It’s a true growing edge to preach a sermon on a Bible passage one dislikes. More than any song of praise, criticism invites others to express their own opinions. Thanks to all of you who opened my eyes to see the Whole Armor of God in whole new ways. You know who you are and I won’t quote you by name because I never attribute sayings without their sayers’ permission. But what was said is worth repeating and so instead of posting a sermon by me, I’m going to post a conversation by us, which is always richer than a single voice.
It began when someone told me that far from wanting the Armor of God taken out of the Bible, it was one of their favorite images. They grew up in a military family and all the honor attendant thereto. To my friend, the armor of God was an expression of faithful and ethical service, and of course they were right in every way! It reminded me that the fault lies less with the quote than with the context in which one hears it.
I should have come from a military family. By temperament I’m a warrior, and as a senior army officer reminded me decades ago at a party, “If you really want to be a pacifist, you need to work with us. We understand what war involves. We also know, better than most, how to keep the peace and what peace costs.” I have never forgotten those words. I am proud of my friends who have served. I am proud of our officers who have talked angry commanders in chief out of waging dangerous conflicts. They are mature enough to put on the whole armor of God. I am not. I was never trained to live with my emotions. That was the painful work of adulthood.
The armor of God quote entered my life at the beginning of my adulthood, brandished by a pair of irresponsible bullies who had put on the armor of God to resist the wiles of young, unwed mothers-to-be whose fetuses they were determined to save “in the name of righteousness.” All I could think was “How can you use the armor of God to protect yourselves from a sin you could not possibly commit?”
Our conversation about Ephesians continued when an attorney spoke of going to court as upholding a tradition of justice which had been in place for hundreds of years, the armor of law. When Kamala Harris said in her speech, “Your Honor, I am Kamala Harris and I am with the people,” she was donning the robes of justice. This led us to consider the traditions we all believe in, and the way we clothe ourselves, reminding me that one of the central moments in an ordination liturgy is being dressed in one’s new vestments, which were, during the Middle Ages, not surprisingly called armor.
The next question was unanswerable. Does the soft and porous fabric of robes ever harden into the hidebound rigidity of metal armor? Can the great traditions of law, medicine, ministry, marriage, and other professions for which one swears to uphold a vow, turn hidebound, hierarchical, and unresponsive to the ever changing signs of the times?
This is the creative tension between stability and evolution. It’s one of the many lessons we can learn from both the natural world and human history. Join us as we begin that sacred study on Sunday.
Rev. Carol+
