To tell you the truth, I have issues with this passage, especially because of its central use of warfare and armour. Over the past two millennia this passage has been used time and again by Christians to wage war against non-Christians. In medieval times, we get a clear view of this as Christian armies from Europe slaughtered Muslims in the Arab nations in an attempt to convert them. In more recent times missionaries coming over to Turtle Island, while not necessarily carrying swords and shields, but still carrying the idea of conquering the devil, which was sadly seen to be the strong and nurturing spirituality of some of our ancestors. I have issues with this passage because it has been used to hurt others, and I don’t think that was its intent.
At the time this letter to the Ephesians was written, the Romans were persecuting Christians for worshipping a God other than Caesar. Caesar, the ruler of Rome was to be worshipped as the highest God. Folks were allowed to worship their own Gods, so long as Caesar was given his time in the sun too. The thing is that Christians were encouraged only to worship Christ – the one Lord, the one who taught that things didn’t need to be as they were under Roman rule. Christ was controversial, and worshipping Christ oftentimes meant separating yourself out from society, finding another group of people to associate with, and by times, being persecuted for those beliefs. At this time, seeing Roman soldiers in the streets would not have been abnormal.
So the author of this letter takes the idea of armour – the armour that was worn by Roman soldiers: a belt, a breastplate, shoes, shields, helmets, and swords, and changes them. The author tells the people to gird themselves with things like truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, wholeness and the Word of God. The author is warning the people that there are hard times ahead. This author did not expect his readers to imagine literal Christian armies slaughtering non-Christians, nor did he expect them to imagine a Christian government or empire. The Christianity that this author knew expected Christianity to remain a marginal religion, one that had God’s power behind it, but not the power of the government, one that was persecuted by the government where living out your faith meant possibly being shunned, chased out of town or killed. And like any good preacher and teacher, he used a well-known image to convey his message. This language of warfare and of armour is language of strength and courage, language of God’s power.
I believe what the author of this letter really had in mind was to tell the people of the church to prepare themselves for the tough times ahead by surrounding themselves with things such as the gospel of peace, faith, wholeness, truth, righteousness and scripture, so that these things may be of use to them, to help them to stand firm in their faith during those hard times.
The idea of putting on the whole armour of God, of clothing oneself with reminders of our faith and of God’s grace, gifts and message to us is not new. Jewish folks use phylacteries when they pray: boxes filled with specific verses of Scripture tied in specific ways on various parts of the body to remind them to follow the teachings of God. Scribes of ancient times were often told to write the law of God on their heart – in other words, not only to memorize but to internalize it; to know it with the essence of their being.
We still clothe ourselves with reminders of our faith and of God’s grace, love and peace. Many people like to use prayer shawls as they pray. This one knit by my mom reminds me of God’s warm and nurturing love that is given to all of us. The stoles I wear during worship remind me that I have been ordained into the ministry, and as such, I take on the yoke of Christ, and share in God’s work. This alb, the long white gown I wear is a reminder of my baptism. Many people wear necklaces with crosses and fish to remind them of Christ’s resurrection, or of Christ’s life and teachings in the world. Maybe you wear something to remind you of God’s light and love?
It doesn’t need to be the things we wear that remind us of this though. This week in Vacation Bible School the theme was “Teach Us to Pray o God” and so the kids learnt how to pray with their hands. I don’t mean folding their hands, but actually using their fingers as a reminder:
- your thumb is closes to you, and so you use it to pray for people who are close to you: your parents, your siblings, your family
- your pointer finger is a strong reminder of those who teach you things since it can point the way, point out something and even maybe sometimes be used for scolding; so you use it to remind you to pray for the people who teach you things
- your middle finger is the tallest, and so you use it to remind you to pray for people in power – chief and council for instance, or maybe people who work in health care and are caring for you
- your ring finger is your weakest finger and so you use it to remind you to pray for people that are weaker than you, or that are in need: those who are sick, who are hungry, who are dying, etc
- finally you come to your pinky finger. In American Sign Language, the pinky finger is used to indicate the letter ‘I’ or when drawn into your body to refer to yourself. So you use it to remind you to pray for the things you need.
We all carry things with us to remind us of our faith and of God’s love, grace and peace in our lives. Sometimes these things are physical reminders of this, such as our clothing and praying using our fingers, other times we find ourselves more like the scribes of ancient times with God’s message written on our hearts, and the 7 teachings of the Red Road. However we clothe ourselves with these things to give us strength and courage in tough times. While we are not persecuted like those early Christians, we certainly have our own battles to fight, and need to clothe ourselves with those reminders, which enable us to embody Christ’s peace, wholeness, truth and love. May we wear them in Christ’s name. Amen.
I just found your blog again Erin (please don't ask!) and really enjoyed reading it. I loved hearing what you were doing as you were settling in there plus really enjoyed the opportunity to read your sermons. Blogs are tough to keep up but I hope to read more if you get the chance!
ReplyDeleteHugs, Kathy