Husbands, Love! Wives, Respect!

To say that marriage is a hot topic today would be an understatement. But, you have to understand that the motivation for all this controversy about marriage today isn’t new. And it isn’t about equality or fairness or even compassion. It’s about attack. It’s about the real, yet unstated goal of some (after all, if they were honest about what they really wanted hardly anyone would support them) to actually make the very idea of marriage disappear. That is the true goal of the evil one and has been since Adam and Eve.

In fact, let’s tackle a hard passage in the Bible about Adman and Eve. In Genesis 3, God confronts the couple who have fallen for the temptation of the evil one, and God tells Eve something that has been misunderstood for too many years! God tells Eve “your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16) For too long this verse has been used to justify saying the husband should “rule over” the wife in marriage. The wife is supposed to be a submissive servant desiring her husband.

But this is not what the Hebrew means at all. Ready? What God is telling Eve is that because of this foolish choice, the proper order and balance between man and woman has been marred. Now women will desire to be in charge of the men, and the men will push back and insist on being in charge of the women. And the “war between the sexes” will drive them away from each other. This is always the plan of the evil one to keep us from being whole in the wonderful gift of communion and healing.

Can you look at society today and not see the “fruit” of this damaged balance? Look at the confusion that exists now to the point where “gender ideology” is actually looking to replace women and make them disappear and it’s women who are fighting for this madness, not counting all the men and their confused minds!

But Christ has come to heal and restore the actual balance in relationships between men and women. Interested?

Look at our lesson today in Ephesians 5:25-33:

Brethren, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “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 mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Why does this passage cause such a stir? Because we don’t embrace the purpose of marriage in the first place. We think this is a photo opportunity or some legal reason to have sex, or, worse yet, merely a contract to last until one or the other isn’t “happy” anymore. Not at all. The gift of marriage is to invite a man and a woman into the hard work of communion and mutual servanthood. And that, my dearest, is why it’s so hard. It requires the man and the woman to abandon a self-centered notion about the world.

Look at what is required of the husband and the wife: First, the husband must love his wife with the same kind of love that Jesus has for His Church. Sacrifice, service, loving guidance, and submission to the other’s well-being. But the husband is also to love his wife as much as he loves his own body and cares for it. Because the Church insists the Marriage Mystery really does create a whole person; the two become one flesh, a husband loves his wife like he loves his own body BECAUSE she is now “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” This is what marriage is to a husband. This kind of disciplined living will kill every selfish bone in a man’s body!

After this lengthy sermon to the men, the Apostle adds “and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Wow! Of course, if a woman is married to such a man as is described by St. Paul, I bet she can do that! But even if he isn’t the ideal husband, she is commanded to respect her husband. And even if she isn’t the ideal wife, he’s commanded to love his wife! This Divine Mystery of marriage is God’s way of healing what was broken long ago. The restoration of the unique spiritual medicine for each of us! We men have to be healed of our selfish and inattentive ways We have to constantly fight against the temptations to take for granted, ignore, or treat our wives like the spoils of our conquests by loving these gifts to us as Christ loves His Bi=ride, the Church.

And women must be healed of the temptations to indulge the sick and weak insecurities that make them forget that they are treasures themselves. They have to abandon the foolish notion that “I demand to be equal with the man.” Why in heaven’s name would any woman stoop to such foolishness? Made to give life, women are tempted to kill the life within them. Made to tame the madness of men through love and respect, they foolishly desire to embrace the same brutish behaviors as men to “feel” equal! Ladies, your spiritual medicine is found in finally waking up to the absolute unique dignity of your female selves. We men can only look on with amazed wonder at what God has uniquely granted you! Our only hope of taming our passions is in learning to love you as much as Christ loves the Church. And your only hope in escaping the delusional trap of the evil one to make you what you are not is through the hard work of respecting your husband and respecting yourself! Don’t buy into the lie that you aren’t a liberated woman unless you give your best to some soulless corporation. We are all called to something much more wonderful if only we will give up trying to dominate each other!

Stg. Hierotheos was the first bishop of the Orthodox Church in Athens and was said to be a fellow member of the judicial court that met on Mars Hill with St. Dionysius (remembered October 3). St. Paul instructed both men in the Orthodox Faith and Hierotheos became the first bishop of that great city. He was so selfless that he poured his life out to service of others, especially Dionysios whom he mentored in both theology and hymnography. St. Hierotheos reposed in peace late in the 1st century.

Today, isn’t it time we abandon the perpetual warfare of misunderstanding just what the purpose of this life is all about? Aren’t you tired of the constant bickering of this or that group that so misunderstands the message of Christ that they argue forever based on a lie? Let’s embody the timeless wisdom of a normal Orthodoxy so that the world will see just what God means by the Divine Mystery of Marriage by living a Normal Orthodox Life!

P.S. As Athens’ Hierarch, we acclaim you, since through you we have received instruction in things awesome and ineffable; for you were a God-inspired writer of divine hymns. O Hierotheus all-blessed, pray to God, so that we may be redeemed from all calamities, that thus we may cry: Rejoice, O Father wise in things divine.

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