Reflection on Ephesians 6:10-20

 

Ephesians 6:10-20     

10Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 11Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. 15As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. 19Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak. 

Reflection

When I was young, the Andy Griffith Show was on television when we got home from school.  We would sit down with our snacks and watch the type of good and wholesome entertainment that most of us wish our children could get today. 

With that said, there was one episode that really troubled my young self.  The episode troubled my heart again and again, as I struggled with its message.  You might even remember the episode.  It is the one where Opie, Andy’s son, gets pushed around by a bully at school, and he does not know what to do.  Andy’s suggestion is to give the bully a good punch, and then the bully will leave him alone.  The end of the episode, as I remember it anyway, shows Opie returning from school with a black eye, but smiling because he punched the bully, and now he will be free from his tormentor.

It was the old, “punch them so that they will be too scared to punch you again” trick.

I was disturbed by the message.  I had bullies in life, but I had no desire to punch them.  Rather, what kept going through my mind were the Bible verses that our Sunday School teachers were trying to impress upon us as they desired to shape us into good Christian children.

Jesus teaches: “But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (Matthew 5:39).  Jesus further teaches, “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).

And the Apostle Peter reiterates this point, returning us to the teachings of Jesus by proclaiming: "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called” (1 Peter 3:9). 

In the television show, Andy was teaching his child something that was contrary to the Bible, and it was all portrayed as a good lesson for all of us good children watching to learn; and it troubled by young heart to no end.  I lost sleep over this one as I pondered the conflicting messages.  I obviously can still remember the moral conflict 37 years later.  It was a big pull on my heart.

My heart is still troubled when I see seemingly good and honest people going down the road of repaying “evil for evil.”  I see people that I respect mentioning that maybe now is the time for a political revolution involving violence, and it troubles my heart.  They hint that now is the time to make sure that God’s virtues are upheld.  “Sometimes,” they say, “evil needs to be confronted with force.  You cannot just let evil rule the day.”

I agree that the evils of this world need to be confronted in some way, but these people insinuate that holy violence is acceptable.  “Do not repay evil with evil” the Bible teaches.  But these good, Bible believing people seem to have forgotten.  The words of Jesus plainly instruct: “Do not resist an evil doer.”   Jesus talks about turning the other cheek, but these words seem not to even influence these people at all.

I have to cut them some slack through, because forgetting to turn the other cheek goes as far back as Peter himself, if not much, much further.  In John 18:10, Peter pulls out a sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s slave when a group of officials and soldiers come to arrest Jesus and take him away. 

“Put your sword back into its sheath.” Jesus reminds Peter.  “Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). 

God does not need protection.  The one who is able to rise again from the grave needs no army.  Jesus does not need Peter to take up arms for him.  Jesus does not need a violent army to protect him.  He did not need it then, and he does not need it now. 

Violence is not the way the kingdom of God works.  Maybe, Peter’s failure in the garden that night is the very reason that Peter continues to reiterate Jesus’ teaching years later as he teaches his own disciples: “Do not repay evil with evil.”

As people within our own nation suffered under the daily horrors of racism, the Reverend Martin Luther King also was troubled by the impulse to make change using violence.  There is no holy violence, the reverend reasoned.  Though terrible violence and discrimination against blacks was being tolerated by otherwise good people, he was adamant that those who are suffering not “repay evil with evil.” 

In his sermon notes, a sermon that was titled, “The Peril of the Sword” the Reverend Martin Luther King said, “The method of violence assumes that evil can overcome evil. It confront[s] a negative with a negative. Retaliatory violence does nothing but multiplies…”

There is this fun little experiment that you can do in order to illustrate King’s point.  If you ask people to pair up, and you tell one person to push the other person, and then permit the other person to push back, what inevitably happens is that both people start pushing each other increasingly harder and harder until it just gets out of control.  And, none of these people even have anything against the other person.  Now, imagine what happens when you ask husbands and wives to do this at a marriage retreat!  And, I am not even going to talk about the time we invited teens to do it at a confirmation retreat.  Needless to say, it was not the most brilliant of confirmation lesson ideas.  “Retaliatory violence does nothing but multiplies.”

Counter to this, the Reverend Martin Luther King suggests that “the doer of [the evil] must always be respected” as a person.  They too are a child of God.  They must not be treated as anything else, even if those who do evil to us treat us as something other than children of God.  The Reverend continues, “The aim of the sword is to defeat injure and humiliate an oppressor. But the true aim should be to convert him, to change his understanding and his sense of values.”  In other words, even the oppressor should be treated as a child of God who can be forgiven and who can change.

But, if we are going to do that, then we will need some different battle armor.  Our swords and shields are going to be different than those of the people who would do us harm.  And, the writer of Ephesians is keenly aware of this.  Roman soldiers wear a belt which shows their rank and honor, a breastplate to protect from blows to the vital organs, boots with which to trample, a wet shield to snuff out burning arrows, a helmet to protect the mind, and the sword to cut down the opponent.  A small, outlawed, religious sect, such as the Christians, had no hope of arming themselves against such a powerful, well equipped military foe.  But, neither were they asked to do so by Jesus or his apostles. 

Rather, the writer of Ephesians asks them to be made strong by the Lord.  The Greek reads, “Be made strong in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:10).  For, it is the Lord who dresses them for battle.  But, it is not a battle against other people.  “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).  People are not our true enemies, the writer says.  They can change.  You can hear the heart of Ephesians echoing in the Reverend Martin Luther King’s words, “the true aim should be to convert him, to change his understanding and his sense of values.” 

Rather, Ephesians teaches that we are in a battle against the “spiritual forces of evil” who are behind those flesh and blood attacks (Ephesians 6:12).

So, donning our God given armor looks a lot like putting the “belt of truth” around our waist.  Remember that the belt was primarily to show rank, with straps and small pennants attached.  The belt of truth helps us to remember who we are, and more importantly, “whose” we are.  We are not someone worth trampling on, nor are we people who return evil for evil.  We are the children of God our belt straps and pennants remind us.  We are the followers of Jesus Christ.  And, we put that belt on first so that we never forget.

Then we put on the “breastplate of righteousness,” or right relationships.  Our enemies are not our enemies.  They are people worthy of love, and seeking a loving relationship with our enemies will protect our hearts.  It is a breastplate of love.

As for shoes, we put on whatever helps us run and “proclaim the gospel of peace” to a world that keeps seeking violence.  God’s peace is what heals the world.

Of course, with all of this, God gives us the “shield of faith.”  It is this baptismal water soaked shield of trust in the Lord, which “will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16).

You can hear just how strong the shield of faith can be when you listen to the words of the Apostle Paul.  He asks, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35).  “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).  For Paul, even though arrows of death can piece our hearts, they cannot pierce our shield of faith that binds us forever to Jesus Christ through God’s unfailing love.

With the shield on our arm, we wear salvation on our heads, tassels of grace flailing about for all to see, and in our hands we hold the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).  We do not hold real swords, because we do not “aim…to defeat injure and humiliate an oppressor,” as the Reverend Martin Luther King reminds us.  Rather, with our sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, we aim to convert [others], to change [their] understanding and [their] sense of values.” 

Wearing the full armor of God, we pray for the day

when love will replace retaliation,

when friend will replace enemy,

when peace will replace fear,

and when trust in God will replace trust in evil ways.

With the Reverend Martin Luther King we pray “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (“I Have A Dream” Speech).

Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done.