"Non-Violent War"
Ephesians 6:10-20
The famous autobiography of Corrie Ten Boom, called "The Hiding Place," tells how the Ten Booms, a Christian family living during the Nazi occupation in World War 2 risked life and limb in order to save Jews and others from certain death in concentration camps.
Eventually, Corrie and her family were caught and sent to live in a concentration camp called Ravensbruck.
Corrie was the only member of her family who survived to tell the story.
And Corrie became a much sought after speaker and writer.
In the book she recounts an amazing experience which occurred after the war.
“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck…”, Corrie writes…
“…And suddenly it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing…” her sister Betsie’s “pain-blanched face."
Corrie continues:
"He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing.
‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulin.’ He said.
‘To think that, as you say, He [Jesus] has washed my sins away!’”
Corrie continues to write: “His hand was thrust out to shake mine.
And I, who had preached so often to the people…the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them.
Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?
Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand.
I could not.
I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.
And so again I breathed a silent prayer.
Jesus, I cannot forgive him.
Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.
From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on [God's].
When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
(pause)
The community of Christians called "Ephesians" lived in a city called Ephesus.
It was an important city in Western Asia Minor which is now modern day Turkey.
These folks were religious minorities.
And after-all, Christianity was illegal up until 313 AD.
So these very early Christians, who were mainly non-Jewish folks--Gentiles by birth--faced daily harassment and discrimination and suppression by the government.
Ephesus was a cultic center for worship of the goddess Artemis.
And at one time, these Christians in Ephesus worshiped this goddess as well.
And Paul reminds them of this.
They lived in a pagan world which was under the authority of the Roman government.
And the Roman government ruled with an iron fist.
Rome was built on military conquests.
They were fighters.
Soldiers.
Conquerors.
They were cruel.
They were brutal.
They showed no mercy.
They killed their enemies, and as we see with what they did to Jesus Christ-they not only killed--they tortured and violently, savagely destroyed those who might threaten their authority, their power, their way of life.
And this militaristic way of thinking and living was how the folks who eventually converted to Christ and became the Church at Ephesus had formerly been trained to live their lives--it's how they had lived their lives.
Many of the Church members were former soldiers and military leaders.
And Paul was speaking to them about the Christian life in a language they could understand.
"Put on God's armor so that you can make a stand against the tricks of the devil."
...okay...
But then he adds "We aren't fighting against human enemies..."
Wait a minute.
That is something totally new!!!
We aren't fighting other people of other nations and languages, colors and religions?...
...not even our oppressors?...
...Not even the neighbor down the street who won't give me the time of day and whose dog uses my lawn as a toilet?
Not even the bully in the hallway who knocks the books out of my hands?
I'm not fighting against him?
What about the soldier who aims a gun at me?
How about the terrorists in our country and across the sea?
"No," says Paul.
"We aren't fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers in the heavens."
This was really new thinking for these early Christians.
Throughout all of history the powerful took people and things by force.
If someone was in the way of their plans, they mowed them down or hung them from a Cross.
If someone did them wrong, they viciously attacked them.
"An eye of an eye right?"
"No."
"The only enemies," says Paul are sin, evil, and death.
"the tricks of the devil"
"the flaming arrows of the evil one"
"rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens."
And the only way to fight or "stand against" these enemies is to put on God's armor...
...not your armor, but God's armor...
...the "belt of truth" which is the truth of Christ...
...the "breastplate of justice or righteousness"...
..."the shield of faith"...
...and to move forward in whatever good shoes you have, proclaiming the "gospel of peace."
The only offensive gear is "the sword of the Spirit, which is God's word."
And isn't this what Jesus used to "stand against the tricks of the devil" while He was walking this earth?
What did Jesus quote to the devil when tempted in the wilderness?
Scripture.
What did Jesus teach?-truth.
What did Jesus embody?--Justice, righteousness.
What did Jesus preach and offer?--salvation.
And what did Jesus do at all times, even on the Cross?--He offered prayers and petitions in the Spirit...and He prayed for and forgave His human enemies.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians is cosmic in scope.
From the very beginning of the Letter Paul talks about the "unseen world."
And he talks about God's power.
And he makes it clear that God's power is available to God's Church as we live as "resident aliens" in a lost and broken world.
Paul says that the power working and available to the Church is the very same power of God which was at work in Jesus Christ "when God raised him from the dead."
And then Paul adds: "At one time you were like a dead person...
...However, God is rich in mercy.
He brought us to life with Christ while we were dead as a result of those things that we did wrong...
...and God has raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus."
What a radical thing to teach a bunch of former blood thirsty barbarians!!!
But you know what?
Paul told these folks, "you belong to God's household."
And he went on to tell them: "As God's household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone..."
He described them as a temple which is dedicated to God and he went on to say "Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit."
What a compliment.
What a twist of fate.
What grace.
What a gift.
Recently, a friend told me about how someone told her daughter about a church burning down.
Furrowing her brow, my friend's daughter asked, "If a church is not a building but a group of people, how can you burn down a church?"
Paul said that the God Who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
Instead, God lives inside of people and our bodies are the temple of God.
And if we are God's temple, how in the world can we take up arms against others for whom Christ died--others, to whom we are called to proclaim the message of peace?
In his book, "Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus," Mark Scandrette writes: "Walking through our neighborhood with a group of friends one day, I met a man who seemed eager to talk.
When I drew closer I noticed that his curly gray hair was crawling with lice and larger spidery bugs.
Though I struggled to understand his slurred Spanish, we made some kind of connection, and he reached out to me with a full embrace, laying his head on my shoulder.
I hesitated for a moment and then wrapped my arms around him for a long hearty hug.
It took me a moment to recognize Jesus in disguise."
"We aren't fighting against human enemies..."
...but we are to "put shoes on [our] feet so that [we] are ready to spread the good news of peace."
Through the example of His life, Jesus invites us to follow as He embraces people rejected and forgotten by society.
He invites us to fight against the powers that oppress, the evil that lurks, the forces of cosmic darkness, the evil that dehumanizes the image of God in humanity.
We follow Jesus Christ as we join the struggle of those who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, angry, naked, or in prison.
The prophet Isaiah once wrote: "Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
No, we aren't fighting against flesh and blood.
We aren't fighting against other human beings.
We are fighting those things which deface other human beings.
We are fighting against war...
...sexual exploitation...
...addiction...
...corruption...
...and the powers that keep others down.
We are given the great privilege of living as the Body of Christ on this earth.
We are called to be peacemakers who help inaugurate God's full reign so that His kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven and thus fulfill the words of the Prophet Isaiah: "they will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning tools."
The Christians at Ephesus had been hardened, brutal men.
Their task in life had been to kill, torture and maim the enemy.
As Paul says, once they were like dead people.
But after being miraculously transformed by faith in Christ, they had been resurrected by God from the dead and seated in heaven with Jesus at God's right hand.
They were clothed with "God's armor," not their armor.
And this armor is heavenly armor.
It is victorious armor.
It is the armor Christ wore as He overcame the "cosmic forces of darkness" during His life on earth and on the Cross.
And those who are in Christ are called not to bear arms against any human beings...
...our only true enemies are sin, evil and death...
...forces that constantly wage war in our inner spirit and at the cosmic level...
...and in this spiritual warfare God in Christ through the Holy Spirit supplies us with the strength of His power.
This means that, as Christians, we are called to be peacemakers.
We must note that none of these early Christians took up weapons against the persons who persecuted them, and many of them died as martyrs.
Confident in the great power of God, they proclaimed the "gospel of peace."
They were extremists of love, peace and boldness.
And yet, they had once been a twisted and violent people.
Certainly, the very power that God used to raise Christ from the dead was, indeed, working in them.
Can the same be said of us?
Remember, it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on [God's].
When God tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
May we put on God's full armor.
Amen.
