After ten hours on the road, numerous toddler squabbles, and one or two near misses, we stopped for supper at the Dartmoor Lodge, Ashburton. We were on the final leg of our journey back from Aberdeen. Parking the car, I slumped against the steering wheel, only to hear Nathaniel (3) whisper, ‘Luke – I am your father’.
It’s the best line in cinema (in my opinion) from the Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars), the film that brought us the cosmic struggle to rid the galaxy of the dark side of the Force.
It resonated for me with Ephesians 6. 11-17, my favourite bit of the New Testament, with the injunction to put on the armour of God because ‘of the cosmic powers of this present darkness.’ I like to use it in the baptismal liturgy when the child or adult is anointed with the oil of baptism. I think it is particularly powerful to do when baptising boys because the prevailing British culture wrongly sees the Gospel as something largely for girls. We rarely speak of the Church Militant or being a spiritual warrior for Christ.
Perhaps I should have presided in a suit of armour rather than an alb, stole, and chasuble? There is in fact a mosaic in Ravenna of a beardless Christ dressed as a Roman Soldier. Could we imagine a Ninja Jesus, or a Christ in Khaki battle dress, or Jesus paratrooper?
I am not advocating violence, crusades or some kind of Christian Jihad but rather the idea of the armour of God and the cosmic powers calls us not to sleepwalk in the task of being a Christian in the world? Remember Jesus said to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was stormed by violent men (and women) and that these violent people were taking from them. In other words God’s revolution was being snatched from the luke warm and given to the enthusiasts for the Gospel. Likewise, the letter to the Ephesians wants us be to tuned into the bigger picture of what the Church is all about. The Church was devised not in committees, vestries or sanctuaries but in the mind of God before creation. The Church is the central instrument of salvation in the World. And as the Church increases her territory so she finds resistance, confrontation, injustice.
The battle that the Church finds itself is not simply against injustices or people who don’t like our religion. The battle, Ephesians is telling us, has an undercurrent. It is a battle for the heart, for imagination, for the soul. It is war of ideas. Even if you find it alien the concept of a devil or a supernatural dark side, believe that we are fighting a war of ideas.
In the news recently has been the passionate debate about the urgency to provide soldiers in Afghanistan with more helicopters, land vehicles, and personal body armour. Having half the kit, is almost pointless. The write of Ephesians clearly calls us to be strong in the Lord by putting on the whole armour. The emphasis here is on the whole, rather than part. All bits of kits are crucial, in many ways it’s a mindset as well as discipline. We need for our armour, a sense of salvation, an understanding of the Scripture in our life, the canniness to know untruth and heresy, and the shield of a mature faith to protect us.
Finally, and core to our armour is the breastplate. This protects the heart and lungs, the core of our being in other words. Ephesians links the breastplate with righteousness. This is not self-righteousness but rather you and me doing the right thing. Abbot Jamison has written a book called Finding Happiness which I would eagerly recommend. He wisely points out that most of us want happiness but when pushed struggle to define it? Monasticism understands it as the pursuit of what is good, namely living a virtuous life. If we do the wrong thing, if we choose the easy path, (or to quote Yoda – choose the ways of the Sith and not the Jedi) then will we know true happiness? Will not our conscience be racked and our spirituality fail? Surely this is at the heart of Jesus’ first sermon the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) which itself starts with the word ‘Happy’. Happiness is doing the right thing.
I want to end with the words of Soldiers of Christ Arise
Leave no unguarded place, no weakness of the soul,Take every virtue, every
grace, and fortify the whole;Indissolubly joined, to battle all proceed;But arm
yourselves with all the mind that was in Christ, your Head.
