August 26, 2012
Outdoor (Indoor!) Worship
Ephesians 6:10-20
PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Hear again Ephesians, chapter 6:10-20:
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 11Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. 15As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.
19Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.
***
Today, I’d like to speak not on the Gospel passage for the day but instead on this wonderful second reading from Ephesians, chapter six. There are so many familiar phrases in this passage, phrases which have found their way into literature and even into our everyday language:
“Be strong in the Lord”, “Put on the whole armor of God”, “the wiles of the devil”, “This present darkness”—(which was the title of a Christian doomsday novel I read in high school), “breastplate of righteousness”, “Ambassador in chains” and, of course: “Stand firm”, which for Lutherans calls to mind the famous scene when Martin Luther stood before the church Council in Worms and exclaimed: “Here I stand, I can do no other!”
All in all, this passage makes Christianity sound incredibly cool. One of my first children’s sermons ever was on this Ephesians passage. I brought along my kids’ play clothes, including armor and swords. It was a great hit—the first time, and every time I did it after that!
We all, children and adults alike, find it at least somewhat appealing to know we are in a fight of good versus evil or light versus darkness. It feels exciting to imagine ourselves in an epic battle. And these days, as we approach the Republican political convention and an election in November, everyone is eager to tell us who our enemies are.
Who is it this week?
Depending on who you listen to, it might be:
The liberals. The Republicans. The blacks. The Mexicans, the gays, the hidden socialist agenda, the gun control advocates, the NRA, Missouri senators, anyone from Lubbock county, Texas, the guys in Washington, the political pundits, banks, Wall Street big wigs, large corporations, teachers’ unions, the Cubs, the Sox, Arab fundamentalists, Muslims, Christian evangelicals, secularists, atheists, feminists, meat-eaters, breeders, SUV drivers. In short: whoever you are, the enemy is always “The Other Guys”. We humans feel most comfortable when we have an opponent, and we’re dangerously quick in assigning a target on whoever is in our line of sight.
I experienced a great example of this phenomenon this Friday, as I sat in my favorite chair knitting a hat on my day off. I had meant to watch “True Stories of Amish Weddings” or “Ancient Aliens” or some other quality television, but instead I found myself watching umpteen hours of news coverage of the shooting that took place in front of the Empire State building.
One lone shooter, apparently in pain after being laid off from work a year ago, shot his co-worker on the street. The courageous efforts and watchful eyes of a construction worker, a security guard, and the NYPD, stopped the man from continuing his rampage.
This was a tragic story. Innocent people were shot in the crossfire, a 41 year old man lost his life at the hands of a man he knew, and the shooter gave in to the darkness of despair and chose the path of destruction.
It is tragic, but also a tragically simple story.
However, if you listened to the news for the next 4 hours (which I did), you would have heard a different story.
This, said the news anchors, was a story about the need for gun control.
This was a story about 9/11 and the fear New Yorkers feel ever since.
This was a story about the upcoming election.
This was a story about crime, about the economy, about crazy people, about the pressures of living in New York, and about the NYPD and whether they were the ones who shot the 9 bystanders.
Over and over, hour after hour, what I heard is that this was a story about the enemy. Who is he, or she? Who can we blame? Where’s the fight? Who can we hate?
But there’s an interesting thing about the New York story that was dominating the news. Just a few hours before, as I awoke and poured my first cup of coffee, the news story I read first took place in Chicago (on the south and west sides, specifically.)
New York was not the only city that had an outbreak of gun violence this week. On Thursday night alone, 19 people were shot in Chicago, 18 of them in incidents that involved more than one victim. Of course, aside from the first mention early that morning, nothing else was said on national news about that terrible evening of violence. Nothing more was said about people being shot in the Second City, once one desperate white man had killed another in the Big Apple.
Friday night the violence in Chicago continued, with 4 people killed and 13 others shot and wounded. Last night the count was lower—just one killed and 7 shot. Sad, isn’t it, that we would consider three teenage boys shot in one night as a good day?
Friends, we are indeed in a battle. But in spite of what others want to tell you, we are not in a battle against flesh and blood. God, the creator of wind and rain, sunshine and thunderstorms, divine artist of the human body in all its diversity and the foundation of all our thought and especially our ability to think (whether we get it right or wrong) did not put us here to fight an epic battle against our sisters and brothers.
Our battle is not Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. Liberal, suburban vs. urban or Christian vs. Muslim. Our battle, our struggle, our ongoing war is against the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this present darkness. This present darkness that covers us today is a heavy blanket of separation, division, hate, disinterest, apathy, poison-tongued speech, greed, and the powerful rip-current that drags us down, turning us always in toward ourselves. This present darkness is the spiritual force of evil that causes us to ignore the 19 people shot in Chicago on one night alone. Our enemy is the numbness we feel when we hear about one more story of poor people killing each other. Once again, hear me when I say our battle is not against opponents of flesh and blood, but against despair, sin, greed, and the allure of living a life protecting our own interests.
Stand, therefore, Lutherans!
“3Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. 15As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Someone once said that Lutherans are the only Christians who can sing “stand up, stand up for Jesus” while sitting down (but you proved me wrong today!)
But perhaps it is more appropriate to mention the one who said, “Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”
I’d like to tell you who said it, but it seems this phrase has been attributed to Alexander Hamilton, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and even Ginger Rogers. As Abraham Lincoln once said, the problem with quotes found on the internet is it’s hard to verify their authenticity.
But, whoever said it, it’s a worthy idea. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. Today, we too often fall for the lie that our enemy is the other guy. We fall for the lie that God wants us to hate.
So what do you stand for? Perhaps, is the point of Christian discipleship not to choose our battles or our enemies, but to stand up and choose our armor? For if our enemies are not flesh and blood, but are rather forces that work within us and within our institutions, forces which find their way even into our media, our culture, and our comfort zones, then don’t we need something more than righteous anger and a big target?
The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 6 that there are indeed powers and principalities at work in the world. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s Good News for our terrible situation, means that our salvation is not dependent on knowing who the enemy is. Our walk with Jesus isn’t any easier if we have an opponent. Discipleship is not a competitive sport.
And so we stand firm, brothers and sisters, and we clothe ourselves with the whole armor of God.
We put on the belt of truth: Not so we can proclaim that we have the truth over and above anyone else, or so we can wield the truth like a weapon to beat others down, but so we can be girded with the truth of who we really are. The truth is, you are a baptized child of God. You are part of God’s beloved creation, known to God before you were in your mother’s womb. The truth is that because of Jesus Christ, you are valuable not because of what you’ve done, how much you earn, or who you are, but because of whose you are. Put on the belt of this truth, and the truth will set you free.
And we wear the breastplate of righteousness: But let’s be clear, our own righteousness is shot through with holes. Because we have all sinned and fallen short of the grace of God, our own righteousness will do us no good in a battle against this present darkness. But clothed in Christ’s own righteousness, living in the shadow of the cross, washed clean in the waters of baptism, nothing can remove God’s love from us.
And then there are the shoes: I must say, listening to the loudest voices around us these days, I wonder if all they really need is a new pair of shoes! I’m tired of hearing the gospel turned into a source of division. I’m tired of hearing loudmouths turn the Good News into Good News only for my side, not yours; for my people, not yours; for my church, not yours; for my country, not yours; for my political party, not yours. Maybe their feet hurt. Maybe they just need a good shoe-fitting. Let’s send them down to Heisler’s Bootery and get them fitted with whatever will make them ready to proclaim the Gospel of peace.
And we’ll take along with us the shield of faith to quench all the evil one’s flaming arrows. The helmet of salvation protects our God-given gift of reason, and the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. We take along the bible not to use as a weapon, but to give us the confidence that Jesus Christ, Word of God incarnate, is always by our side.
Outfitted in this way, we either look fierce, like Iron Man and the Green Lantern, Spiderman and the Bionic Woman all rolled into one, or else we look like fools for Christ!
But no matter how we look, clothed in the whole armor of God we can withstand all the wiles of the devil. We can stand firm, convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Stand firm! Be bold! Proclaim the Gospel of peace! Amen!
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