Whole Armor of God; Sermon from August 23rd, 2015

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18Ephesians 6:10-20

The Whole Armor of God

We come together here in this beautiful sanctuary to, once again, declare our belonging to God, our belonging to each other in Christian community, and our belonging to a world that is not quite the kingdom of heaven. 

I was struck by scripture in the lectionary this morning.  Joshua calls the elders together and asks them to choose what God they will serve.  He goes on to enumerate the ways God has guided and protected the community, a God who has faithfully served the Israelites.  And he asks, in their time of doubt – a theme often repeated when the Israelites find themselves in the proverbial ‘wilderness’ – to choose, once again, between the God that has been faithful, and other Dieties of their neighbors.

Many of us make that choice.  We make that choice with the elders of our faith. We make that choice amidst Christian community.  We make that choice here, by returning to this beloved sanctuary every Sunday where we are reminded of the symbols of God. 

But what happens next?

There isn’t necessarily a clear blueprint on what that means – for us, the Christians of the 21^st Century.  For Joshua’s contemporaries, choosing God came with very clear rituals for eating, cleaning, working and worshipping.  Keeping Sabbath.  Rejecting idols. Habits that were counter to the greater culture.

Similarly, the early Christian communities had to make this choice each and every day. Much like the ancient Israelites in ancient times, the early Christian communities were minority colonies trying to live counter to a strong, dominant culture – and it caused tension.  It possibly even seemed like insurrection.  Their early Christian language used to describe God and Lord was very similar to that used to describe imperial officials - especially the emperor. Even the word for their gatherings, ekklesiae, was a term for political gatherings at the local level.  You can imagine this made the ruling structure somewhat suspicious.

This is why I find the letters from Paul so inspiring.  I knew nothing about the Apostle Paul before Seminary.  In fact, I think his letters were rarely used in my congregational upbringing. So let me do a little explaining here, in case any of you grew up the same.

The Apostle Paul never met Jesus of Nazareth. He had a conversion on the road to Damascus where Jesus came to him as a vision.  He then spent the rest of his life crossing the entire Roman-Greco world planting small communities of believers from modern day Syria all the way to Greece.  On foot. He was jailed – more than once – and while confined, used these letters to sooth tempers, heal divisions, and shore up the cohesion of these communities from afar.  (and – I should be careful to be academically accurate with the Reverends Dart here – historians believe there were many leaders after Paul that used his name in their letters to receive that type of recognition.  This letter, in fact, written to the community in Ephesus in Turkey, is not necessarily written by Paul, but written with the same intention; to shore up the early Christian community’s spirits.)

This letter, then, was written for people for whom their allegiance to Christ set them at conspicuous odds with the allegiances of others in their families and cities. They were alone – except for each other.  They were, at best, suspicious, or at worst, persecuted by the greater social structure.  And, they had to do all the heavy lifting of making a community get along – like we do in church.  Perhaps for these folks a certain kind of armor would be exactly what they craved.

I know this congregation is facing that wilderness of doubt and uncertainty once again - decisions on building issues naturally becomes a struggle to understand where you belong, if not here, in this beautiful and beloved sanctuary?  You may know that is only a sign and symbol of God’s everlasting peace - but one that provides a type of armor in the broken world.

I would argue that Paul’s letter offers a blueprint for how to serve God.  Pick up the armor of God, the shield of faith, to get you through the vulnerable and uncomfortable places, and put on your proclamation shoes because that’s where the kingdom of God is.

I was thinking about this scripture when I attended a rally this week asking justice for Rekia Boyd, a part of the Black Lives Matter Campaign.  Rekia Boyd was killed in 2012, when an off-duty officer drew his weapon and shot into a crowd, aiming for a black man who he thought was drawing a weapon.  No evidence has been found that points to a weapon; the evidence points to a cell phone.  But Rekia was shot in the head and died 2 days later.  She was 22. You may have read about this case recently; a judge dismissed charges against the officer, saying that the charge of ‘involuntary manslaughter’ wasn’t strong enough for the actions of the officer and disregard for human life. Activists have been demanding an investigation for 3 years, and the dismissal of the officer from police employment.

I was thinking about the “whole armor of God”, as I attended the rally, because the anger was palpable, dozens of officers were present, and I was feeling vulnerable.  Contrary to the dozens of rallies I have planned, recruited for, and attended, I went alone, I didn’t know the area, didn’t know what to expect, and didn’t have the armor of righteous and personal indignation.  This had never happened to me.

I was craving the armor of God. But then I realized how many young black people probably crave the armor of God – or a shield of some sort - in countless situations in their everyday lives.

In the letter to the Ephesians, the people are instructed to take up their shield of faith and sword of the spirit, but the letter makes clear that the enemy is not people.  It says, “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.” 

Theologian Walter Wink has coined a term for evil that is not temptation, and not individuals, but the “Powers and Principalities” of the world – the ‘cosmic forces of present darkness’.  By ‘power and principalities’, Wink means the overarching systems that get corrupted by the drive for power, the hunger for greed, and the desperation to sustain the system at the expense of people’s lives and livelihood.  He might talk about how individuals can get swept up in the institution that uses, and condones, or results in very evil outcomes.  How we can get addicted by consumerism until we have ravaged the worlds’ resources…or get seduced into Capitalisms’ bargains that harm workers here and around the world…or get sucked into the justice system’s narrative that uses people of color as the scapegoat for crime. 

Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the spirit of evil that has taken over the system that was designed with good intentions.

Now, I know some police officers personally, and have seen their difficulty dealing with the current turmoil around police conduct and black lives in the face of the fraternity and sacrifices of police officers.  And I am not trying to assign blame.  But it is hard to deny that something must be amiss with the principality and power of the justice system.  When black people and black neighborhoods are seen as the enemy in our war on crime; when stops, arrests, and lock up rates are disproportionately higher among people of color; when loss of life is considered with callousness and disregard; when driving from NAPERVILLE to TEXAS without signaling a LANE CHANGE becomes a LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION…

There is something amiss with the powers and principalities of the justice system!

Paul says to ‘take up the whole armor of God, so that you may withstand evil.  Stand, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. Be ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. And be sure to take the shield of faith.

Friends, with or without the armor of these beloved sanctuary walls, the world has a strong need for us to take up our shield of faith – for ourselves and our brothers and sisters.  Many, many congregations are having the same struggles you are here. And yet, the world needs us to fasten the belt of truth around our waists and weild the sword of the spirit, and withstand the evils of the powers and principalities as they manifest today.  If we choose to serve the Lord, we have to go to the broken places and bring our proverbial ‘armor’ – God’s grace and courage and love.

At the end of the letter, Paul (or his associate) ends with a beautiful expression of vulnerability and fear.  Pray 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, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

So friends, I ask that you pray for me, pray for the brave protestors that are attempting to proclaim their right to life, and pray for each other – that we may be bold enough to be witnesses to the Gospel, to justice, to peace. So that we may go boldly out into the world and stand for each other in this broken world. The world needs us to serve the Lord as much as ever.