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August 30, 2009, Pentecost Thirteen, All Souls'
Episcopal Church
Put on the whole
armor of God
One of my favorite fictional
anecdotes comes from a novel by Elmore Leonard in which
a lousy actor, a real ham with no talent, somehow got
the lead role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and ruined
everything so completely that theater goers began to
leave during the first act. He was so bad that when he
began to deliver Hamlet’s great soliloquy (“To be or not
to be.”), people started booing, loudly. At that point
the actor walked to the front of the stage, looked out
over the audience, and said, “Heh, I didn’t write this
stuff, okay?”
I was reminded of this story
while reading the Gospel lesson appointed for today
according to our lectionary. The reading is from the
Gospel according to St. Mark, the seventh chapter. It
includes vv 1-8, omits vv 9-13, includes vv 14 & 15,
omits vv 16 – 20, and concludes with vv 21 – 23. The
Central Intelligence Agency releases less redacted
documents to the media on a regular basis. The actor in
my story clearly thought Shakespeare didn’t have a clue
what he was doing. Whoever devised this lectionary
reading clearly thought that the author of Mark’s Gospel
… let’s call him Mark … didn’t know what he was doing
either.
The placing of this gospel
reading with our epistle reading is meant to drive home
the idea that it is not the mere outward and superficial
observances in our religion that matter most but rather
the spiritual truth and principles they convey. This
carries forward what our Lord Jesus said in the gospel
lesson last Sunday: “It is the spirit that gives life;
the flesh profits nothing.” (John 6: 63)
On one hand, this is an
important teaching to focus upon, especially if we’re
going to avoid a dualistic religion and a Manichean view
of the world. We need to understand that we are most
often the cause of our own malfeasance: not things and
not other people. On the other hand, such a view could
also lead to the Gnostic idea, quite popular when I was
a teenager, that what you do doesn’t really matter as
long as your intentions are pure. Anyway, I want to talk
about the epistle.
St. Paul tells us to put on
the whole armor of God. We are to prepare for spiritual
battle. In a way, I think this is the perfect passage
for anyone preparing for any sort of mission or ministry
in the church. It’s highly appropriate that we should
think on these things on the day of our Fall Fair. This
passage from Ephesians 6, reminds us what’s what, and
tells us how we are to prepare for ministry.
While I was on vacation, I
was fortunate to be able to attend the funeral of a
priest who served in the very parish in which my father
grew up and where my great-great grandparents are
buried. At the funeral, the preacher spoke of our common
ministry, and told us that there were three things we
need to grasp in order to be a Christian minister. He
said we need to understand the importance of WD-40.
The “W” in WD-40 stands for
weakness. We must always remain well aware of our
weakness. We must always remember that our ministry is
not about us. It’s not about our talents, our abilities,
or our personality. Think about it. If someone asks you
why you would like to be a lay reader or to serve on the
altar guild or to help in our Sunday School, are you
really going to answer, “I just feel that with my
talents and abilities it would be a shame for people to
miss out on having me serve.” (And won’t you be a joy to
work with.) Instead, we must always remember that we are
at best broken vessels, wounded healers, sinners who
desire only to serve.
The priest whose funeral I
attended was in his late 70’s. He wasn’t in the best of
health. He was thin, bald, and frail. He was always
losing his reading glasses. He was hard of hearing. He
did not play a musical instrument and he did not own a
computer or a cell phone. However you define what it
means to be “hip,” he wasn’t. And yet, when he died, the
students from the local, rural, public, elementary
school were given the afternoon off in order to pay
their respects. That was the sort of impact he had on
children and young people in that country parish. The
pall bearers at his funeral were teenagers from the
annual youth conference where he was a teacher. And yet,
he always knew that it wasn’t him, it was the Lord who
was using him to minister to his flock. We have to
acknowledge our weakness in order to be empowered by
Christ. It is why we must put on his armor.
The “D” in WD-40 stands for
discipline. Using a sword properly so as to be
victorious in battle requires training; it requires
discipline. They were called disciples because they
followed the discipline of Christ. St. Paul says the
sword of the spirit is the word of God. Being
disciplined and trained in God’s word means ever so much
more than just memorizing passages to quote at people.
It means reading, marking, learning, and inwardly
digesting God’s word. Through training and discipline, a
violinist or a pianist acquires finger memory. Dancers
develop muscle memory. So do fighters. When we are truly
disciplined students of God’s word, we are not merely
acquiring information, but are instead developing a sort
of soul-memory so that his words become our words; his
ways become our ways.
St. Paul tells us to be
armed with the “shield of faith.” A shield normally is
thought of as a defensive weapon. However, its purpose
is to take you forward, not backward; toward the battle,
not away from it. We have faith not so we can flee the
world but so that we may engage it. A shield is used in
concert with a sword, and God’s word inspires us and
moves us only in concert with our faith. Using these
parts of God’s armor requires the practice of daily
discipline, and we cannot properly exercise our ministry
without it.
The “40” in WD-40 stands for
the forty years God’s people spent in the wilderness on
their way to the Promised Land. It did not take them
forty years to find the only place in the Middle East
with no oil because they walked slowly. Rather, those
forty years were a period of preparation. God has his
own timing. We go to battle wearing the “helmet of
salvation” so that we will always have in our heads and
remember that even though we don’t know precisely how
things will turn out in any given arena of war,
nevertheless, the outcome of the war has already been
decided. Victory is ours in our Lord Jesus Christ, the
captain of our salvation. God will do what God will do
when he and he alone sees fit. Do not … I repeat, do not
try and make God submit to your time table. That’s just
not going to work out well for you. Your duty consists
of being faithful. Stand your post in a right relation
to God as his soldier and servant. Let that be your
breastplate of righteousness covering your heart.
The belt by which one was
girded, and which was worn around the core of the body,
held all the armor in place. St. Paul says that this is
the role of truth. Too often we engage in what has been
called “motivated reasoning.” This means that rather
than seeking facts which either prove or disprove a
particular belief, you instead look only for information
which confirms what you already think. This eventually
leads to replacing the belt of truth with your own
prejudices, insecurities, worries, and fears. This is no
way to live. You cannot be free this way. Learned Hand
once said: “The mark of a free man is that ever-gnawing
inner uncertainty as to whether or not he is right.”
Jesus put it best when he said, “The truth shall make
you free.” The purpose and place of faith is to guide
you and support you as you seek understanding and the
freedom of truth.
Have faith in God. Have faith
in God’s timing. Walk as Christ’s faithful soldier and
servant with a humble sense of your own weakness, with a
heart ready to be disciplined, and with a faith that
God’s providence does not fail. Put on the whole armor
of God.
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