The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Ephesians 6:10-20
The words sound a little strange to our modern ears: “Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Those are words and ideas from another time. They speak of an ancient and foreign world, a world populated by angels and demons, by spirits and heroes, by gods and monsters. “For 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.” These are not concepts that seem familiar to a modern person. They smack of superstition, sorcery, and myth, things that have no place in our world of science, reason, and fact.
For the ancients, their enemies were external. The devil, and his demonic minions. The unpredictable forces of nature and chaos. Spirits and ghosts and other supernatural beings. For us today, many of our enemies are internal. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. Alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling. Self-esteem, body-image, wealth, power, bigotry, hatred, anger, stress. We locate these problems, these struggles, in our own minds, in our own bodies, in our own selves. The ancients located them outside, in the spiritual world. But no matter where we locate our problems, they are essentially the same thing.
In a way, the ancient view makes more sense than our modern, scientific outlook. If my problems are external, then I can fight and defend against them. I can put on that divine armor and stand my ground against the assaults of the devil. But if my problems are internal, if they are in my own head, in my own body, in my own soul, then I have no one to fight except myself. I have no enemy to face except the one within, and there is no armor that I can put on to protect me from my own faults and failings.
If I am overweight, I can’t identify a spirit of gluttony as the problem and square off against it. If I am in an angry rage, I can’t blame the Furies. If I can’t shake my addiction, I can’t attribute it to the work of an evil spirit, whom I could fight and defeat. No, I can only blame myself for my sins. I can only fight myself. I can only vanquish myself. In a world where I can be anything that I put my mind to, where all I need to do is pick myself by my own bootstraps, the only person to accuse when I fall down… is me.
The twelve step programs understand this modern problem of internalizing all of our problems. Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction—that our lives had become unmanageable.” I am powerless against my addiction. My addiction is something external to me that has power over me, something that, with God’s help I can defend against.
And, truth be told, there are evils out there, systems of oppression, spiritual forces of wickedness, that operate on a scale much larger than individual human hearts and minds. If, for example, I think of racism as something that happens within the thoughts of individual persons, then as long as I am not actively thinking or saying racist things, as long as I am not actively doing individual acts of racism, then racism isn’t a problem, or at least, I have no responsibility for it. In fact, if that is how I understand racism, I may not be able to see racism at all. I miss the fact that there are systems and policies at work beyond the scope of individual human hearts. I miss the fact that, while government-subsidized FHA loans lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and into the middle class by helping them to own their first homes, those same loans were systemically denied to Black Americans, through a process called red-lining. Black families were not offered the same hand-up, nor were they generally allowed to take out mortgages of any kind, and were therefore kept in a cycle of renting, never taking that first step up the wealth ladder to home ownership. That is a system of oppression. That is a racist policy that benefits me and excludes people of color, regardless of how I might think or feel about race. Racism is a spiritual force of wickedness that is bigger than my individual self. And it is one of many spiritual forces of wickedness that we need God’s help to fight.
So let’s take a look at the weapons that the Letter to the Ephesians recommends that we use in our struggles against evil. Most of them are defensive. First there is the belt, something to keep everything firmly in place and to attach one’s sword. It also contains elements that protect below the waist. For a belt, Ephesians recommends the virtue of truth. This isn’t just in the sense of believing the correct doctrines. It’s about trustworthiness and integrity. It’s about seeing ourselves and our world clearly. It’s about standing for what is right, and good, and true. Truth is what holds everything else together..
Then the breastplate, the main piece of Roman Legionary armor. This was the ultimate in high tech in the first century, and it protected the wearer against blows from many different types of weapons. For a breastplate, Ephesians recommends righteousness, which is not to be confused with self-righteousness. Righteousness means doing the right thing, again, being trustworthy and true. It does not mean being pompous or arrogant. It means justice, acting in a way that brings about justice. Holding fast to justice, righteousness, protects us.
Shoes: an often overlooked, but very important part of a military uniform. Each Roman soldier had to be able to walk hundreds or even thousands of miles carrying hundreds of pounds of kit. A bad pair of boots could lose the battle before it had even begun. So for shoes, Ephesians says we should put on anything that will help us proclaim the good news of peace. This is a stark reminder that we are not talking about real warfare here. All this military language is a metaphor for our spiritual struggles, not encouragement to actually go to war. Peace is the ideal that we are seeking, and it is the only thing that can keep us on the road. Peace not just in the sense that violence and resistance have been suppressed, but true peace that leads to a fair and just world. Peace enables us to walk through dangerous terrain.
The shield was very important to a Roman legionary. It was the main way to block blows from swords, arrows, spears, and javelins. It had to be strong, but light. Leather shields were sometimes dowsed with water in order to keep them from igniting when shot with flaming arrows. And the shield could occasionally be used as an offensive weapon, to batter one’s opponent. For a shield, we are told to use faith. That is, trust in God. Belief that God will in fact do what God has promised. It’s not unlike Step Two of the twelve step program: “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” We have to trust God to do what God will do. And we also also have to be faithful to God and to the cause of justice. Faith shields us.
The helmet was also important to Roman armor. We know even today that the head is very important, and very difficult to protect. That’s why we have bicycle helmets, motorcycle helmets, football helmets. To protect our heads in spiritual struggle, nothing does the job like salvation. That is, knowing that we have a savior, that we don’t save ourselves on our own. Nothing will mess with our heads quicker than thinking that we are our own saviors. Salvation keeps our heads clear.
And finally, the only real offensive weapon in our kit, the sword. The Romans, used short, stabbing swords, not the great, slashing swords that we might associate with medieval knights. When we go on the offensive, we’re supposed to use the word of God. The good news of God’s love for all people is the thing our enemy most fears, that God loves us, and God loves our neighbors of all shapes and sizes and types. God loves all because God is Love. It is the sharp truth of love that vanquishes our foes.
So that’s the whole armor of God, all six pieces. Except for one thing that we so often forget. In our culture, we’re used to seeing action heroes—Michelle Yeoh, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Keanu Reeves—one person, usually one man, who will face all comers, who will stand alone against all the forces of evil. But this passage of the Letter to the Ephesians, its all in the plural: all of you put on the armor of God, all of you take up the breastplate of righteousness, all of you wield the sword of the spirit.
Those of you who know something about Roman military tactics may already know that the strength of the Roman Army was not in the individual fighting skills of its soldiers, it was in the discipline and the precision of the whole Roman legion working together in unity. One Roman soldier was useless. Rome never put forward one champion to fight for the honor of the nation. But a formation of Roman infantry, packed in tightly together, interlocking their shields, protecting the soldier next to them more than they protected themselves, moving together as one coordinated unit, well, that was unstoppable. It was the most powerful fighting force on the planet at the time. When properly deployed, the Roman legion was virtually invincible.
And we are also stronger when we stand together. One Christian on their own, trying to face down every enemy—addiction, depression, bigotry, oppression—it’s impossible. And it is not what God calls us to do. God does not call us to stand alone; God calls us to stand together.
Again, we have an example in the Twelve Step movement. They understand through experience that no one can face their addiction alone. It must be done within the context of a supportive community.
It is the same for Christians. No Christian can stand alone. We must operate within the context of the Church. No matter how hard we might try, no one can really be a Christian alone. We need our siblings to keep us on track, to hold us accountable, and to support us when we fall. We need each other when we face the greatest challenges in our lives. We need each other when we tackle society’s ills. We need each other in order to carry out God’s mission in the world. One Christian alone may be nothing. But bring us together, let us organize, and give us a direction, kit us out with the full armor of God—we are unstoppable. With God as our leader, we can be one of the greatest forces for good, for peace, for justice, in our world.