When Episcopalians talk about clothes, the conversation (among women) usually goes something like this, “Oh, I love that outfit!” “Thanks, I got it on sale,” or, around here, “Thanks, I got it at the Bargain Shop.” When men talk about clothes, it’s usually a shorter conversation: “Nice shirt.” “Thanks.” If people want to be religious and talk about clothes, they might talk about the clothes I wear in church: “Those vestments are so pretty.”

Today we’re going to have a different kind of conversation about what Christians should wear. We’re going to talk about the armor of God we heard about in our reading from Ephesians, and why we Christians really need it. And that’s not usually the kind of thing we talk about or even the kind of language we use. The image of strapping on armor is a bit off-putting to many Episcopalians. We tend to associate that with militarism or, even worse (for Episcopalians), religious pushiness, so we often shy away from images like that.

I think we had better not. Because I have two concerns: first, we are often encouraged as Christians to think of our struggle with the world in individualistic terms, and in terms of specific issues. So, we see the goal of our spiritual challenge with the world as being “to get me through it safely,” or “to keep me from sinning.” That is way, way too small a vision. As we will discuss, the New Testament calls us to a much, much larger vision of the nature of the contest. So my first concern is that we not turn the cosmic battle God calls us to into a little self-centered skirmish.

And my second concern is that if we see the battle the way St. Paul sees it, we had better be willing to strap on the armor of God or, simply put, we’ll get creamed. In this battle, we need the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit of God’s word, and the constant companion of prayer.

Much of my understanding of the battle we face comes from a wonderful book, fourteen years old now, by Walter Wink called Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. It is a book I heartily endorse. You may not agree with all of it, but you will not come away unchanged.

Through careful scholarship and meticulous study of the Bible, the Rev. Dr. Wink explores what St. Paul is talking about when he says in Ephesians: “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” So, our enemies are not of “blood and flesh;” they aren’t people, but are “rulers,” “authorities, “cosmic powers,” and “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (You ought to be reaching for some armor about now.) What Wink demonstrates from the Bible is that underneath and within the social, economic, and political crisis we face now – and have, in one form or another, always faced – there are profound spiritual realities that must be confronted. Wink points out that the organizations and systems and institutions in society are much like people; they have their own personalities; they operate in their own ways; they do some wonderful things, but they are also fallen. Just like us, even when they want to do right, they often end up doing harm, and, just like us, they don’t always want to do what is right. So we have to think of ourselves as living in the midst of systems that we participate in and that are, in theological terms, fallen. They, like us, don’t always serve God. And, like us, God’s goal is not to destroy them, but to transform them.

What we’re talking about here is your family, your school, your bank, your utility, your local government, yes — your church, and your nation. The enemy is not the people who run them (Paul says the “blood and flesh); they come and go. Democrats and Republicans — administrations come and go and changes are made around the edges, but the center, the core, remains the same.

Wink says, and St. Paul says, and Jesus says, that for these institutions, these “Powers,” the great tempting, seductive alternative to serving God is what Wink calls the Domination System. That system is based on a stratified world in which one person is above another because of the ability to use force, intimidation, coercion, economics, or social prejudice to oppress another. This is the system that says, “I’m riding high when I’m over you.” I’m superior to you because I’m richer, I’m American, I’m straight, I’m male, I’m white, I’m more educated, I’m more heavily armed, or I’m God’s favorite. You get the idea. This Domination System, Wink says, is the enemy St. Paul and Jesus call us to battle.

We are covered up with this. One example is the way our society is virtually addicted to violence. Violence is the ultimate tactic of the Domination System. It’s the most effective way to dominate. By the time they’re eighteen, the average American child has seen 15,000 murders on TV. And as a nation we have completely bought into the notion that violence is redemptive, that it works, and, moreover, that we need it to satisfy a primal urge for revenge. An example of this is a movie like Lethal Weapon, which was on TV a few weeks ago. At the end, Mel Gibson, the hero policeman, catches the utterly disgusting villain. Now, we Americans have a conflict; we don’t want our hero to be a murderer, but the movie has completely dehumanized the villain, and so we Americans want him dead. So, the hero arrests the villain, confirming our need for our heroes to be law-abiding, and then the villain grabs a cop’s gun, giving our hero an excuse to blow the villain away and satisfy our need for revenge and a violent death. And so as the movie ends we can all have the satisfaction of saying, “Yep, he needed killin’, and he got his.”

This is one small example of a morality tale of the Myth of Redemptive Violence (which you will see all over the place if you look.) This is the myth that violence really is the best way to solve problems, and the best organizational model for the world is conquest and its corresponding oppression.

In every generation and in most countries, this Domination System has, to a greater or lesser extent, been applied to the nation. Wink describes it this way:

The myth of redemptive violence is nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical denunciation and negation by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it claims God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a biased and partial tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but a fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but a rod of iron. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. It’s good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final liquidation. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. It usurps the revelation of God’s purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous.

And it is immensely popular.

And, of course, it is also immensely ironic because to spend all one’s energy on defending oneself against a violent aggressor inevitably requires a society to become more like the one that threatens it, as we have seen in recent years as we have felt the need to defend freedom by chipping away at our freedoms. “Thus,” says Wink (long before our current crisis), “domination is a contaminant, a disease that, once introduced, will inexorably spread throughout the system of societies.”

We are disciples of God Incarnate, Pure Love, Jesus of Nazareth, who absolutely, steadfastly, resolutely refused to participate in the Domination System. He lifted up the poor; he honored women when it was socially unacceptable to do so; he said, “Let the little children come to me,” when it was socially unacceptable to do so; he touched the untouchable; he embraced the outcasts; he treated sinners and foreigners as children of God in defiance of the religion in which he was raised; he hung out with traitors and prostitutes; he refused to lead an armed rebellion; he refused to allow himself to be crowned as a king; he said that the way to have real power, to lead, is to serve. And he never ever failed to break a religious or social rule if it was unjust or if, in any way, it treated one person as more human, more loved by God, than another. We are disciples of the Jesus who said, clearly and unambiguously, “Love your enemy,” and who reminded us of the uncomfortable fact that God loves our enemies.

Jesus absolutely refused to participate in the Domination System, and he absolutely refused to mirror the evils of the Domination System by resorting to hatred and violence against it. And so, in the most lopsided contest in history, he was crucified. And the Domination System continues, alive and very well, to this day.

But the Holy Spirit of Christ is also very alive and very well. And the battle is still joined. We are called upon not to be little Christians worrying just about our own conduct and salvation; we are called to be Christian soldiers — soldiers in a huge, cosmic battle in which the fate of the world hangs — soldiers who follow the cross of suffering, of sacrifice — soldiers who refuse to mimic the violence and hatred and evil of the cosmic powers we oppose.

And we need help. And we have it.

Don’t hear today’s reading from Ephesians as if it were some stuffy old piece of ancient scripture. Hear it as your General inspiring you and me, his troops, to engage a crucial battle, a battle in which we are vastly outnumbered and vastly outgunned, and in which we will only use weapons of truth, of righteousness, of faith, love, and peace, and forgiveness, and prayer. Our weapons are intended not to harm our foe, but to change him. Like guerilla fighters, we have to use creative and imaginative tactics, and yet we are all too often not at all sure what to do.

It is a battle that by all worldly reckoning, we cannot win. But by God’s promise, we can, and we must, and we will. If not our generation, some generation; but the battle must be joined, and we will prevail. We have God’s word on it.

So gather ‘round, stand a tippie-toe, and listen to your General, who himself speaks to you from prison (an “ambassador in chains”), as he implores you to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power,” to “put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against our enemies not of blood and flesh, but against the “rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” So take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand, and to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. Wear shoes of peace. Wield the shield of faith. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, and pray in the Spirit at all times.

I know some of you might think that this is all very impractical, just “pie-in-the-sky.” It is not. This can be done. Listen to this letter a man from another country who was tortured by his government wrote to his torturer:

You have beaten me, arrested me, insulted me very often. Do you know what I think, for example, when I am crouching on the ground with my hands on my head protecting myself from your dreadful truncheon blows? I feel extremely sad to see you obliged to hit me. It grieves me to be the occasion through which you lose your human dignity by hitting an innocent, defenseless companion. I am ashamed at the accumulation of advantages which have enabled me to choose not to go into the police under this regime, whereas you, because there was no other way out, because you came from a region which is exploited by people from my class, find yourself obliged to play this wretched part. On the one hand, myself, full of possibilities, on the other, you, having fallen into the fateful trap, and reduced to being the hired strongman of the truly privileged. Injustice has made me into a man of studies, and made you into men of violence.

There is a man who could choose to refuse to hate.

My brothers and sisters, this is not easy, but as Jesus, and St. Paul, and Gandhi, and Dr. King, and so many others knew, it can be done – and we have our orders.