For most of my lifetime I’ve felt that American politics were relatively civil. Republicans and Democrats disagreed for sure, but the debates were civil. Fact checkable truths seemed to rule the day. And if your party or your favored candidate lost an election you knew you could just wait until the next election cycle and try again.
With this current election it seems
like both parties have raised a level of anxiety such that if the other wins
the very future of the nation is in peril.
Perhaps that is true. Perhaps
that is not. I’m not a sociological
expert. What is true is that elections
have always mattered. Quite often in the
past the outcome of an election did have a major impact on government policies
and the daily life of the average person.
Even so, it feels like this election
is bigger. And when it comes to the
presidency and the House and Senate, it all seems to be up in the air. (Although I understand it is reasonably
likely that both houses of congress with see a swap in which party leads them.) It all creates a lot of tension. That tension has been building for years,
perhaps decades.
Politics used to be something that
people would have polite disagreements about.
Now you better watch what you say, and there may well be plenty of
severe arguments breaking out again this year when families gather around the
Thanksgiving Day table. If you’re lucky
everyone at the table will be rooting for the same football team so you can
have at least something to agree on!
American democracy and American life
has felt pretty tame for many people for quite a long time. That’s not so in the present day. Who knows if things will calm down or if they
will continue to escalate. Perhaps the
heightened anxiety of the present day helps us to understand the imagery we
read in Ephesians 6 about putting on the armor of God.
Ephesians 6 talked about putting on
the whole armor of God: the belt of truth around your waist, the breastplate of
righteousness, as for your shoes – whatever makes you ready to proclaim the
gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit – which is the word of God.
You get the picture of a well-armed
soldier who is ready for battle. But
let’s be more specific than just that.
The author of Ephesians pretty clearly has in mind a Roman infantryman. I don’t know how much you know about the
Roman army, but Rome’s infantry was for all intent and purposes
unstoppable. It was the core of their
military might.
When the Roman infantry went to
battle they did not act like a hoard with swords and shields wildly attacking
an enemy; and then being victorious because of luck or superior fighting
training. The Roman infantry was
successful because it was highly disciplined, strategic, and systematic.
There is debate over how the
infantry actually attacked. There are
lots of theories out there. Most of them
are fanciful. I understand the History
Channel has a program describing the way the Roman infantry defeated the
ancient Britians outnumbered by 50 to 1 using a sawtooth attack pattern. Like many things on the History Channel, it is
probably more fantasy than fact. What is
certainly true is that the tactics the Roman infantry used changed over
time. They were good at incorporating
things they learned from their enemies.
What is consistent over the centuries is that they made good use of some
form of phalanx and wedge tactics. The
phalanx is where you line up infantrymen in shoulder to shoulder and a few
layers deep. If you’re in the front you’d
hold your shield in your left hand and your sword in your right. Being shoulder to shoulder your combined
shields became like a wall. There would
be slight gaps left which you would use to thrust forward with your sword. If you were in the front there would be
someone behind you ready to take your place, and pushing on you to give more
force to the forward motion.
They would
commonly combine the phalanx with a wedge formation. You wouldn’t attack enemies in a straight
line but rather in a point or wedge. You
moved forward, whether at a walk or at a run keeping the formation as tight as
possible.
About the only way
to stop the Roman infantry was to flank them or run around behind them. But if you did that the Romans would combine
their shields to be like a tortoise shell around them. They were tough to attack like that!
A soldier in the
Roman infantry was well discipled and did not fight alone. He was part of a coordinated but flexible
group.
Let’s make sure we
include all of this when we picture the armor of God that Ephesians is
describing, and the lifestyle it suggests for Christians.
Here in America in
the 21st Century we have the false understanding that faith is
something that is to be kept personal and private. We make an artificial division between church
and state; and we make a similar artificial division between a private and
public life. We see faith as something
that belongs in our private lives. We
tell ourselves that keeping faith personal and private is part of being
respectful to others and their beliefs.
Ephesians would
certainly accept the notion of being respectful to other people, but it does
not see faith as being personal and private.
Another mistake
that we Americans have developed is to think that there is a model of a godly
life or of a successful life. Many
people believe the myth that an ideal life is one where you grow up in a safe
and stable household. Then you get a job
or go to college. In time you move out,
get married, buy a house, and have your own family. Part of being a family is making sure your
kids are raised to be well rounded; and that includes going to church. Along the way with raising your family you
save money for retirement. Eventually,
if all goes as it should you reach retirement age. You retire and now have time for hobbies,
travel, volunteer work, and leisure – in other words, all the stuff you wished
you could have done but couldn’t because of a job and family. Ideally you’re still healthy enough to enjoy
the travel and hobbies for many years.
Eventually you die, but we don’t talk about that.
Does that sound
like the ideal for American life?
Perhaps I could call it the myth of the American life?
Ephesians has no
capacity to understand that. It does not
see life as safe and stable. It does not
see life, and especially faith, as individual efforts. And it certainly does not see faith as part
of a well-rounded life; and something you do once a week in worship and maybe a
bit of personal devotion time.
I don’t want to
come across as harsh. And I don’t want
to outright condemn the faith life of many people that involves engaging in
weekly worship and having personal devotions.
It’s just that’s not in the vision of Ephesians or any of the New
Testament.
Go back to the
idea of the armor of God and the Roman infantry. Ephesians sees life as a battle between good
and evil. Good wins in the end, but evil
is a powerful and clever foe. The Roman
infantry adjusted its tactics and created new ones over time. Any time you’re in a war you don’t just start
with one strategy and stay with it to the end.
A war begins with certain tactics.
The opponent counters. The
initiator of the war adjusts tactics to take into account unexpected things in
the opponent’s response. The opponent
adjusts in turn. On and on it goes. Look at World War 2. All sides were developing new weapons and new
tactics as time when on.
Evil is a clever
and adjusting opponent. We need to be
just as clever and able to adjust. Life
is not intended to be a peaceful laid-out plan set by society that you try to
follow. Life is a battle with evil as it
morphs with each new day. You do not
battle alone, though. Just like the
Roman infantry was not a collection of individual fighters. It was individuals joined into a coordinated
force. We weaken ourselves when we think
faith is to be kept private and individual.
I’m not sure how that ever seeped into American Christianity, but it
certainly isn’t biblical! Even when
Jesus sent his disciples out on missionary journeys he never sent them out
alone. They always went as teams, or at
least pairs.
You have been equipped by God for
battle. You have your body, at whatever
age or shape it may be. You have your
faith. You have a God-given sense of
morality. You have your church
community. You have: cleverness,
determination, conscientiousness, creativity, emotionality, and agreeableness. It is all held together and maintained by
God’s gracious love. As Ephesians would
describe it, that gracious love is not soft and quiet and quaint. It is forceful – a fire, an arrow, a
sword. All of them capable of
effectively battling the wiles of evil.
While we are to be loving always,
let us not be fearful or timid in our lives of faith. Through that God’s will is done and our faith
is truly a blessing to our world.
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