Ephesians 6:10-20
“The Armor of God - doG fo romrA ehT”
Preached August 25, 2024
I am going to start my sermon today by referencing a song that I will be SHOCKED if you have ever heard this song referenced in a sermon or even in church before. And that’s rap star Missy Elliot’s 2002 hit “Work It.” To be clear, I don’t actually recommend listening to this song - no wholesome message will be found. But it was the inspiration for today’s sermon title.
The chorus to this song - and I’m going to do my best to say this, I had to listen to this several times to prep myself. The chorus goes:
“Is it worth it? Let me work it
I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it
Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i
Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i”
Now, you might be wondering - what in goodness did Pastor Allison just say?? What were those last two lines? “Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i. Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i.”
It’s literally “I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it” - flipped and reversed. I know back in the day, people were worried about hidden messages in records when played backwards. If you were to put this song on a record, play it backwards, those two lines would make sense!
And that’s what I did with today’s sermon title but instead of with rap lyrics, with “The Armor of God.” I flipped it and reversed it because that’s, in part, what is happening in today’s reading from Ephesians. The writer of Ephesians is taking a well-known, ubiquitous symbol - that of the Roman soldier in their armor, flipping it, and reversing it - to claim meaning against the accepted cultural meaning. To claim associations against the culture associations made with the Roman soldier in their full armor.
While today, for many people, especially in America, the image of the American soldier, in their uniform or in combat gear, fills many with patriotic pride and gratitude for service and sacrifices made. It can be much, much more complicated than that, of course. And that patriotic sense and gratitude would not have been the reaction early Christians would have had to a Roman soldier.
The Roman Empire was seen as an aggressor and oppressor. Soldiers were the tools of that aggression and oppression of which the Jewish people, and the early sect of Christianity that came from Judaism, and even the poor and those not in power - would have seen as the enemy. Remember that it was the Roman soldiers who arrested Jesus, who hung him on the cross, who pierced his side with a spear. And I am sure that the crucifixion of Jesus was not the only violent act that many living in this time would have seen committed by the hands of a soldier in armor. Indeed, many early Christians were pacifists and would not even baptize a soldier unless they renounced their profession.
Given our current view as a wider American culture that tends to celebrate and glorify the military - which I’m not making a judgment on today, that’s a whole other sermon - I’m just stating it as a fact. We often miss the subversive undertones, the flipping and reversing of the image of the soldier and armor that is happening in this passage.
When reading this passage we often focus on the familiar imagery: the armor. The belt, breastplate, shield, helmet, and sword. I remember a little shield and sword I bought as a kid at the Christian bookstore labeled “armor of God.” It’s one of those verses that even children are familiar with. Yet when we focus on the armor, the weaponry, the warfare aspects of this passage, it has the ability to turn into a physically violent message -- which was exactly what the writer of Ephesians was trying to subvert, to flip and reverse, to change a violent image into a spiritual one. Because we do know that too much violence has been done in the name of God, both in Christianity and in other religions. The Crusades, the Holocaust, the KKK and even the current resurgence of White Supremacists and Nazis -- all called upon the Christian soldier, the name of God, in order to try and make their violence sacred.
The writer of Ephesians couldn’t have known the lasting impact and effect using this imagery would have...if he did, I suspect that maybe he would have found a different image to use. But he did use this language for a specific reason. He took the image of the armor of a soldier and flipped it and reversed it- and its implied meaning - around. Due to Roman Imperialization, everyone was familiar with the Roman soldier. The writer used this to his advantage and co-opted the symbol and imagery not to promote, as the Empire did, a gospel of war but to promote a gospel of peace instead. This scripture promotes a contrary message against the power and violence of empire...while using the empire’s language -- this was a subversive act! Taking an image of the state that represents violence, war, and domination and turning it on its head to represent peace and truth - was and is radical. It probably upset just as many people then as it does now.
Just as the writer flipped the imagery of armor for those in Ephesus - it can be flipped for us today. What if instead of focusing on “armor, belt, helmet, shield, sword” - symbols which continue to be symbols of violence, power, and empire - we instead focused on “truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Spirit.” After all the writer said this was not a battle of flesh and blood, so let’s put the armor aside and focus on the Gospel message, the Good News, that the writer compels us to clothe ourselves with - righteousness, truth, peace.
Early Christianity and followers of Jesus were no strangers to flipping society’s messages or cultural norms inside out. For example the names used for Jesus - Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, King of Kings - these were all titles for Caesar. They co-opted the language of the empire and instead of using it to dominate and oppress - subscribed it to Jesus, the one who releases the captives.
Even the fact that today Christians claim the symbol of the cross as our symbol is perhaps the biggest subversive flipping and reversing of an image. The cross was nothing less than an instrument of death and torture used by the Empire to control. It was reserved to be the means of death for those who threatened the empire. Indeed the robbers or bandits crucified on either side of Jesus were not there for stealing food or money, they were there for being part of a political sect that planned revolution against Caesar. Jesus’s message, and the names he called himself and was called, King of the Jews, Son of Man…these were seen as political acts against the power and violence of the Empire and so he was sentenced to death on a cross. Early Christians used the symbol of the fish, not the cross, because it was still seen too much as a symbol of death. I have heard it equated to using the electric chair, a noose, or even a lethal injection as a symbol of life - completely antithetical to how we think of it. But because of the Resurrection, Christians were able to flip and reverse the image of the cross, subvert it, take it from a symbol of death and make it a symbol of life. This is powerful and perhaps the biggest subversion of all.
Jesus himself flipped society’s expectations on their heads. He said the first shall be last and the poor shall be rich. Jesus’s own life and death shattered the world’s expectations and preconceived notions of power. The idea that God would lower God’s self to human form, live among us, and die on a cross flips every expectation of divinity. Sometimes we forget to realize exactly how radical this all is.
So what does this radical, subversive message mean for the modern Christian church in America? What would it look like for us today to flip the culture’s language and societally regulated norms on their heads as we proclaim the Gospel of peace with truth and righteousness? Perhaps it would mean supporting and listening to minority and marginalized voices when they are telling us they are oppressed. Instead of saying “not all men” or “not all white people” or denying their claims - what would it look like to really take to heart claims of oppression from the margins? Perhaps it would mean cultivating a culture of radical generosity in a failing economy. And we’re not just talking about money but time, gifts, and services. In a culture that says that the only thing more valuable than money is time productively spent making money, what would it look like to give of ourselves to promoting the gospel of peace wherever we may find ourselves? What does it look like to promote and live a gospel of peace here at Boardman United Methodist Church, as a community and individuals? It looks like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the last and the least, loving God, and loving one another.
What does clothing ourselves with The Gospel of Peace look like? With the Spirit’s help it will look like truth, righteousness, faith, and salvation.
My friends, this is not an easy message. It is much easier to arm ourselves in the violence of the so-called armor of God and go out into the world looking out for mine and my own, the empire and its interests, ignoring the radical, subversive world-changing message that Ephesians 6:10-20 has to offer us.
So friends, equip yourself with truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit so that we may go out into the world, flip it and reverse it, subverting the messages of death and violence wherever we may find them - and there are lots of those messages out there - and instead turning them into message of life - and the ultimate eternal life in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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