TUNISIA: LEADER PROMISES COMPLETE BREAK FROM THE PAST

This blog provides a meditation on the Revised Common lectionary readings along with a headline from world news

Ephesians 5:15-33

15 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. 24Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30because we are members of his body. 31‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

There have been many attempts to rescue this from what many today would describe as sexism. Yes, it’s true that the writer emphasises mutual subjection, with the implication that perhaps husbands should also be subject to their wives. Yes, the husband is given the particular duty of love for his wife, although the fact that she is only told to respect him may indicate her inequality. And yes, it’s true that the writer’s purpose is to illuminate the relationship of Christ to the church rather than to lay down a full teaching about the relationship of the sexes. For all that it seems to me good to admit that the writer accepts the way his Christian community structures the relationship of the sexes. Men, who are biologically less important than women to the future of society, are given an artificially dominant role to balance things up. It was probably evident even then that this gave too much scope to the least attractive aspects of dominance-brute strength and emotional ignorance-and the writer to Ephesians combats these in his counsel. He modifies the social norm by his faith in Christ. Perhaps we can ask no more of Christian moralists.

The emphasis on the love of Christ for the church is of concern: it can so easily become exclusive. The writer has emphasised that Christ’s love fills all the dimensions of the physical and spiritual universe, (breadth, length etc) and that it brings all humanity into one body. He/ she knows that Christ loves the existing church for what it can become: the one family of God’s children.

Mark 4:21-34

21 He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? 22For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. 23Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ 24And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. 25For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’

26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

In this passage Jesus reveals some of the laws of the rule of God:

1. It lights up the dark corners of personal and social life. This may be uncomfortable but that’s what a lamp is for.
2. Our capacity to give is also our capacity to receive. Shared life is the norm of God’s rule.
3. God’s rule grows in people and society. You can water it and tend it but you can’t make it grow.
4. God’s rule is so insignificant you can’t see it today but tomorrow there’s a stork nesting in its branches.

We’re always in need of learning these laws. They may be relevant to the popular revolution in Tunisia, as its people construct a new society after getting rid of a tyrant.