Are You a World-Shaker?

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. – Ephesians 5:18-21

One of my favorite movies is 1967’s Cool Hand Luke. In it, Paul Newman plays Luke, a hardcase. One night in his small town, Luke gets drunk and bored and spends the evening cutting the heads of parking meters – for which he gets sentenced to several years of hard time under a sadistic prison warden. Luke, though, refuses to be broken. No matter how cruel or persistent the guards are, Luke refuses to be broken. He makes several escape attempts, and is ultimately killed during one. But he goes out smiling. As Dragline tells the rest of the inmates later,

He was smiling… That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. …If they didn’t know it ‘fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. He’s a natural-born world-shaker.

Submission is often a bad word, particularly in America. Here, we’re constantly on the lookout to demand our rights, to protect our turf, to look out for number 1. This is understandable: in a fallen world, it’s usually safe to assume that others will take advantage of me if I let them. Submitting, so the thinking goes, is what weak people do. Domesticated livestock submit. The wild horse, roaming free on the plain does not. Which one do you want to be?

But here’s the thing: as romantic as the wild horse seems, he serves no purpose.  It’s fun to identify with Cool Hand Luke and “fight the man,” to be a world-shaker. But what did Luke ultimately accomplish with his stubbornness? He got sent to prison for cutting the heads off parking meters, and got killed trying to escape. The movie – while entertaining – is ultimately a tragedy.

The Christians in Ephesus – and across the Roman Empire – were largely made up of poor and uneducated. They were typically not the rich and powerful, the elite. Instead, they were often slaves. As slaves, they would have known the story of Spartacus.  About 100 years or so before Paul visited Ephesus, Spartacus – a slave – led a now-legendary revolt against Rome. Like Cool Hand Luke, he was a hard-case, a “world-shaker,” and he refused to submit.  But Rome was like the heartless prison warden in Cool Hand Luke, and in 71BC, Spartacus and virtually all of his army were defeated and executed. On the other hand, Christians – these lower class citizens and slaves – submitted to Roman authority. They served others, they didn’t look out for their own rights and instead prayed for their persecutors. And the slow, unrelenting progress of Christianity ultimately won.  Those submissive Christians had truly become “world-shakers.”

How about you: what kind of “world-shaker” are you? When it comes to your life – and particularly your marriage – how important is it to you to win? There’s a saying I’ve heard – always from older, wiser men – that “you can be right, or you can be happy.”  It’s a lesson I hope to learn one day.  But Paul’s instructions in verse 21 go further than happiness. Keep in mind, submission is not the same as surrender.  By being choosing “us” over “me/mine,” the early Christians participated in a history-altering plan that shook the most powerful empire on earth – by submitting. By not defending their rights. By looking out for others’ needs even when it came at the expense of their own (Phil 2:3-4).

Imagine what God can do in us – in our lives and in our marriages – if we’re just willing to get past ourselves and “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Questions for Discussion:

1. Why does choosing “we” over “me” often feel like losing, like surrendering – like getting taken advantage of?  On the other hand, how do you choose “we” over “me” without being a martyr?
2. Think back about the last fight you and your spouse had. How did it resolve? Why did it resolve? Did someone submit their own interests as lesser to achieve resolution? Write about this experience and identify some ways you can be prepared to resolve your next fight more quickly.
3. Frank Sinatra famously sang, “I did it my way.”  Why is it so appealing to be the “wild horse” who doesn’t submit?  What is the danger in proclaiming, “I did it my way?”
4. How did the early Christians win by submitting?  How can you save your marriage by not “winning?”
5. Living out Philippians 2:3-4 in a marriage should be pretty easy.  Why isn’t it?