’ song “Hold Me Jesus”.  Mullins has really caught the essence of our constant struggle with God:  He wants to give us eternity and we want the here and now.  I have to mention the show Hoarders: Buried Alive again.  Somehow their experience seems to parallel, on an individual scale, how all of humanity has been acting since Adam and Eve took a bite of whatever fruit that was.

So, here’s this person who has “collected” so much stuff that he (or she) cannot walk through his own house without stepping on things.  There are whole rooms that are completely unusable.  It seems like most of the time, there is very little of value in the house, just tons of things the person is afraid to get rid of, for whatever reason. The person has usually come to the point where he is either going to lose his home or his family because of the mess.

Enter the psychologist and the professional organizer, both of whom specialize in hoarders and they start trying to help the hoarder.  The organizer will pick up some random thing off of the top of a pile (maybe a plastic hanger that’s broken or a stray glove) and ask the hoarder if he can get rid of it.  Amazingly the hoarder, who knows that losing his family and/or house is imminent, will hold this bit of garbage and really struggle with being able to let it go. One man was on the verge of losing contact with his wife and little boy because of his hoarding.  They had already moved out of the house.  The father had one whole room filled with nothing but toys that he had bought for his son…but he had never given any of them to his son…the son he was going to lose all contact with.

Aren’t we just a whole lot like that?  Our lives are filled to overflowing with trivia that is separating us from God.  We invite Him in to help us de-clutter, but everything He asks us to get rid of, we want to hang onto.  Meanwhile, He’s waiting to give us eternal life.

“[In an article for Decision magazine], Samuel Kamaleson illustrates [the difficulty of submission] through a Christian folk story from South India. … it opens with a young boy who loved to play marbles. He regularly walked through his neighborhood with a pocketful of his best marbles, hoping to find opponents to play against. One marble in particular, his special blue marble, had won him many matches.
During one walk he encountered a young girl who was eating a bag of chocolate candy. … he had a weakness for chocolates. As he stood there interacting with the young girl, his salivary glands and the rumbling in his stomach became uncontrollable, and he thought to himself, I have got to get my hands on those chocolates.
“…he asked the girl, ‘How about I give you all these marbles for those chocolates?’ She replied, ‘Sounds fair to me.’
He put his hand in his pocket, searching for the distinguishing cracks on the surface of the blue marble. Once he identified the blue marble with his finger tip, … and pulled out all the other marbles.
“As he handed the marbles to the girl in exchange for the chocolate, the boy thought his plan was a success and turned to walk away. As he began to eat the candy, he suddenly turned to the girl and asked, ‘Hey, did you give me all the chocolates?’
“Our fallen nature persuades us to posture ourselves in the same deceptive and defiant attitude as the boy in this story. We want everything the kingdom of God has to offer. … we want all our prayers to be answered, we want to ‘feel close’ to Jesus, …—we want it all. But we are unwilling to give up everything for it. Many times there is a ‘blue marble’ in our lives that we seem unwilling to offer to the control of Christ. …”[2]

Adam and Eve had been wearing garments of light and they gave them up for fig leaves.  They traded everyday face-to-face communion with God for a piece of fruit…hm. When the One who could save them came looking for them, they hid.

It wasn’t until Adam and Eve spoke to God and confessed what had happened that they found out that God already had a plan to rescue them from their sin.  Adam and Eve had tried to fix things by sewing fig leaves together, but they didn’t realize the full cost of what they had done.  What they had done could not be fixed without the shedding of blood  --  fig leaves just were not going to cut it.

“He who would become a child of God must receive the truth that repentance and forgiveness are to be obtained through nothing less than the atonement of Christ. Assured of this the sinner must put forth an effort in harmony with the work done for him, and with unwearied entreaty he must supplicate the throne of grace, that the renovating power of God may come into his soul. Christ pardons none but the penitent, but whom He pardons He first makes penitent. The provision made is complete, and the eternal righteousness of Christ is placed to the account of every believing soul. The costly, spotless robe, woven in the loom of heaven, has been provided for the repenting, believing sinner, and he may say: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10).”[3]

Are you ready to give up your fig leaves for a perfect robe of righteousness?  I am.

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[1] Rich Mullins, “Hold Me Jesus”, A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band (1993)

[2] Christopher L. Heuertz, Simple Spirituality (IVP, 2008), pp. 116-117; Samuel T. Kamaleson, "Mangoes and Marbles," Decision magazine (January 1978)

[3] E.G. White, A New Life, p. 23