In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I don’t know about you all, but it had been a really long time since I sang the hymn “Onward, Christian soldiers;” it’s been a least a decade. If you pay attention to the text, it’s actually a great hymn that speaks of Christ leading us in our struggles against evil, which crumble in the face of the power of God’s love. It includes the wonderful line “we are treading where the saints have trod; we are not divided, all one body we, one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.” Not only does the hymn portray a triumphant and glorious vision of the Body of Christ, it also has a great tune for singing. Of course, the reason why we don’t sing this hymn very often, or at all, is because of the militaristic metaphors. After all, it’s not “onward, Christian peacemakers,” it’s “onward, Christian soldiers.”
The way of non-violent resistance not only has been a more effective method for social change in our world than war, but non-violence is championed by people like Gandhi, Mandela, Tutu, King, and even Jesus himself. Many Christians laud the ethical position of pacifism, myself included. Consider the prayer for peace in our Prayer Book: “Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love.” Well, if we routinely pray “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” it seems that this vision of no sword being drawn says something about Christian ethics.
This position was ubiquitous in the early Church, as it was widely accepted that one could not be both a soldier and a Christian. Interestingly, it wasn’t so much the ethical concern about killing that led to this prohibition, though that was a concern; but the larger concern was idolatry. If people were willing to serve the empire in such a way that they’d be willing to die or kill, well, it’d be easy to value nation above God. And to this day, you can find people who think that Christians should not be in the military.
That’s not where I land on the issue because we don’t live in a thought-experiment or a perfect world. We live in a sinful and complex world where moral absolutes can be just as problematic as moral relativism. Sometimes the best we can do still falls miserably short of the glory and peace of God. I do not see military service as being incompatible with our Christian faith. Literally, from the Secretary of Defense down to a new recruit going to boot camp, I have been privileged to have parishioners in the military and never once have thought they have been wrong for that. The trick is that we must always remember that our first loyalty is always to the Gospel. We always serve the Lord before we serve the nation.
The reality is that the New Testament locates us on the battlefield of faith. This passage from Ephesians is hardly the only place in Scripture where faith is described in terms of an armed conflict. Scripture portrays us as living in a world which is between times. On the one hand, through the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the forces of Sin and Death have been defeated. On the other hand, though the victory is assured, Sin and Death have not surrendered; their effects are still felt, though it is a losing effort.
As CS Lewis opens his novel The Screwtape Letters, he notes that we tend to make one of two mistakes when we consider evil – either we dismiss belief in evil as antiquated superstition or we have an excessive and unhealthy focus on evil. In the name of pacifism, many Christians make the first error. In the name of peace-making, we avoid violent imagery, we don’t sing hymns like “Onward, Christian soldiers,” and we shudder at the notion of “spiritual warfare.”
The great 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said that human sinfulness “is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.” And he’s right – one look at this world and it’s obvious that a malicious force stronger than us is out there. Sometimes it shows up as racism when the KKK distributes fliers in town. Sometimes it looks like priests and bishops who commit and cover up sexual abuse for decades. Sometimes it looks like a nation as wealthy as ours with a 13% poverty rate. Evil can be intentional or accidental. It can come through malice or apathy. But to be in this world is to be engaged in a struggle with forces that are opposed to God. To ignore militaristic metaphors for our faith doesn’t make us more peaceful, it just makes us ignorant.
But an obsession with violent imagery is also problematic, as our faith is one rooted in peace, not conflict. In this passage from Ephesians, it’s clear that the military images are metaphors. But this passages becomes dangerous when people with literalistic proclivities use such metaphors of armor and battle and take up their non-metaphorical weapons of war. Christianity has a sad history of being involved in colonialism and empire building. The number of people who have been killed under the banner of the Prince of Peace by earthly militaries is reprehensible.
This passage, and those like it, does not give us license to engage in armed conflict against nation-states and enemies of flesh and blood. St. Paul clearly states this – writing “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces.” And when he refers to rulers and authorities, he isn’t writing about individuals as much as he is about forces like oppression and greed which rule human hearts. So we must be cautioned against ignoring the idea of spiritual warfare, but we must also steer clear of changing our enemies from being Sin and evil to being our brothers and sisters. This is a powerful spiritual passage, but a dangerous political one.
And as we consider spiritual warfare, it is worth bearing in mind that our general is not sitting in the Situation Room or a tank, nor is our leader charging forward with a sword. Rather, our general in this fight against Sin is the Lamb of God who was slaughtered by his own people. So right away, we have to recalibrate our expectations for what strength, victory, and prominence look like.
With this understanding that we cannot ignore or literalize the notion of spiritual warfare, let’s look at exactly what St. Paul is commending to us. As we have seen throughout the letter to the Ephesians, our identity and unity is found by locating ourselves in Christ. The story of God’s creating, redeeming, and transforming love is the tapestry on which we live and move and have our being. You might say that in your Baptism, you were conscripted into God’s army. And so we are to put on the belt of truth. When you’re putting on armor, that’s the first step – to gird yourself. For the Christian, it is the truth of God which prepares us for battle. Though truth is under assault in our society, it is the foundation of our armor of faith. The truth of God’s love is absolute and not up for debate.
We then put on the breastplate of righteousness. And in the language of Scripture, justice is exactly the same as righteousness – righteousness is synonymous with justice. So the armor which guards our heart is justice. Having a heart for justice is central to what it means to engage in spiritual warfare.
Our footing is grounded in the peace of God. So we remember that this armor of faith is always in pursuit of peace, not personal advancement, not vanquishing our enemies, but the reconciling peace of God. We then take up the shield of faith, and as I’ve mentioned many times before, faith is not about your thoughts about God, it’s about your relationship with God. We are given the helmet of salvation. In a suit of armor, the helmet is both decorative and defensive. So this helmet of salvation reminds us that we are crowned with the glory of God in Baptism, and also protected by God’s grace. And finally, we have the sword of the Spirit, which is the Gospel of Christ.
Four times in this passage, St. Paul uses the word “stand” in describing the purpose of this armor – it is to enable us to stand firm before the assaults of evil. All of the armor that is mentioned in this passage is defensive. Even the sword that is mentioned refers to a particular sort of short-bladed sword that was only used for defensive purposes. Though I’ve never worn a suit of armor, in reading about it, it seems that when you’re wearing a suit of armor, you don’t move very quickly. The purpose of this spiritual armor is to make us able to stand, and more precisely, to withstand the assaults of evil. We must always bear in mind that it is not ours to fight against evil, that is a losing battle for us. On the Cross, Christ fought that battle on our behalf. Rather, we are to participate in his victory and stand firm in our faith against the assaults of evil.
Notice that St. Paul refers to the “wiles of the devil.” That’s how evil works – it’s not often a frontal assault. Sometimes, such as in the case of genocide, it is easy to identify evil. But evil is often much more wily. Evil lurks under the surface of our cultural assumptions, under the guise of common sense. Evil is a parasite that attaches itself to good intentions, to government, to commerce, to entertainment, even to the Church. And because evil is so cunning, we must be wearing our armor and be on high alert at all times.
There are many ways for you to put on the armor of God – read Scripture, set aside time for prayer and meditation each day, devote yourself to being involved in the community of faith because it’s easier to stand against evil when we are with others, give generously of your financial resources, serve those in need, stand against the forces of evil. Evil tries to get us to live by false narratives like fear, greed, hatred, exclusion, and scarcity. But throughout Ephesians, we have been reminded of the difference being in Christ makes. Because of our Baptisms, we are in Christ, meaning that we are united to God and one another, that our truest story is that we are caught up in the story of God’s love, that God’s grace is accomplishing in us more than we ask or imagine.
This militaristic and violent imagery is actually one that I find to be hope-filled. God’s destruction of Sin and Death is good news. The justice and peace of God come when wrongs are set right; when God’s love triumphs over evil. And so if you are uncomfortable with this sort of violent language around the grace of God, that’s a good thing. Violence should be unsettling. But I also invite you to lean into this idea of spiritual warfare. The reality is that the temptations and assaults of evil are all around us, but by God’s grace we have been given armor to stand against the attacks. Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before!
