Bishop's letters: January 03 +James I Submit to Christ

One of my teachers at School was a wrestling fanatic - he was glued to the television every Saturday afternoon, watching Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and other wrestlers hurl each other around the ring.

He especially enjoyed the ‘submissions’ – when one massive wrestler pinned another to the canvas and the crowd shouted out ‘submit, submit!’ rather like their forebears at gladiator contests in the days of the Roman Empire.

As children, my brother and I used to go for the same sort of ‘submissions’ in our own – rather tamer – wrestling bouts. Their memory is still quite vivid, so it comes as no surprise to me that ‘submission’ of any kind is an unpopular concept in our society.

Nowadays, people tend to emphasise their ‘rights’ and feel rather suspicious about ‘authority’. No wonder then that a word loaded with sub-texts, such as patriarchy and hierarchy and class, should find little favour. It smacks of imperialistic oppression and has no place in an egalitarian twenty-first century.

Or does it? Every time I take a Confirmation, the words ‘Do you submit to Christ as Lord?’ strike me. ‘I submit to Christ’ reply the candidates – and, of course, the crucial thing about their confident response is the fact that it is voluntary. Nobody is forcing their shoulders to the ground. This is not a desperate surrender brought about by unbearable pain. They know that Christ loves them and has chosen them, and they are deliberately choosing him in return.

From a Christian point of view, right at the heart of living in the Kingdom lies loving submission to the King. That means recognising that his demands take precedence over ours, and realising that our whole approach to Jesus is rooted in repentance. In fact, this more than anything else is what binds all Christians together as brothers and sisters in Christ. As we have been reminded recently at joint meetings throughout the Diocese, we’re open to a ‘Covenant’ with the Methodists precisely because we all acknowledge – and submit to – the Lordship of Christ. He is the ‘Living Lord’ whose authority we accept.

Submission to Christ also has implications for our attitude towards each other. ‘Submit to one another, out of reverence for Christ’ we’re told in Ephesians (5.21). That suggests respecting other people’s God-given gifts and not jostling for power or status. Mutual submission is part of serving one another. When it happens, it is a sure sign of spiritual health and renewal. When it doesn’t, the reason is usually a potent mix of pride and selfishness which results in stridency and quarrels.

But that sort of self-sacrifice has to begin even closer to home. People sometimes flinch when the passage continues (Eph 5.22): ‘Wives, submit to your husbands’. They forget that this is followed (Eph 5.25) by: ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her’. Once again, mutual submission is called for: that is, the sort of mindset that puts the other first. That is what makes marriage so hugely demanding. It is also the key to any happy and fulfilling relationship.

The Priest-Poet, George Herbert, knew about all this. You may remember his famous poem ‘The Collar’, which begins with the dramatic words “I struck the board and cry’d, No more. I will abroad”. He reacts against the trials and hardships of the ‘cage’ in which he feels himself trapped. “But as I roar’d and grew more fierce and wilde, At every word, Methoughts I heard one calling, ‘Childe’: And I reply’d, ‘My Lord’.

Bishop James, Bishop of Penrith