Sermon by Nanette Sawyer | August 25, 2024 | Fourth Presbyterian Church

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 25, 2024

The Full Armor of God

Nanette Sawyer
Associate Pastor

Psalm 34:15–22
Ephesians 6:10–20

Many are prone to saying these days that we are a deeply divided country. I myself repeat that idea. And in some ways we are.

We have felt the divisions, many of us in our own families. But I wonder if we can find a deeper, shared commitment to the common good. And I wonder specifically what role Christians like ourselves can play in that.

Ephesians is a book about the character development of Christians. Being transformed by Jesus is described as putting on new garments. In chapter 4 Paul instructs the church to “clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

This new self is also described in the letter to the Colossian church (Colossians 3:10–14) as “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” This is the vision that God has for us of our identity when we clothe ourselves in Jesus, when we become the body of Christ, the church.

In the context of Ephesians, the full armor of God could almost be thought of as another garment that can shape our character.

These verses begin “Be strong in the Lord”. The translation we’re using hides the passive verb in the original Greek. It would be more accurately translated “Be made strong in the Lord, in the strength of God’s power.” Paul is suggesting that we allow ourselves to be made strong.

There is a power greater than ourselves that is making us stronger than we can be on our own. There’s something in that about humility. There’s a stepping aside, a giving up control in order to let that larger, stronger, Godly power support us.

To describe it more, Paul uses the metaphor of protective gear. There’s the belt of truth, which would protect us from deceit; the breastplate of righteousness-not self-righteousness, but right relationship and right action keeps us connected to others; shoes that make us ready to proclaim a gospel of peace through the actions we take, the places we go, the way we walk.

Frederick Buechner once wrote, “If you want to know who you really are as distinct from who you like to think you are, keep an eye on where your feet take you” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, p. 27).

In the armor of God there’s the shield of faith that quenches the flaming arrows coming at us and the helmet of salvation — all things that protect us.

The one item in this list that might be called a weapon is the sword, and it’s the sword of the Spirit, also called the word of God. This weapon carries a message, a gospel of peace. Paul seems to be turning a symbol of war, armor, into a metaphor for a life filled with the nonviolence and the love of Jesus Christ.

Earlier, in chapter 3, Paul prays that the Ephesians may be strengthened in their inner being with power through God’s Spirit and that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. Doing this, Paul says, Christians will be “rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:16b–17).

If Christians can allow ourselves to be transformed in this way, we will “be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Somehow putting on the full armor of God can help with achieving this fullness of God and clothing ourselves in the new life of Christ.

In the meantime, there is cruelty and danger in the world. That’s real. Metaphorical flaming arrows are heading for our chests.

Author and social scientist Brené Brown made a podcast almost four years ago on the night of the last presidential election. In the weeks before that, she had been sharing some of her political thoughts and opinions online, a bold move, and she reflected in this podcast on the pushback she got to that transparency. People told her to keep her mouth shut, to keep writing the same kinds of books she’d been writing but don’t talk about politics. And she received graphic and violent threats against her and her family.

We know that threats like these have been acted on. We do need to protect ourselves and report threats and be careful and cautious in the world. Thankfully no one acted on the threats that Dr. Brown received. In her podcast, she described her spiritual and inner process of dealing with threats to her safety. She felt her shields go up. She armored herself, she said. She got the fight energy in her body.

But she didn’t want to stay that way. She didn’t want to live that way, with hardness and fear. She said in her podcast, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, joy, trust, intimacy, courage, everything that I want more of in my life. And an armored front sounds good when I’m hurting, but it ends up causing us so much more pain in the end. You know, when we let people take our vulnerability or fill us with their hate, we turn over our entire lives to them” (Brené Brown, “On Strong Backs, Soft Fronts, and Wild Hearts,” brenebrown.com/podcast ).

She said that when she looks at some of these hateful comments that she received she tries to say to the people who wrote them, “‘You just can’t have my hate. I can’t give up my soft front for you.’ Because the price is too high.”

Dr. Brown pledges not to hate. That doesn’t mean that she’s going to allow people to harm her or her family, because she’s not. But she’s also not going to allow them to change her into an enemy, a person filled with hatred. She’s not going to give up the vulnerability that opens her to love, joy, trust, intimacy, and courage.

I’d call this a spiritual practice that she’s describing and it takes practice. It’s not about being passive or allowing evil or cruelty to flourish. We are called to confront and challenge those things. But the practice is about being strong enough to resist evil, and soft enough to live an abundant life of love and joy.

This idea of having what Brené Brown called a “soft front” is one that she got from Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher, a Zen priest, and author of several books on engaged Buddhism.

Roshi Joan Halifax says,

“All too often our so-called strength comes from fear, not love. Instead of having a strong back, many of us have a defended front, shielding a weak spine. In other words, we walk around brittle and defensive, trying to conceal our lack of confidence. If we strengthen our backs, metaphorically speaking, and develop a spine that’s flexible but sturdy, then we can risk having a front that’s soft and open. How can we give and accept care with strong back, soft front, compassion, moving past fear to a place of genuine tenderness? I believe it comes when we can be truly transparent, seeing the world clearly and letting the world see into us.” (Cited by Brown, “On Strong Backs, Soft Fronts, and Wild Hearts,” brenebrown.com/podcast ).

Strong back, soft front. This idea can help us reflect on the nature of the armor of God. Paul is teaching us how to be shielded appropriately and how to be strengthened in our inner being with power through God’s Spirit. That’s a strong back — inner strength. God’s love in us. I’m taking this idea from a Buddhist teacher and examining how it intersects with a Christian teaching. This is one way that our interfaith partners can help us become stronger Christians.

A strong back is based on a sense of confidence and conviction about our identity as God’s own. Counterintuitively, we get that strength, that sense of confidence and conviction, through surrender to God, through vulnerability, through humility and giving up the idea that we can do it all on our own.

Having a strong back means being rooted and grounded in God’s love for us. We can nurture and sustain a strong sense of self, knowing who we are, and living from that place. Strong back. Backbone. This creates a shield against flaming arrows that would attack our spirits, diminish us, that would define us as something less than what we are.

And what are we? Beautiful, kind, loving, joyful, precious, devoted, strong, capable of many things, generous, self-reflective, desiring to be well and do well, desiring to grow into God’s dreams for us, dreams of our flourishing.

Some of us have to work especially hard to develop strong backs. To live into this conviction, we have to practice and practice it. Others of us have to work especially hard to develop soft fronts. We have to remind ourselves again and again to hold on to our vulnerability, to be transparent, to not allow ourselves to be turned into haters. Jesus teaches nonretaliation so that we don’t become enemies ourselves.

A couple election cycles ago I asked my dad what he was afraid of. He told me he was afraid of dictatorship. I told him I was afraid of the same thing. But we were voting for opposing candidates.

On another day he asked me what I thought of the transgender bathroom controversy. And on yet another day he asked me “what’s this ‘woke’ thing?”

I loved my dad for many reasons. But on those days, I especially loved him for asking about what I thought and for listening with openness and care. He engaged me with a soft front. And neither of us gave up our convictions. But we allowed each other to see each other. We had vulnerability and transparency with each other.

One Christmas I bought my dad a particular brand of socks. He asked me, “Are these the socks I saw on TV, where every pair you buy, another pair is given to someone in need?” I told him they were, and he was so pleased by that. He cared about people. He wanted to be generous. He wanted to be kind. He wanted to help.

Most of us care about the common good. Most of us want things to be fair. Sometimes we have different ideas about what makes things fair, and we need to keep talking about that. We need to keep learning from each other and gaining the insights that diverse lives and diverse experiences give us as a people.

None of us have the full picture. And that’s one reason why we need each other. That’s a very Presbyterian perspective, by the way. And it’s also a perspective that will help us have a strong democracy. We need to keep talking, welcoming diverse voices.

The more we can do this, the more we can resist becoming enemies — and the more we can invest in building the common good, the commonwealth of God, the kin-dom of God, what Jesus calls the kingdom of God.

Reconciliation and relationship are needed for a strong society. But not everyone wants to be reconciled. That’s sometimes a difficult thing to accept. We can’t be reconciled with someone who does not want to be reconciled with us. Sometimes the best we can do is try for forgiveness on our end. It may be a one-sided solution to conflict, but at least it sets our spirits free from being stuck in hostility.

At the same time, there are many, many, many people who do want to be connected, respected, understood, and included. That’s what reconciliation looks like. It doesn’t mean giving up our convictions. It doesn’t mean giving up our differences. But it does mean putting down our shields and using our words and walking our faith, trusting in the gospel of peace Christ gives us. Strong backs, soft fronts.

Let’s practice this. Here are some words to repeat as a kind of meditation. Try this on for size — repeat after me.

Strong back. I know who I am. Beloved and lovely. Child of God. Fierce and devoted.

Soft front. I care who you are. I listen with interest. I don’t know all of who you are. But I do know some things — that you are beloved and lovely, child of God, fierce and devoted.

I care who you are. I know who I am. Strong back. Soft front.

Wearing the full armor of God, may we experience the mystery of the gospel of peace and proclaim it boldly with our lives. May it be so. Amen.