23rd August 2009 - "The Full Armour of God: St. Paul and King David"

Revd. Canon Dr. Alan Winton - St Mary's and St Peter's, Ayot
Ephesians 6.10-20; John 6.56-69

At lunch the other day, my table got on to talking about the numbers of those who died in the First World War. One of our company had been to Ypres and visited the Menin Gate where the names of 54,896 people who died in that area are recorded on the walls – the website tells you that even such an immense structure didn’t have sufficient space to record all the names. Another 34, 984 are written on the monument at Passhendaele.

It is hard to get your head around such numbers, and almost impossible to imagine such a conflict happening again, so when we are inclined to moan about the latest ridiculous law from Brussels, such understandable frustration has be balanced against the fact that the European Community was born out of a desire to prevent warfare on such a scale ever happening again, and the coming together of European nations has surely helped play a part in keeping relative peace in Europe.

But today, members of our armed forces are once again engaged in conflict, this time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Understandably, people have very strong views about the rights and wrongs of these military actions and whether or not our troops should be there, but whatever we think,

we can at least keep those who serve on our behalf in our thoughts and prayers.

As you will know, one of the main points of dispute that has arisen in reporting on these current conflicts involves the quality of the equipment the troops are given, and there have been bitter arguments over whether soldiers killed were wearing the best body armour available or driving the most heavily defended vehicles – it’s easy to see why these are crucial concerns for the relatives of those who have died serving their country.

Of course, there has always been a responsibility for the government and the army to send troops into conflict as well equipped as possible, but sensitivities have changed enormously as well as public knowledge of what is going on in conflicts far away, and hence public opinion about such issues is far removed from what it would have been during the First World War.

It is hard to know what is a reasonable expectation in this context, and hard to know where this debate will end. Whilst governments may become increasingly reluctant to commit troops to conflict because of fears of being sued by grieving relatives, the same reluctance seems unlikely to be mirrored on all sides of the kind of conflicts we face in the world today. And whilst expectations and public sensitivities continue to increase in this country, it is hard to believe that there can ever be the sort of protective armour that will ensure truly risk free conflict: there will always be human casualties.

These thoughts were, of course, stirred in my mind by St. Paul’s famous passage in Ephesians about the need to put on the whole armour of God. As we’ve discovered this morning, there are some good hymns written to echo this powerful metaphor, but many people probably struggle to know what it all means to them today. As we stroll along the church path to help at the Pram Service or gather our music for choir practice, or spend a quiet hour or two arranging flowers in church, I wonder whether St. Paul’s metaphor of shields and helmets and swords makes much sense to our lives today.

Well, two thoughts come to mind after a little reflection.

First, if you are a member of the Christian minority living in some of the remote parts of Pakistan or Iraq, then these words may ring true with absolute conviction and brutal relevance. There are parts of the world where the reality of a battle against the forces of evil is very real, and Christians have been murdered and martyred in Iraq and in Pakistan in recent weeks,

seemingly, just because of the faith they profess. I imagine that in that context these words of

St. Paul are very powerful, and the suitability of the metaphor would not be in dispute.

And secondly, I will always remember a sermon I heard as a young man in which the speaker was preaching about the experience of the early church as reflected in the first chapters of the Book of Revelation, in the famous letters to the seven churches. And he observed that the greatest challenge to the Christian church came when its persecution ended. Outright persecution is one form of spiritual warfare, but who would deny that there are more subtle expressions of the forces of evil that affect our lives today even in the midst of the affluence and relative peace that we enjoy. We would be foolish to dismiss Paul’s words simply because we don’t always feel ourselves to be involved in unambiguous conflict.

After a moment’s thought most Christians would realise that we have much to learn from St. Paul’s famous passage in Ephesians and we do well to remember that it is only a metaphor: St. Paul isn’t urging aggression and conflict on us, it is truth and righteousness and readiness and faith that he wants us to embody.

Paul is urging us to be prepared for the challenges and demands that the life of a Christian, of discipleship and ministry, might require from us. And it is mostly through prayer that we are to acquire our ‘armour’ to equip us for the ‘struggle’.

But I wonder, what is the reality for us when we face the kind of challenges and demands that Paul might have had in mind? When we see an opportunity to serve God, or sense his call upon our lives; when we are challenged by circumstance to take a stand against some injustice or cruelty; when we are given a chance to offer love and compassion to someone who is suffering or lonely or unloved; or when we have occasion to speak up for what we believe and open ourselves to mockery or misunderstanding – do we feel ourselves prepared and ready on occasions such as these, equipped with all the protection that Paul speaks of?

I have a suspicion that for some of us the effect of Paul’s worthy list of all the attributes we are to acquire to serve the Lord faithfully is to make us feel that we are never really ready, never suitably equipped.

Let me give you an example, which isn’t meant to be as loaded as it might appear. Sometimes churches going through a vacancy and looking for a new incumbent can fall into this trap. They

write up a list of their requirements, painting a picture of the Rector they feel they need with all the qualities that he or she needs to possess – or they describe the make-up of their parish with all its demands, all its past achievements. And the effect of it is that no clergy person in their right mind, looking at those expectations, would ever have the courage to apply, would ever feel themselves to be up to the job! If you make the task appear too daunting by a list of requirements or a description of the metaphorical armour that you’ll need, then maybe this will have the affect of putting people off believing that they are capable of rising too the challenge.

And St Paul’s famous list may unwittingly have the affect of paralysing us from action because we never feel that we are armed well-enough to take on the challenges that come our way.

If that is how you feel when hearing Paul’s words in Ephesians, then perhaps there is still hope for you. I am reminded today of that wonderful story in the first book of Samuel when the shepherd boy David steps forward and offers his services to the King and people of Israel to fight the dreaded Philistine champion Goliath. After his initial surprise, Saul offers David his very own suit of armour for the task, and no doubt the King’s armour was the best that money could buy. Let me just remind you of what follows in the passage in 1 Samuel:

“Saul clothed David with his armour: he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armour, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. The David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them”. So David removed them. Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in the pouch; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine”.

I am sure you know how that story ends.

Well, I don’t want to dissuade you from a prayerful seeking after all the qualities that St. Paul describes as the whole armour of God. But perhaps there will also be moments when we need to follow David’s example, when we realise that if we wait to have the full armour we may never manage to walk. Instead, like David we can take the gifts God has graciously given us and step forward with courage and trust in him that he will help us prevail.

The truth is that many of us will have to live our lives somewhere between Paul’s meticulous

preparation and David’s spontaneous courage, but the crucial thing is that we act when God calls us or presents us with the challenges and demands that are particular to our lives.

I suppose that in the end we must aim at a path that is neither a matter of going in recklessly unprepared, nor one that leaves us forever preparing for battle, preoccupied, as it were, with polishing our armour.

It is hard for any of us to feel completely prepared for the challenges God gives us, and any worthwhile endeavour will probably always involve some element of risk, so we have to learn to recognise that point where we simply have to step forward in faith and trust. Amen.