Please read the passage cited above first.)
My sisters and brothers,
Today in the letter to the Colossians we have a teaching of St Paul’s on the virtues needed by Christian families.
The letter to the Colossians is a later work of St Paul’s. In his earlier letters. St Paul described Christian assemblies as gathering where everyone shared equally in the work of the church. Leadership was fluid. Women or men could host the gatherings of the people. There was less emphasis on rank and standing in the community. This practice could have been taken by their fellow citizens that Christians did not follow the usual codes and practices that were standards in other homes.
The later works of Paul introduced household codes that put the father in charge of the home. These codes sent a signal to pagan neighbors that Christian could be good neighbors and outstanding citizens. Authority was exercised from the top down. In the typical family, authority began with the father through the mother, to sons and daughters, and eventually to citizen employee and slaves.
Our reading today incorporates the necessary Christian virtues and then adds the instructions on running the household in keeping with the model in vogue in society at that time. This model reflects a sharp division of labor, certain tasks for women, other tasks for men, certain tasks for free people and certain for slaves. Men generally did work outside the home and women took care of the domestic work.
What about today? This patriarchal model is disappearing from society. This is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it necessarily a good thing. All change seems to represent compromises. Some things are kept and some things a dropped. Today, both parents tend to work outside the home and they have to be creative in giving time to each other and their children.
Whether we use the old model or some newer model, we need the Christian virtues of the first half of the reading.
In the family we are supposed to learn compassion, kindness and forgiveness. In the family we are supposed to learn how to be human and think of others before ourselves. In the family we are supposed to learn that the world does not revolve around us. In the Christian family we are supposed to let the peace of Christ guide our conduct, our love and our work.
These virtues Jesus himself had to learn in the family with Joseph and Mary. As a boy Jesus had to learn these virtues in order to grow to the full maturity and wisdom before God and the world. These virtues that we have to learn or had to learn so that we can or could grow into the maturity that God has intended us to have.
It is no longer a question of who is subordinate to whom in the family because all of us are subordinate to God. It is a question of how we work together in community to live the Christian virtues on our lives.