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Mettle maker #420: The Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10-17
In last week’s mettle maker we focused on the realities of fighting. We were very, very pragmatic in thinking about what we are up against once a fight begins. This week let’s turn our attention away from the muscle and bone of fighting and turn instead toward its heart and soul.
Certainly the struggle against evil is against tangible, measurable evils — against bad actors and their bad actions. But it is also against various “invisible evils” — evils we cannot see.
St. Paul, the great philosopher and perhaps the first great psychologist, beautifully explains the struggle against evil in his Armor of God lecture in Ephesians 6:10-17. He says, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Remember, St. Paul had a Platonic worldview. Plato taught that the physical world is not as real or as true as the realm of the "Forms" — essentially heaven, or the abode of the gods. To a Platonist, the Platonic “forms” are the eternal, non-material, unchanging, essences of all things, and all that we see in the material “real” world are mere shadows cast by the ultimately real forms. Think of it this way. Which is more real: a mere, provable fact, something like the fact that water freezes at 32F? Or the Truth itself, the beacon that shines in the darkness and lead us all to seek understanding?
Which is more real? The photographic evidence in the trial of a killer? Or the clear evidence that no matter how we organize our societies, no matter what precautions and countermeasures we take, murder is a constant reality in our communities?
This is what St. Paul is pointing toward when he says that we should struggle against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
As you engage in introspection, contemplation, meditation, and prayer, and record your thoughts in your journals, you should consider what you are really up against. What drives you to make the mistakes you make? How might you avoid repeating the same mistakes? What are the sources of negativity and evil that you see? How might you resist them? For insight, read St. Paul’s entire Armor of God lecture below.
The Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Eph 6:10-17)
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Homily for the Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time, 8/25/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b, Ps 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21, Eph 5:21-32, Jn 6:60-69
Ephesians 5:21-32 World English Bible
Brothers and sisters:
“Subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.
22 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body. 24 But as the assembly is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without defect. 28 Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. 29 For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly, 30 because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. 31 “For this cause a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife. Then the two will become one flesh.”* 32 This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the assembly. 33 Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
St. Paul’s lecture to husbands and wives offends modern sensibilities. People despise having their noses rubbed in their faults. As the social fabric continues to unravel and fall apart, biblical teaching becomes more and more offensive.
Like the proverbial frog in the cooking pot, modern people are being boiled alive in a bath of degeneracy. The temperature rises so slowly that the frog doesn’t realize he’s being cooked and does not hop out. Over the last 60 years of the so-called “sexual revolution,” we have grown accustomed to the slowly increasing heat and are boiling alive in our decadence. According to a study by the BBC, 37% of all internet traffic is pornographic. Television shows and movies celebrate unnatural family arrangements and normalize the abnormal.
Immersed in these waters, we cannot conceive of the life-giving air that lies above the surface or acknowledge the reality of our sad state. Children living without both biological parents are twice as likely to drop out of high school, to be poor, and to have behavioral and psychological problems. And it’s not because of the reduced income caused by having only one wage-earner in the home. Negative outcomes persist even when single-parent household income is high. Experts increasingly agree that that children raised in stable, traditional homes do better than those in other family arrangements in every measurable metric.¹
But when the culture is bubbling over with nonsense, that lust is love, that sex can be disconnected from marriage without consequence, that sex and gender are fluid, and so on, we cannot hear the facts amid the churn – that married people report being far happier than those who aren’t², or that the single largest predictor of criminal behavior is lack of a father in the home.³
No wonder then that marriage surrounds, permeates, and is central to Christianity. The biblical story begins with the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall – the consequences of a dysfunctional marriage – and ends with the perfect marriage of the Bride and the Lamb in the Book of Revelation in which marriage itself is perfected in the heavenly realm. The Gospel begins with the story of a married couple, Joseph and Mary, who are called to rear the most sacred child Jesus, the Son of God, and Christ’s ministry begins when he performs his first miracle at the wedding in Cana.
It should not be surprising that St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, lectures men and women as he does, stressing their mutual submission – the proper union and ordering of equal partners. Women are called to submit to their husbands. And husbands are called to so love their wives and families that they are willing to lay down their lives for their families just as Jesus gave up his life for us.
But there is more – there is also what St. Paul calls a great mystery, that is, the mystery of the marriage of Christ and his church. As we read in Genesis 2:24, “A man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” When we partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, letting ourselves, become as one flesh with him, it is not a literal but a figurative wedding. And so we read in the Revelation 19:7-9, “Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! These are the true Words of God!”
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* 5:31 Genesis 2:24
¹ “The Power of the Two-Parent Home”
² “ Are married people happier than those who are not?” CNN.com