Proper 16B- Armor of God

Ephesians 6:10-20:

10 Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and his powerful strength.11 Put on God’s armor so that you can make a stand against the tricks of the devil. 12 We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens. 13 Therefore, pick up the full armor of God so that you can stand your ground on the evil day and after you have done everything possible to still stand. 14 So stand with the belt of truth around your waist, justice as your breastplate,15 and put shoes on your feet so that you are ready to spread the good news of peace. 16 Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.

18 Offer prayers and petitions in the Spirit all the time. Stay alert by hanging in there and praying for all believers. 19 As for me, pray that when I open my mouth, I’ll get a message that confidently makes this secret plan[a] of the gospel known. 20 I’m an ambassador in chains for the sake of the gospel. Pray so that the Lord will give me the confidence to say what I have to say.

If you’ve ever been present at a baptism at an Episcopal, Catholic, or probably some other churches – or if you’ve just watched the Godfather – you might be familiar with a point in the service where the priest asks either those being baptized, or if it’s an infant being baptized, this question is posed to the parents and Godparents: “Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?” And if the people being asked are following the script and hoping for a baptism, they will respond: “I renounce them.”

And there is another similar question after that: “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?” and again, those people respond, “I renounce them.”

There might have been a time or two that I’m meeting a family before the service to go over logistics and as I’m skimming through the service and the lines, a godparent will stop at these questions and ask: “Wait. What???” And I can’t entirely blame them because for a lot of Episcopalians, those 20 seconds of questioning are the most airtime they give to Satan and evil and any real effect they can have on us today. 

In a way, that’s an understandable reaction. We’re all aware of other churches out there who see demons hiding around every corner, or who seem like they’re more obsessed with Satan and evil than they are with Jesus and his gospel. There’s a certain strain of church that spends so much time denouncing the things and people they see as evil in this world — which generally boil down to “how dare we allow people to exist who don’t think and look and act exactly like we would prefer” — that they give short shrift to (or deny entirely) God’s overwhelming, creative, explosive love for all of God’s children.

We’ve also seen churches that use Satan as a bludgeon: the “love God OR ELSE” approach to theology. And that ‘or else’ can get pretty imaginative. That ‘or else’ can ignite fear, which is a very convenient emotion to ignite when you want to act in a certain way. 

We are not that sort of church and I’m not that sort of preacher. 

But if you were paying attention to our reading from Ephesians, Paul does write with more urgency around these evil forces acting against God, a real and present danger. He warns the church in Ephesus around what he calls “the tricks of the devil.” Like we are living in a cosmic battle between good and evil. 

If there is this big fight between good and evil, shouldn’t it be over by now? This is not what any of us signed up for. Don’t we sing every Easter “The strife is over, the battle won. The victory of life is done. The song of triumph has begun. Alleluia.” As the Rev. Dr. Amy Richter wrote “But for Paul, this means that we are living in a strange in-between time, between the victory of Christ on the cross and the final glorification of Christ when every knee shall bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Until that final glorification, we live in an overlapping of the old age and the new age, and the principalities and powers of the old age, even though they have been defeated, can still wreak havoc and cause harm.”

You’ll notice that Paul makes a distinction that the enemy isn’t fellow humans, but it’s powers above fellow humans: rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evils. Today, we even have names for some of these particular evils: fascism, classism, or racism. Misogyny, homophobia or transphobia, just to name a few. Those are real threats that destroy creatures of God. 

We are all here in a safe place. I suspect, or at least I hope that you know that. I do what I can to make this a safe place. This is a place where you don’t have to hold back tears when the weight of the world is heavy on your shoulders. It’s a place where joys are celebrated and lifted up no matter the context. A place where we are all free to show our true colors, a place where your vulnerability will not be weaponized against you.

 But we don’t get to live every moment of our lives in these sorts of safe places. There are, unfortunately, places where our truest self isn’t welcome, maybe our truest self isn’t even tolerated. And when Paul was writing to the Ephesians, he didn't tell them to go out and be something they are not. He didn’t tell them to pretzel themselves 

What Paul gives us is the Armor of God: 

-the belt of truth

-the breastplate of justice

-shoes to go and share the good news of peace

-the shield of faith

-the helmet of salvation

-the sword of the Spirit

You’ll notice that 6 of the 7 parts of the armor of God are defensive pieces, not meant for us to dominate the world, but meant for us when we’re dominated over. 

The evil that Paul talked about still finds it’s way in the world through the bullies of the world. Whether it’s their own sin or misgivings, bullies can still elbow their way into high positions of power in nations, or the boardrooms or large corporations. Or they are just the local hooligans in our schools and neighborhoods. When we choose compassion, hope, forgiveness and life, we can renounce satan and all evil. We have the armor- let us go with confidence and grace.