Before I read the Scripture lesson, I want to acknowledge two realities that could distract worshipers from giving full attention to what I am saying.
First, with regard to something of great interest to this congregation, I commend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a "mainline" Protestant Christian denomination with slightly more than four million members, for approving the ordination to the ministry of gay and lesbian people in committed relationships. The action came at that denomination's national assembly in Minneapolis Friday by a vote of 559 to 451, roughly fifty-five percent to forty-five percent—about the same ratio by which the 2008 Presbyterian General Assembly took a similar step. The difference is that the action of the Lutheran national body does not need to be affirmed by area groups as is the case with Presbyterians. The Lutheran national body's vote is final. Undoubtedly there will be fallout in the coming weeks and months, but the vote is a hopeful sign in the march toward full inclusion on the part of Christian Churches.
Second, and of more local interest, a letter went out to church members on Thursday, sharing the news that the Pulpit Nominating Committee of this congregation has found a candidate for the position of installed pastor. The letter, copies of which will be available in the narthex after this service, gives a probable timetable indicating a congregational meeting in September, endorsement by presbytery or its committee in October, and a beginning date for the new pastor in mid or late November. There will be lots of time for talking about the process of transition. For now it is important for all of you to know that I am very grateful to the Pulpit Nominating Committee for their hard work, and I am fully supportive of their presentation of a candidate for the pastorate of this congregation. I believe in the way we Presbyterians do things, and the system is working as it should.
(Scripture lesson from Ephesians 6:10-20) I invite you now to think with me about those verses from the Epistle to the Ephesians and to connect them with life as we live it in 2009. Some scholars regard the Apostle Paul as the author of the Ephesian Letter, while others argue that it was written by a student or follower of the Apostle Paul. It really doesn't matter. The letter has long been regarded as important in understanding the early Christian Church's beliefs and practices.
One scholar says of what I read that it "creates a striking visual image: the Christian standing as a fully armed Roman infantry soldier [armed] against assault, flaming arrows thrown down from above." [Pheme Perkins in The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. XI, p.463. Abingdon Press, Nashville] Images of weaponry occur in both the Old and New Testaments, so it is not unusual for them to occur in this letter. The Christians to whom Paul was writing were subject to persecution, persecution that could involve anything from ostracism to death. For the first three hundred years of its existence, the Christian Church existed as a community of people outside the main stream of society, accused of everything from cannibalism to blasphemy and treason.
It is in that context that the Epistle to the Ephesians encouraged Christians to arm themselves for spiritual warfare. The ancient letter took for granted the existence of evil personified in the form of the devil. It assumed the reality of "the cosmic powers of this present darkness." And so the author of the letter directed his readers to wear protective clothing, to wear special footgear, and to carry a shield and a sword, prepared to do battle with the forces of darkness. If only Stephen Spielberg had been alive back then.
It's interesting to imagine the author of Ephesians writing a letter to Christians in 2009. If he were writing to the churches in some countries in the Far East and the Near East, he could repeat his theme of wearing armor. Christians have been and still are persecuted in parts of our modern world where religious freedom is nowhere to be found. In such places people go to church not as a casual thing, but as an expression of their trust in and experience of the God known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Such people understand the importance of mutual support and encouragement. They pray for one another, and they risk going to jail, losing employment, and in some cases losing their lives for professing their faith in public.
And what if the author of Ephesians were to write a letter in 2009 to Christians in North America? He might first wonder about how seriously we North American Christians take our faith. He could certainly find what yesterday's New York Times in the article about the Lutherans called "conservative, evangelical Protestant" Christians, who are very vocal about their faith and who are not happy about extending the privilege of ordination to gay and lesbian people, and in some cases, to women in general. But what about us? What about us who read the Bible with open minds as well as open hearts, who see inclusive love as the lens through which we understand the core of Christian faith and life and through which we read the Bible? Should we be encouraged to put on "the armor of God"?
I believe the answer is a qualified Yes. We may differ from our long-ago ancestors in the faith as to the way we see the cosmos. For them the world was populated literally with demons and angels, and they saw the reality of evil personified in Lucifer, or Satan, or the Devil—take your pick. We no longer see things the way they did. But we do ourselves a great disservice if in rejecting their cosmology we disregard what their worldview envisioned. Anyone who knows the history of philosophy remembers that a hundred years ago it was popular to talk about progress with a capital P. Education, nutrition, hygiene, and communication were going to usher in the golden age, the time when injustice would vanish and peace would prevail. Then came two murderous world wars, the emergence of vicious dictatorships in educated and scientifically advanced nations, new forms of slavery and depravity. Nobody talks about self-generated progress these days.
I won't give you the whole text of what the Ephesian letter-writer would say to us today. But I'll point out a few possibilities. I think he or she would urge us to arm ourselves against the evil of greed—against the possibility of falling prey to it ourselves, and against the reality of greed as probably the most potent force in our society today. As I watch the spectacle of health care reform discussion, I am aware of how energetically and ruthlessly entrenched wealth works to protect its interests. It's not possible to have civil discourse about changing the way we deliver and pay for health care in this country when the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, and blocs of medical professionals pay people to derail or disrupt the process.
It's not possible to understand complex issues when the opponents of change subjugate those issues to inflammatory talk about killing grandmothers or bankrupting Medicare. Christians who care that millions of children and adults have no health coverage at all need to wield the "sword of the Spirit" and email their senators and congressional representatives. I'm doing that. Are you?
It doesn't matter how we portray the reality of evil in our time. What matters is that we take it seriously, no matter what we call it, and do battle with it. It's important to speak out against the racist comments made about President Obama on radio and television talk shows and in right wing publications. I've started emailing companies that sponsor such programs and advertise in such publications, telling them I will not buy their products so long as they support such mindless bigotry. I've been doing that for some time in connection with companies who withhold employment benefits from same-gender couples in the workplace. You don't need a breastplate of righteousness or a helmet of salvation to confront evil in corporate America or in political America. The weaponry you need is a computer, a telephone, or pen and paper. Sometimes armor and weaponry are appropriate for contemporary Christians.
In the last verse we heard from the Ephesian Letter, the author asks his readers to pray for him, to pray that he might have courage to proclaim "with boldness the mystery of the gospel...." A person making that kind of request isn't hiding behind armor. In contrast, he or she is risking the exposure of vulnerability. If the writer of the Ephesian Letter were writing to you and me today, I believe he would urge us to find ways to speak about that which draws us to church, that which gives meaning to our lives, that which points beyond our doubts and fears, that to which or to whom we give our highest allegiance—to God, whose love is the ground of our being.
If I were writing a letter to contemporary Christians, I would encourage the vulnerability of asking for prayer. So often we are accustomed to praying for other people, and we may be reluctant to ask to be prayed for. A colleague of mine who serves a church in a southern state told me recently about two young men in his church who were in the same confirmation class a few years ago. One of them had a mild impairment through childhood and early youth. His close friend was a three letter athlete and the class president.
In their junior year of high school the impairment grew worse, and that young man became confined to a wheel chair and needed the help of an electronic device for speaking. He graduated from high school and took classes at the local community college, living with his parents and attending church with them regularly. The other young man went to a university some distance away on an athletic scholarship where he made headlines in football and basketball. He made occasional visits to his home-bound friend when he was in town for holidays.
During the summer after he graduated from college and decided not to play professional ball, the athletically gifted young man visited his incapacitated friend. After they caught each other up on their respective lives, the healthy young man said he wanted to ask a favor of his less robust friend. He said he wanted his friend to pray for him. Stunned, the young man in the wheel chair said he would be glad to do that. The one making the request said that he had lost his way on the faith journey they had begun together in the confirmation class, and he knew his friend who had stayed at home had kept going to church. He went on to say that he admired his friend's courage in dealing with what life had sent his way. He repeated his request for prayer.
The parents of the frail young man said that being asked to pray for his energetic and seemingly successful friend was an emotional and spiritual high for their son. He was so accustomed to being prayed for, that being asked to pray for someone else was a significant boost to his self-esteem.
I might encourage the wearing of armor by contemporary Christians under certain circumstances. I know I would encourage being strong. I would also encourage acknowledging our humanity and our vulnerability. The power of God that the Ephesian Letter talks about only comes to us when we admit our powerlessness and recognize the limits of our control.
Thanks be to God.