Put on Armor but no Marching to War

We now come to the end of this summer series that has featured readings from

            John, chapter 6, the Bread of Life chapter,

            and the Epistle to the Ephesians.

 

I hope that this series has been helpful for you during these few weeks

            in the midst of everything going on around us right now.

 

The reading from Ephesians this week  can be, I think,  particularly helpful.

            It is sort of a summing up of the previous chapters of Ephesians

                        in some imagery that can help us address 

                                    a lot of those current stressors in our lives

                                                for us as individuals 

                                                for us as a community of faith

                                                and for us as the human race.

 

What is offered is a word-picture of being clothed,

                                    clothed in armor,

            for those feeling spiritual oppression and attacks

                        in order to be strong in the Lord.            

 

This is a militaristic example that the Apostle Paul is using, 

            but look what he has done with it.

He is saying here’s what is at stake – YOU.

            You are under threat.

This calls for power in the face of threat,

            and strength is needed,

but that strength has to come from God.  It is God who keeps you strong.

So put on this armor, which is given you by God.

            It’s not your own armor, but armor which is a spiritual gifting.

 

First there’s the belt around the waist – bad translation.

            It actually says gird your loins with truth,

Truth around the most personal and private parts of our bodies.

            

This truth is our grounding reality; 

            truth is what brings integration and coherence to our sense of identity.

 

Then the breastplate of Righteousness is placed over the heart.

            It protects the center of our being 

                        where our motivation and commitment comes from.

It is the breastplate of righteousness, which is right relationship with God.

            The importance of this is that to be strong 

                        the strength must come from the power of God working in us,

                                                the Holy Spirit working righteousness in us.

The breastplate of Righteousness based on right relationship with God.

 

Then you need a shield for defense.  Faith is the shield.

            Faith is trusting in God, 

            faith that is a gift of the Spirit 

                                                            as well as a fruit of the Spirit growing within us.

The imagery describes this shield as having the ability to quench,

                        to douse water on flaming arrows.

            What superhero would love to have that! 

Undoubtedly Paul was recalling the Psalms, specifically Psalm 91.

            “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,

            …shall find refuge under [God’s] wings;

            his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.

            You shall not be afraid of any terror by night,

            nor of the arrow that flies by day.”

The faith of this shield is a relationship with the reality

                        of the unbreakable dependability of the faith of Jesus to sustain us.

 

Next is the helmet of salvation.

            Put your head into that, into the context of salvation, 

            know with your mind that salvation is God's work, 

            not what your own mind can contrive or figure out.

Salvation is liberation, being set free from oppression 

                                    that attacks our reality as beloved children of God.

 

Now, I left out one item that we need to come back to.

Verse 15:  As shoes for your feet put on 

            whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

 

Peace – Wait a minute!  Isn’t the armor for doing battle?

Get all this armor on and then DON’T march off to battle!

            Look at those marching shoes – 

            whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

                        peace, they’re not for warfare.

What is peace here?

            It is the utterly untroubled fullness of the Presence of God.

To walk in peace is to walk in the freedom from both 

            hatred of the other who is seen as an enemy

            and hatred of self, from being at war with one’s self.  That is peace.

The world around you may be a helpless wreck

            but that peace will help you walk right through it all.

 

Verse 13 at the beginning of this armor imagery says,

"… take up the whole armor of God, so that … having done everything, 

            [you may] stand firm."  

Once you get that armor on, there is no need for further action on our part.  

Just stand there equipped with what God has given you.  

That will be sufficient.

 

The whole armor is composed entirely of gifts given us,

                        so it is not our strength being described here.

And we get this armor on, but we don’t fight; we stand.

            The armor is defensive.

            Any fighting to be done, leave that to God.

 

The only offensive part of this armor is the sword,

                        the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

That’s not our words, but the word of God

that we can access through the Spirit

                        and speak when we face a situation of need.

 

Our words are to pray.

Verse 15:  “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication.”

            Praying at all times in the Spirit – 

and, yes, this is possible, clothed in this symbolic armor

            that reminds us of how much we have been given,

            that reminds us of our baptismal identity in Christ.

 

The Apostle Paul learned all of this while under great duress and stress.

            His was not an easy missionary calling, you know.

Beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, imprisoned – 

            For him this armor of God was a lived reality.

He knew what it was to abide in Christ, to live in him,

                        to live by the faith of Jesus.

 

Jesus said,

            “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

            …whoever eats me will live because of me.”

 

We have been sitting with these shocking words 

            these last few Sundays 

                        daring to look at them and not avert our eyes, hopefully.

For some of the disciples this was just too much.

 

Jesus said,

            “But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

They said,

            “This teaching is difficult (literally, hard); 

            This bread is as hard as a rock.  Who can eat that?  Who can accept it?”

They were murmuring and complaining 

                        about this whole long Bread of Life teaching.

But Jesus doesn’t soften the message for them.

 

Here’s the heart of it, Jesus tells them.

“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.

The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

 

The words of Jesus are the words of creation within us.

             The Word in the beginning calling all things into being

            The Word made flesh, bringing the spiritual into the material world,

                        where life can be such a mess.

The words that Jesus speaks are words of intervention into this whole mess.

They don’t necessarily make things easier.

They may not straighten out the mess of life to our satisfaction.

But they are words of spirit and life 

and assurance for faith in the utter reliability of God’s love and mercy 

and the trustworthiness of our Lord Jesus

                        based on his love and self sacrifice for us.

 

And to eat him, to take Jesus into us, 

            releases within us this tremendous spiritual process of eternal life.

 

There are two modalities of life:

            the life of this world, which is fragmented and full of strife

                        with moments of excruciating beauty and goodness,

            and then there is eternal life, 

                        life when those moments are recognized as 

tastes of the fullness of life that is realized in the Presence of God.

 

So my last words on this summer series are ones that would echo Peter.

 

Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”

Simon Peter answered him, 

            “Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

 

The essential words, Bread of Life is there for us 

to sink our teeth into spiritually, 

living bread that conveys life to the eater.

Now, would you want to walk away from that?

            For me, it is clear – where else can I go?

                                                Jesus has the words of Eternal Life. 

One Big Chomp

 “…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

            you have no life in you.”

 

If we stop to think about what Jesus just said,

            this sounds awful, shocking, unnerving.

How could anyone talk this way about himself?

                        “Here, eat me, drink my blood.”

 

The mind recoils from this

            as though caught in a nightmare

                        after staying up late to watch some vampire movie.

 

Well, now that Jesus has our attention,

            what does he mean?

 

In this Bread of Life Chapter from the Gospel of John,

            I think Jesus is talking on two levels here, both of them literal.

 

First is the materially literal level, the actual physical level:

            eat my flesh, drink my blood.            Yes! just that.

 

But to understand this, we need to know just who is the “I” who is saying this.

 

This is the One who saw himself as abiding in the Father and the Father in him,

            so that they were one.

This is the One who said, 

            “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these…you did it unto me.”

 

If you can accept it, this is the One 

            who saw all creation from a non-dualist perspective,

            who knew that all creation is of a piece,

            that when we look at another, 

                        if we do not see that other’s need as our need,

            then we are living out of a lie, 

                        THE lie, of the illusion of separation one from another.

 

To live as though others are separate from yourself 

            is to rationalize away the call and responsibility of compassion 

                        that comes with Jesus saying,

            “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these…you did it unto me.”

 

Now, have you ever stopped to think about how, when it comes right down to it,

            everything is eating everything else?!

 

The fox eats the rabbit who eats Mr. McGregor’s cabbage.

The cabbage eats the soil and the sunshine and the rain.

The rain and the air eat away the iron.

The river eats away the river bank.

The mosquito feasts on my tender ankle 

                                    as I sit outside feasting on picnic fare.

The worms eat the body of the carnivore, and the eater returns to the soil.

            The earth of the grave consumes the corpse.

 

As Annie Dillard wrote in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,

            “The world is one big chomp.”

 

And this fits with the passage under consideration

            for the Greek words used here for eating emphasize this literalness.

There are two Greek words for the verb, to eat, used in the passage.

The first is the regular word, fagein, to eat,

            and the second is trwgw, which means more precisely, “to chomp,”

                        to chew on, to gnaw, to sink your teeth into.

Much more graphic, right?

This emphasizes the point that Jesus is making; 

            and it makes this matter of eating his flesh and drinking his blood 

                        even more in your face.

 

On the literal organic level from the perspective  of nondualism,

            we eat and we are eaten.

 

The question is, can we recognize this closely enmeshed relationship

                        of all of life, of every life form, in this beautiful web of Life,

            and have respect and compassion and reverence

                                    for the life we consume in order to live ourselves?

 

That is one level of literal meaning, the organic level.

 

The second level of literal meaning 

            is the spiritually literal meaning of what Jesus was saying.

That is, what is the spiritual process and spiritual truth 

            that is being described in this passage?

 

You remember the old saying, “You are what you eat”?

            That applies here, I would suggest.

 

What will help us know, what will help us realize 

            that that which we take into ourselves becomes a part of us?

 

Verse 56 of this Gospel passage reads,

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

 

Here is our baptismal identity, 

            what Jesus prayed for that we would realize 

                        that we abide in him and he in us,

                        just as he abides in the Father and is one with the Father.

 

Verse 57 says:

“Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father,

            so whoever eats me, who really chews on me, will live through me.”

 

Getting this, not just having an intellectual understanding of it , 

            but having a lived experience of this reality of self-identity in Christ,

opens up our vision to what the Gospel of John calls “Eternal Life.”

 

Here’s verse 58 in a free translation:

The one chewing on this bread lives into this Eternal Life.

 

So finally let’s bring that into what we are doing right here and now,

            this making eucharist, this thanksgiving meal,

                        this feasting on the Lamb of God, the self-offering of our Savior.

 

We have before us the means to respond obediently to these awful words             

    about eating the body and drinking the blood of our Lord,

            to consume with devotion and reverence the food provided for us.

 

Here in a very concentrated and focused way sacramentally

            we literally fulfill Jesus’ command to consume him.

 

Recalling the Apostle Paul’s warning to the faith community in Corinth,

            may we eat the bread and drink the cup 

                        discerning the Body of the Lord.

 

In the Eucharist the bread and cup sacramentally provide us

                        with a sacred meal, discerned spiritually.

As we partake of that may we come to know

            that every meal is actually a sacred meal.

 

May we come to see truly what it means in Acts 17:28 to say:

            “In him we live and move and have our being,”

and to know how it is that “the fullness of [Christ] fills all in all”

                        as it says in Ephesians 1:23.

 

The Spirit of the Resurrected Jesus pervades all of creation.

            Every meal is a sacred meal.

 

So then, to return to the reading from Ephesians for this week:

 

“Be careful then how you live, 

            not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, 

                        because the days are evil.   

–      (This is today’s reality – overrun by so many pressing concerns.) - 

So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. … 

            be filled with the Spirit…

             giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything 

                                                in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

The Spirit of the Resurrected Jesus pervades all of creation.

            Every meal is a sacred meal.

 

For what we are about to receive,

            may the Lord make us truly grateful.

Times that Try Our Souls

 “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Who here recognizes this quotation, and who said it?

            And no, it’s not in the Bible.

 

It was Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.

            “These are the times that try men’s souls.

            The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,

            shrink from the service of their country;

            but he that stands by it now 

            deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

 

Thomas Paine, of course, was referring to the American Revolution,

            but the times that try our souls are not just times of war

            but any time when life gets really tough:

                        times of economic strife, like the Great Depression,

                        times of political strife, like the Civil Rights era of the ‘60’s,

                        times of catastrophic disasters, like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11.

 

We are in one of those times right now that try our souls.

We have multiple stressors occurring all at the same time:

            political polarization and power struggles, 

            a world wide pandemic that will continue until the whole world 

                                    can have access to sufficient vaccines,

            climate change with rising temperatures and rising sea level,

            destructive wild fires here and all over the globe,

and that’s not counting the critical time for us here close to home

                        in our calling process for new clergy leadership here.

 

It is in just these sort of times 

            that spiritually we cannot just be “summer soldiers.”            

 

This is the second installment in this summer sermon series

            on Ephesians and the Bread of Life chapter

 

The Gospel for today begins where we left off last week:

            Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.

            Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,

            and whoever believes, that is, has faith in me will never be thirsty.”

 

And today’s passage concludes with Jesus saying 

            that he is “the living bread that came down from heaven.

            Whoever eats of this bread will live always.”

 

Jesus, the Bread of Life and source of our nourishment for life.

 

In the Psalm for today we have this beautiful verse:

            “Taste and see that the Lord is good,

                        happy are they who trust in him!”

 

Now I have to say just a word or two about our Old Testament reading for today,

            the reading from the Hebrew Bible.

This is just a snippet from the epic story of the Prophet Elijah in I Kings,

            a story that would make a good 

                        adventure/disaster/ thriller/action/superhero movie

                                    complete with spectacular special effects.

 

It is well worth reading in its entirety: 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 1

                        followed by the sequel about the Prophet Elisha.

 

In this episode Elijah had fled the wrath of Queen Jezebel

            and was out in the desert of the Sinai.

The angel of the Lord provided food from heaven:  bread baked on hot stones, 

            (This actually can be and has been done on the hot stones in this desert!)

 

And Elijah “went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights”

            until he came to Horeb, 

                        which is another name for Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.

 

Again Psalm 34

            “The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him,

                        and he will deliver them.

            Taste and see that the Lord is good;

                        happy are they who trust in him.”

 

Where do we find our nourishment?

            And of course here I am referring 

                        not to what gives us the right amount of 

                                                vitamins and minerals and calories to keep us healthy,

                        but to what nourishes us spiritually

 

For us as Christians our primary source of spiritual nourishment 

            will consist primarily of Jesus, Jesus himself.

                        Jesus as he comes to us revealed through the Gospels and Epistles

                        Jesus through the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist

                        Jesus through our daily practice of prayer and meditation

 

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

We need to be able to “taste” Jesus, the Bread of Life, 

            taste him in our reading and hearing the scriptures

            and in the sacrament

            and in our personal prayers.

 

During these times that try our souls, these very stressful times,

            we now need to step up our spiritual wakefulness 

and, as the Ephesians passage two weeks from now will exhort us,

            “Put on the whole armor of God, …

            and having done everything, …stand…”

 

Not summer soldiers, not doing our spiritual practice just when convenient to us 

            or what is comfortable for us without stretching us,

but working to be spiritually equipped to meet all the growing need and stress

                        being faithful in following Jesus

                        living up to the best meaning of what it is to be a Christian.

 

Today’s words from the Epistle to the Ephesians

give us some more good spiritual exercises:

“…let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, 

for we are members of one another…            (verse 25)

 

“Be angry –                                                                                     (verse 26)

 

Yes, we can be angry, but that emotion becomes sin 

            when we let it go on and on,

            when we don’t resolve the issues, 

                        or seek to change the situation so that anger has been dissolved.

 

            “Thieves must give up stealing…                                    (verse 28)

 

Did you know that St. Francis considered it stealing 

            if one had an abundance that overflows personal needs 

            and did not share that with the poor?

Am I stealing from the poor, if I am not generous with what is in my ownership?

                        A good stewardship question!

 

(verse 29)

            “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths,

            but only what is useful for building up.

 

Can we run all our words through this gate before speaking them aloud?

A lot of self reflection here about what is deep in our hearts,

                        what our intentions and motivations really are,

            and how by shifting the focus to what builds up

                                    can dramatically change what we might have said

                                    and become life giving words instead.

 

(verse 30)

            “…do not grieve the Holy Spirit…

 

Don’t make God regret God’s abundant mercy and love shown you,

            as though we could make God regret – impossible

but with all that we are graced with

            what grief and sadness would there be 

                        if we neglected the gifts we have been given?

            “…do not grieve the Holy Spirit…

 

(verse 31)

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger 

and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 

and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, 

as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

 

To heed and put into action these words 

            is to discover that we can taste and see that the Lord is good.

 

These are the times that try our souls.

            So now let us claim, each of us for our own selves, 

                        that in our spiritually practice

we will be more than summer soldiers.