Aug 22, 2021
Beloved— especially in such times as of this— my hope and my prayers is that as the writer to the Ephesians says we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power.” In a world doubled over in pain and suffering… in a world swirling with disinformation needlessly costing people lives… in a world reeling from the costs to our children of imposing ‘normal’ onto that which is not— in our world I pray that we might “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power” and declare the gospel boldly.
From where I stand our world is in desperate need of the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Our world — we— are invited to do as best as we can to declare that love and grace in what we say, and what we do, and how we are— in our words, our actions, and our posture. This is what I hear in our passage today from Ephesians an invitation to go about our life with a posture of the love of God.
St. Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus writes about this strength in God’s power as putting on the whole armor of God. That when we go out into the world declaring the Gospel we will encounter things and powers that are not of God. I don’t think that this is news to anyone, as it is splashed across our news. There is a reason in our post communion prayer we pray for strength and courage. When we get up from the altar, we are sent out into a world where there is brokenness and sin and we need strength and courage. And thus, St. Paul writes about putting on the armor of God.
Now there are three aspects of the strength and power of the armor of God I want to highlight today.
1) The first insight comes from John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progress — yes the theological fiction from 1678— Bunyan points out that there is no armor for the back — no armor for the back. To put this is terms for us here in Texas—this is not the armor of an armadillo. When the going gets tough we don’t get to curl up into a ball with back armor that ricochet off what might cause pain. No. The purpose of the armor of God is not to protect us when we are hunkered down, it is to enable us to together stand firm and hold the line. Stand firm the writer of Ephesians says—- stand firm.
And when you have no armor for the back, it means that it is designed for you to be in community. Someone else has to have your six. You six o’lock position, your back. We are not created to be alone but in community. And when one steps away, the rest are exposed. To stand against the powers and principalities of this world requires community. The armor of God is for those standing and in community-- there is no armor for the back.
2) The second insight I want to offer is that this is very different kind of armor. Our world today is highly militarized and especially in what has transpired recently, I know that for some this metaphor can be hard to hear. And so I think it is important to remember that this was not written to those with worldly power and might but it was written to a minority community who were being oppressed with extreme violence. And in his metaphor St. Paul takes the everyday armor that they are used to seeing and turns it on its head:
A belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, as for shoes for your feet, put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation and only offensive item is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. To be clear, I do not believe he is referring to using scripture as a weapon, but rather allowing the Spirit and the Word of God and the presence of Christ to do the work. Let God do God’s work and not try to do it for God. Imagine with me, how beautiful would it be to wake up in the morning and tie on a belt of truth, put on a breastplate of righteousness. Choose the shoes that will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Some in my household usually don’t think I need more shoes, but those shoes-- imagine what our world would be like if Christians put on whatever will make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Beloved, this is very different kind of armor.
3). The third insight I want to offer today is about posture. You see, when we are wearing armor, you have to stand differently. Have you ever put on armor before? Your whole body stance changes when you wear it. It can be a bit… cumbersome. — let’s just name that truth, righteousness, peace, faith and salvation can be cumbersome when you are moving out and about in the world. When you are wearing armor, you need to think differently about how you are going to move in it. Your posture, your stride, your stance-- everything changes a bit. And this transformation is a good thing. Changing our posture makes us strong and powerful and that is the point in the first place: “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power”
Are you familiar with the research of Amy Cuddy? Now I’ll admit, it is a bit controversial, but makes me curious. Cuddy was an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and a social psychologist known for her research on power and nonverbal behavior. She is perhaps best known for her TEDtalk from 2012 that has viewed more than 62 million times. For those who don’t know, a TED talk is a short (around 20 minutes) live talk at a conference about an idea worth spreading by a leader in that field that is then uploaded as a video for free online. Cuddy’s argument is that your body language shapes who you are and her research suggests that by simply changing your posture you can become more powerful. Or in the least our posture has a statistically significant affect on our propensity to take risk and the level of the stress hormone cortisol in our system. Now we’ve talked about some of this before— that our bodies can impact the chemistry of our brains and the mind can impact the body. That we are embodied, in-fleshed, incarnate whole beings. And in a sense she is saying that our bodies and their posture in the world matters. Pay attention with me for a moment to our bodies. At times do we make ourselves smaller by hunching, crossing our legs, holding onto our arms? At times do we make ourselves big by spreading out, stretching, raising our hands with gusto. Cuddy talks about these as power poses.
In a manner of speaking, the writer of Ephesians is suggesting the same thing for when you are wearing the armor of God, you have to stand differently-- you can’t close up like an armadillo— you stand firm. Standing in the armor of God makes you powerful. To “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power” we put on the armor of God— armor that requires us to stand firm in the posture of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation. How we stand in our bodies impacts our minds and our hearts. God is inviting us to transformation we live and move can transform our being.
Beloved, God is inviting us into transformation by putting on the armor of God, by living our lives with a posture of the love of God. I pray that we may “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of [God’s] power”