In
today’s lesson from Ephesians
Paul urges us to gird ourselves for
spiritual battle.
He
says strap on your gun belt
but you need a different kind of gun
because this is different kind of
enemy.
We
are not fighting against flesh and blood.//
That
means we are not fighting against each other.
We
are not fighting the people in our family.
We
are not fighting our neighbors
or the members of the other
political party.
We
are not fighting Iraqis or Afghans.
We
are fighting against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness.”
We
are fighting against “the spiritual forces of evil.”
That
sounds pretty dramatic.
It
sounds like Lord of the Rings stuff.
When
Paul talks about spiritual warfare,
it includes big cosmic struggles.
But
spiritual warfare also happens
in subtle every day ways.
Anyone
who has read C. S. Lewis’s classic,
The
Screwtape Letters,
knows that evil flourishes in the
mundane
habits of everyday life.
A
little malice here, an ounce of sloth there,
and before you know it,
you’ve got a soul on the
path to perdition.
So
let’s look at spiritual warfare in ordinary daily life.
As
usual, Jesus is our best example.
I
stand in awe of his words and actions in today’s lesson.
He
has just taught them about the Eucharist.
He
has said, “Whoever eats me will live. . . . “
Well
the crowd did not understand.
It
sounded like cannibalism to them,
and they were repulsed.
Up
to now, the Jesus movement had been gaining momentum,
but this was a crisis.
Jesus
had offended the crowd.
He
was on the verge of losing them.
I
have been in that position more than once.
You
know what I have usually done.
I
have started back pedaling – or explaining.
“No.
No,” I would have said,
“I didn’t mean that. It’s just a
metaphor.
If that doesn’t work for you,
forget it about it.
Let’s talk about something nice,
like the shepherd knowing all his
little sheep by name.”
In
the face of conflict,
I would have rushed lickety split
to smooth things out.
But
Jesus didn’t do that.
He
said, “Does that offend you.
Well wait until you hear this.
And he told them even more
astounding things
about himself.
He added “if you don’t believe it,
you just haven’t been
blessed by God
with the ability to get
these things.”
That’s
when almost all of Jesus’ followers said,
“It’s been real. We’re out of here.”
When
Jesus saw that he still had 12 followers left,
He said “What are you guys doing
here?
Don’t you want to leave
too?”
But
Peter said,
“Where would we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
You are the Holy One of God.”
The
most striking thing about this story
isn’t Jesus’ shocking teaching.
It’s
how solid Jesus was in himself,
how ready he was to tell the truth,
the pure unvarnished truth
without regard to how it would play
in the press.
Jesus
was the human dwelling place of God
because he was pure 100%
unadulterated Jesus.
In
the presence of the Pharisees, he was Jesus.
In
the presence of the Sadducees, he was Jesus.
In
the presence of Galilean fishermen, King Herod,
Pontius Pilate or his own best
friends, he was always Jesus.
He
didn’t need anyone’s approval or permission to be Jesus.
So
what’s that got to do with Christianity in general
and spiritual warfare in particular?
Just
this. God made us to be ourselves.
Theologian
Karl Rahner said,
“Each of us is a unique
irreplaceable word of God.”
That
means we speak God,
we reveal God precisely by being
ourselves.
If
we are not ourselves, then who will be us?
If
we are not ourselves, a unique irreplaceable word of God
will never be spoken. Never.
St.
Ignatius Loyola said,
“All things glorify God by being
themselves.”
To
the extent we fail to be ourselves,
God is not glorified.
“The glory of God is a human being
fully alive.”
To
the extent, we are not fully alive,
God is not glorified.
We
rarely kill, steal, or worship idols.
But
the struggle to be oneself – that’s a challenge.
Paul
says, we have enemies standing in our way.
He
calls them “the cosmic powers of this present darkness . . . .
the spiritual forces of evil.”
How
do comic power and spiritual forces
work to keep us from being
ourselves?
Let’s
start with all the cultural messages that tell us
what men and women are supposed to
be.
Let’s
start with all the social definitions of success.
I
spent the first 30 year of my life
mad at God for making me who I am
instead of a movie star hero.
I
let Hollywood and Madison Avenue
tell me what I was supposed to be
instead of seeing myself through
God’s eyes.
and spiritual forces – or at least
their agents.
They
made me ashamed and afraid to be myself.
Then
there is all the negative feedback
we get from family and even friends,
telling us lies about who we are.
We
see ourselves through their eyes,
not God’s eyes.
That
keeps us from even knowing ourselves accurately.
that want more than anything to
prevent us
from being who we are?
Where
do we get the grace to be ourselves,
to live out of our true selves,
to glorify God by being fully alive?
Paul
says we must “take the shield of faith
which will quench the arrows of the
evil one.”//
Faith
means trusting that God has made us
precisely the way God wants us to
be.
Faith
comes from discovering that God loves us,
not in a pitying tolerating way,
but God enjoys us just the way we
are.
comes from knowing that the world
has no jurisdiction over
us.
The
judgments of the world don’t count.
God’s
judgment counts,
and God has judged us good.
God
has declared us worthy.
God
is greater than Hollywood, Madison Avenue,
our families, and social definitions
of success.
“If
God is for us,
who can be against us?” Paul asked.
The
answer is: Nobody.
