27 August 2006

The City of Ephesus sat on the western shore of what is now Turkey. It had been, in its glory days, an important trade center. By the time the epistle which I read a few minutes ago was written, Ephesus was little more than a tourist stop. But what a tourist stop it was. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world—the best of all seven some have said. Ephesus relied on the tourists who came to see and worship at the Temple of Artemis for its survival.
Now imagine if a group came along and threatened the very tourism on which the city existed. Of course that would be the Christians—followers of Jesus who do away with idols and false gods. It’s like someone in San Francisco wanting to straighten out Lombard Street, get rid of Coit Tower and reduce Fisherman’s Wharf to, well, to a wharf for fishermen. It wouldn’t be popular. And neither were the Christians.
It’s a pretty standard story for early Christians—followers of the Way as they were known. They threatened the status quo. The worshiped not the emperor, as all in the Roman territories were supposed to do, but this other guy, this Jesus. They were aligned with the Jews who were another odd lot. At this point Christianity was still decades away from being accepted by the emperor as the official religion of the realm. Christians were still a persecuted lot.
And so we find the state of things as we read today’s words from Ephesians. The lectionary has brought us a bit of Ephesians for the past 7 weeks. If you’ve been paying attention to the lectionary readings we’ve covered most of the book. And today’s reading is right near the end of the book.
The authorship of Ephesians is doubted. Though it begins and ends with greetings and salutations from Paul, it wasn’t uncommon in those days to create writings that pretended to be by someone else. Thus there are several books in the epistles that purport to be by Paul though scholarship doubts that authorship and attributes it to one of his followers. Scholars have decided that Ephesians is one such book.
Now this doesn’t make it any less worthy of our attention. Obviously, if the lectionary is going to cover it in such depth over 7 weeks, it must be worth looking at. The book itself is short—only 6 chapters long and easily readable in one short sitting. Our reading this morning is the culmination of the book—the ending except for some personal salutations.
The book of Ephesians brings in many of Paul’s frequent themes—the grace of God, gifts that we are given that are to be used, assiduous avoidance of the ways of the secular world. But today’s scripture caught me because it was a little different. It’s a discussion of how to live the Christian life but with a military metaphor.
I’m not one to be hooked by a military theme. I’ve never served in the military and though I respect those who have served and do serve, the words by this unknown author which dress the Christian in the military clothing of the day both engage and repel me. If we try to update the reading to modern day, we might be talking about the Kevlar vest righteousness, the combat boots of peace and the AK-47 of faith. That’s very jangling to my ears.

But I think the author of Ephesians has a point. We aren’t up against flesh and blood enemies, but against cosmic forces of evil that would bring us down. And we can ignore those forces only at our own peril.
It’s tempting to live a Christian life that does not recognize the existence of evil. It’s tempting to just assume that God will take care of us and that no wrong will come to us. But it just doesn’t always work that way.
There is evil that is always around us and it needs to be faced. It needs to be acknowledged and reckoned with. The problem of evil is a long-standing one. There are those who would wish to deny its existence; those who would have us believe that all is well.
Our author of this morning’s reading clearly believes that evil exists and that it’s part of the Christian’s job to face it. But not just acknowledge it and move on but deal with it in some way.
Why else would we need all the protective and battle gear that the author describes? If we were allowed to turn and just run away from evil, averting our eyes from it, we would need none of these things that were depicted.
I am adverse to war—I think most of you realize that. That is part of my trouble with this passage. But I assure you, if I suddenly, somehow found myself in battle I’d be wishing for the Kevlar vest, the helmet, the combat boots and other ways to protect myself. The battle imagery is not entirely to my suiting but it may just be the right imagery to speak of our battle with evil. For if Santa Clara County for some reason suddenly decided to march north and attack, we would be in desperate need of gear that would first protect us and secondly help to repel the attack.
It is no different when we deal with evil—evil attacks us whether we are prepared or not. And the point this author is making is that it’s best to be prepared. That’s all. Be ready for the fight against the evils that surround us.
And there are plenty of evils alive and well in our culture: the evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism and…and…and. And that’s not to mention the evils of greed and idolatry that seem to be quite alive and well, not only in our culture but also in the time that Ephesians was written, according to the author if you read the whole book.
These evils, and plenty of others, are alive and well all around us. And it is our duty as Christians to confront them and do what we can to eliminate them. It takes recognition on our part first off. Hardest of all, we must examine ourselves to see how we might participate in evil so that we can eliminate it from our own behaviors and inner thoughts.
Once we can confront the evils that we participate in, we are ready to take on the evils that are part of our culture. And as the author of the letter says, it’s going to take truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit to protect us and arm us.
You can name the evils that surround you. It doesn’t take much reflection to know what sorts of things you are up against. I have named a few but you can certainly come up with others.

Be prepared for a fight, a mighty struggle, once you confront evil though. It doesn’t go down easily. That’s why some of these evils have lasted for centuries and centuries. But, we can be assured, God is on our side.