Put On Faith

Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20

Bethel 8/27/06

Rev. Marc Sherrod, ThD

I once read about a teacher who taught in a public school when we lived near Boston. She described how her school had gone through a radical transformation under the leadership of a creative new principal. Discipline problems had gone down, attendance had gone up, and the place had been transformed. The reason for the transformation? “One word,” she stated. “Uniforms.”

“Yes, the new principal required our students to obtain uniforms. It was amazing. Overnight, discipline problems seemed to vanish. The students loved their uniforms. So many of the tensions that they previously felt because their parents could not afford to buy them the clothes to enable them to compete, many of those and similar tensions simply vanished. They love their uniforms. It has transformed the place.”

On the face of it, I expect many of you are like myself: we want to protect personal freedoms and ensure the right to individual expression and creativity. And requiring uniforms may seem like merely putting a band-aid on much more pervasive social problems that cause various ills in public schools.

In other words, the idea of uniforms, or even, to take it a step further, the admonition in Ephesians to get all dressed up for Jesus by putting on the day’s conventional warrior’s outfit, the breastplate, the belt, the shoes, the shield, the helmet, all that may seem a bit of an over-reaction

But aren’t there certain advantages to uniforms, “a clothes-make-the-man or woman kind of approach,” or beyond that, to the appeal of group identity, which come along with outward uniformity and the inherent motivation to live into the way that we appear to others?

Putting on a certain style or type of outer clothing is a situation that may be compared to the young drama student who wants to be a professional actor. Asked, “what is the most important aspect of becoming an actor?” She replied: “putting on the makeup.” She continued: “I know that may sound a bit superficial, in the literal sense of the word, but [acting] is more than skin deep. A good makeup job is one that the audience can’t see. But I realized that the makeup is not so much for the audience as it is for me. When you sit there before a mirror and spend thirty minutes putting on this makeup, you participate in a transformation. You take on a character by taking on the mask of that character. It is too difficult to take on the role of another without some help. That is where the makeup comes in (Pulpit Resource, 40).

An actor who puts on makeup as a way to practice personal transformation, is an analogy to the call in Ephesians for us to dress up in the clothing of faith, for the acting out, for the performance, for the practice of the Christian life.

It has to be one of the most stirring metaphors for the Christian life in all of scripture: “Put on the whole armor of God . . . the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, the helmet of salvation.” Whether it’s righteousness, faith, truth, or salvation, each piece of armor represents an aspect of the equipment one needs to clothe oneself with faith. More than that, the Word of God is likened to the sword of the spirit and one’s shoes represent that which will carry forth the message of the gospel of peace.

As I have gotten older, I must confess that I had been a little put off by this military metaphor in Ephesians 6. But I have to remind myself that this great Ephesians text is not really about human warfare, which is, I confess, the conventional way I once thought about it.

I have come to see that a form of spiritual warfare is what Ephesians is really talking about, not one nation or one mortal enemy fighting against another. “For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood,” says Ephesians, “but against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil.”

How are we to think about the references in this text to the wiles of the devil and these various powers of darkness? Is evil something just inside people, a Star Wars-like dark side? Or is evil a metaphysical reality with an existence separate from the human sphere, the deceitful opponent engaged in a virtually unending spiritual contest with God’s purposes of love and goodness, justice and peace?

It used to be, in my younger days, that I could wrap my mind around the reality of evil by trying to personify evil as a person gone bad or mad – the proverbial devil with the pitchfork, or I could turn evil into a moment of humor by repeating the line of the comedian Flip Wilson, who always liked to say, “the devil made me do it!” as a way to deny responsibility, or even, in a bit more of a sophisticated theological move, with a wink of the eye toward John Milton’s Paradise Lost, see Satan as a rebellious, fallen angel whose fatal appearance in the Garden was an attempt to get even with God for booting him out of heaven.

How do you think of the devil, demons, evil? Do you believe that there are sinister forces running loose in the universe, determined to defeat God and God’s purpose in Christ?

According to the Ephesians passage, the answer is a resounding “yes!” There are, indeed, spiritual forces aligned against the divine purpose, and the church militant, as God’s instrument on earth, is engaged in a kind of spiritual warfare in order to win the battle and carry the day.

I know that we can easily visualize and think of examples of evil deeds or individuals in our world, people who trivialize the value of human life or who abuse others or do such inhuman things that we question whether they themselves are human at all. Much harder it is, I think, to step beyond the tangible and the concrete to expose the reality of these larger dark spiritual entities and influences, what Ephesians calls “rulers, powers, cosmic influences, and spiritual forces of evil.”

My own thinking about this matter has been helped by a book written by Walter Wink, entitled The Powers that Be. He believes that the existence of these “spiritual forces of evil” can be correlated with actual systems of domination that have become integrated into human institutions. Like, for instance, corporations whose greed leads them to be indifferent towards the fairness and justice of corporate decisions, or forms of government such as that which promoted the Aparteid system in South Africa that treated some as worse than second class citizens, or a dictatorship that rules by fear and intimidation, or a business that ignores God’s humanizing purposes and speaks only of profit as the bottom line, or which, even at a distance, would sanction sweatshop labor as a way to preserve their healthy bottom line. Note that these evil forces are much larger than single individuals, and in fact there are people with no sinister intentions who, nonetheless, get caught up in the darkness of what the entity as a whole is doing.

In his book, Walter Wink equates demons with “the actual spirituality of systems and structures that have betrayed their divine vocations” (27). His premise, and one with which I would agree, is that “personal redemption cannot take place apart from the redemption of our social structures,” and these evil forces have become so integrated into our human institutions that our call to arms as Christians is a call to unmask these powers, and to expose all domination systems to the light of God.

No easy task. But that is the summons, the bugle call, given to the church. “Our struggle,” as Ephesians says, “is not against enemies of blood and flesh . . . “

I can’t point, for example, to any one person or even a government to blame for the problem of world hunger, but we all know that the problem is less one associated with a global lack of food and more one of distribution and mismanagement of resources and a host of other related challenges. Could it be that there is some spiritual force thwarting our best creativity to solve this problem or that engenders a selfishness which blocks the kind of food production and distribution that should be possible to solve famine as a global problem? Isn’t the problem of violence in our society more than a matter of pointing a finger at TV and Hollywood or the weapons industry or those who deal in illegal drugs - isn’t it a spiritual problem that we face in which an evil has collectively aligned itself against the forces of goodness and love and truth?

The great example of the way we are to carry ourselves as we are engaged in this contest with the demonic powers that be is, of course, the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ ministry was more than merely one of healing the sick, showing hospitality to the marginalized, or proclaiming the good news of personal salvation. He took on the demons that had possessed people and he even dramatically confronted religious conventions and political institutions to the point that his crucifixion for blasphemy and sedition was the result.

And so, the cross, and more importantly, after it the resurrection, declare in the strongest terms possible that violence and evil will not win the day.

Jesus opposed the evil powers with a new view of economics -- one of a radical sharing such as with the loaves and fish and the end of exploitation of the many by the powerful few; his politics included his radical teachings regarding equality in God’s eyes between men and women, the wealthy and the poor. In the resolving of disputes, he rejected violence and taught the better way of peace and the non-violent resistance of evil. And in defiance of the religious status quo, he practiced table fellowship with sinners, those who had placed themselves outside Israel’s holiness code and thus were considered unfit even for forgiveness. But Jesus believed otherwise. That, of course, got him in trouble, but the church’s witness to the truth of Christ has also changed the course of human history

As Walter Wink puts it, “if Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him” (81). His message is that novel, that unique.

What Jesus began, we are called to continue, which is to practice resistance to every manifestation of “spiritual forces of evil.”

Thus, Ephesians tells us that we are to put on faith, the whole armor of God, as equipment for our resistance movement against the evil powers. In language that hearkens back to baptismal imagery, we are to clothe ourselves with the armor of righteousness, truth, faith, peace, so that we and, through the church, so that our world can withstand the assaults of the evil one.

But what can I, as a single individual do, we may wonder? Dressing up as a warrior and going forth to slay the enemy is hardly the language we would use today for living the Christian life

The greatest piece of equipment will be prayer, something we all can do, for prayer is the spiritual, mystical practice that can best deflect the demonic influence upon our world. And not prayer just for ourselves but that the church militant would be able to stand firm against the influence of all powers of darkness and that the world would come to know God’s love and justice.

And so, the writer of Ephesians tells us: “Don’t go out there poorly dressed. If you want to play football, put on a helmet. If you are going to be any good at soccer, get the right shoes. If you are going to be a disciple, put on faith, dress up in love, clothe yourselves with good intentions, wrap the promises of God around you, and speak out against evil in the world. Read the Bible, even if you don’t understand all of it. Pray, even when you don’t feel like it. Remember the creeds, even if they aren’t exactly the words you’d choose. Then, having dressed well for the challenge ahead, go and live it.”

Put on the whole armor of God and you will become that which you profess. And you will be that which you desire.

Amen.

# 307 Fight the Good Fight

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Lord God, clothe us in your righteousness. Dress us up in fresh, new garments that shoe the world the change for the better that you have wrought in our hearts. Protect us with the armor of your truth, and use our feet to send us forth with your gospel of peace. Help us to be strong in you, to take courage, especially when we struggle with the reality of evil – whether evil people, evil deeds, evil structures and powers that be. Teach us how to overcome evil with good, how to feed enemies with loving kindness, how to bless even those who persecute us or who despise or reject your church.

Redouble our efforts to pray, for in prayer we tap into a reservoir of spiritual power, power to oppose whatever is opposed to your good purposes for the whole creation. Save us from selfishness and greed. Help us to do our part to make this world a better place for all your children, free from coercive, destructive powers, free to grow into the image you have planted within all people.

Bless your church, Lord, and give us the fruits of the spirit so that day by day we can grow in grace and love for all people. Be with your church which is under duress in lands that are not free, where your people live under threat or fear; be with your church in lands that are free, where faith can become so casual that we fail to count the cost of what it means to follow you. May we all be true to our baptismal naming and calling, seeking to honor you not just with our lips but with our lives.

Shine your light of warmth and comfort upon all who struggle with illness or grief. We remember, especially Betty Foy’s father,

Deliver us, O God, from trusting in weapons of war to bring peace; help us to trust in you. So bring your peace, we pray, to all lands where distrust and violence, where anarchy or hatred rule. Grant safety to peacekeepers and those elected or appointed to protect the common good and promote the welfare of all. We remember today those from our midst serving in the military, asking that your protection and care would surround them day by day.