Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Trinity: The whole Armour of God – preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey, on Sunday 25 August 2024 by Canon Charles Mitchell-Innes. (Ephesians Ch 6: v 10 – 20; John Ch 6: v 56 – 69)
As a school chaplain I once asked some young confirmation candidates to draw a picture of God, one each. The results were intriguing, some predictable, some slightly off-the-wall. In the former category were those who thought the Almighty was derived generically from Father Christmas, or Rowan Williams (without the glasses). Some pictured the deity as a bland, sheet-clad elderly gent floating ethereally on cumulus clouds, detached, I imagine, from any kind of worldly reality. But the most arresting image was of a fierce-looking, commando-like figure in battle fatigues, with grenades strapped on his belt, and wearing bandoliers across his chest bristling with bullets. My first reaction was of surprise: this was, you might say, a bombshell. But when I asked the artist what aspect of God this revealed, he replied, very reasonably, that God was a person of action and so he’d drawn Him full of active energy – though standing still in latent power. And I thought of that wonderful picture of William Blake’s, the “Ancient of Days”, which shows God as creator “laying the foundation of the earth” and, with a pair of compasses held in His hand over the black void, “determining its measurements”, as He declares in the Book of Job (Ch 38: v 4 – 5). The remarkable feature of this illustration is the violent motion around the central figure, reminding us that “the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind” (v 1); the Creator’s hair is blown strongly sideways as He works. Yet His face has an expression of complete calm, in the centre of the vortex. Rather like my pupil’s depiction, Blake’s God has a serenity that belies the force of activity implied.
It is worth bearing this in mind as we consider Paul’s famous series of military metaphors that we have heard in today’s Epistle (to the Ephesians, Ch 6: v 10 – 20). He writes as a prisoner (Ch 3: v 1 and Ch 4: v 1), and he would thus have had plenty of opportunity to observe at close-quarters the items of a Roman soldier’s equipment which he lists, as parts of the whole armour: the “breastplate of righteousness”, the “shield of faith”, the “helmet of salvation”, and so on. It sounds very militaristic; yet Paul is keen to point out that the battle is a cosmic one against the forces of evil: in the world, “the rulers of this present darkness” – and we don’t have to look far to find them; “in the heavenly places, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness”. It is a battle that we and God are fighting side by side.
What are our weapons? All apart from one are defensive: belt, breastplate, shoes, shield and helmet; only the sword of the spirit is used for attack, and that is where the fight takes us. As Jesus said to his disciples in the Gospel: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail.” In other words, we may defeat our human enemies, the powers of darkness, but until we overcome the evil that drives them the victory is incomplete.
Let us have a look at two of the weapons that Paul mentions. One is the belt of truth. Truth has suffered of late. On a small scale we see it when some plausible person phones pretending that there is “unusual activity” on our computers or something strange is happening in our bank accounts. The object is to get us to part with information about data and passwords. (We generally don’t reply but leave the receiver next to Radio Three playing classical music. If one is feeling petulant, a challenge such as “why are you lying to me?” usually terminates the conversation quickly.) These are domestic examples, but ones which can have very serious consequences for those who are caught out by them. On a global scale, we see whole countries in thrall to the lies habitually perpetrated in state-controlled media by their rulers, who also spread misinformation abroad, wherever they can. As individuals we are not able to counter this much – except to gird ourselves with the belt of truth in all our converse and our dealings. Paul has in mind not only our personal integrity, but our witness to the truth of the gospel. Both have great power, more than we might think.
That is why Paul’s list includes humble shoes, which are shod in readiness for the gospel and its spreading throughout the world. Note well St Paul’s emphasis here: amid all his military imagery this is “the gospel of peace”. The struggle against evil is to achieve the peace of God’s kingdom, where no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, and no strength known but the strength of love.
So let us be encouraged to put on the whole armour of God, in the struggle that is His and ours: the struggle to uphold the truth, and righteousness; to keep the faith and pursue peace; and to set our eyes on the crown of salvation which Jesus Christ, our leader and guide through life, holds out to us, as we “pray at all times in the Spirit”.
Finally, therefore, “be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might”.