Stand Firm Against Evil

Based on Ephesians 6:10-20

First delivered August 26, 2018

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            Over the past few weeks, we have been reflecting on the second half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It is a letter he wrote to a church that was showing signs of dividing. So he wrote them this letter to help them focus on what unites them and how they can strengthen the unity they have. Paul encouraged them to build up one another in love, using the gifts God had given them for that purpose. He challenged them to live a life of love, setting aside anger, wrath, and malice and instead to treat each other with kindness, tenderheartedness and forgiveness. In other words, to live a life of love. Last week we saw how Paul instructed them to sing songs and give thanks for everything in Christ Jesus: two ways to manifest unity, especially when going through times where there doesn’t seem to be much to be thankful for. All the way through Paul keeps going back to the central focus of claiming the unity that God has given us, having called us together as the body of Christ, and to manifest that unity by living a life of love, building each other up instead of tearing each other down.

            We come to the end of this series by reflecting on this well-known illustration of putting on the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes that make us ready to proclaim the gospel of peace, the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the devil, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. It’s a great image. Can’t you visualize yourself wearing God’s armor and holding that sword representing the Word of God?

            Paul makes it clear why we need to put on God’s armor. It is because we must stand against the forces of evil. Verse 11, “stand against the wiles of the devil.” Verse 13, “withstand on that evil day…stand firm.” Verse 14, “Stand therefore.” We can’t miss Paul’s point! Paul is very clear that there are evil forces in this world whose intent is to knock us down, break us apart, to ruin our community. And these are forces we can’t run and hide from. They are always coming after us. So we have to stand our ground against these forces and not back down.

            These forces of evil that Paul is talking about are not some general forces. Paul identifies specific kinds of evil forces that are manifested in real life ways. He speaks of rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. What are these? Well, they aren’t people. Our struggle is not against people but against forces. The rulers and authorities he is talking about are not human rulers or human authorities. These are spiritual entities. The cosmic powers of this present darkness are forces that emerge in the world while spiritual forces of evil come from outside of this world, the heavenly places. Now there is a lot of confusion over exactly what Paul had in mind as far as what these specific evil forces are. But the main point for us is that they are specific and diverse. And they manifest themselves in real life ways. These forces are present and active in society, in systems, in institutions, in people, sometimes in us. How can this be?

            Back in 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, there were three young people sitting at a lunch counter in a drug store. They were a white man, a white woman and a black woman. Behind them were a large number of mostly young white men, although there is also an old man standing in the back. The crowd is jeering this trio sitting at the lunch counter. The white man has had a bottle of catsup emptied on his head. The black woman looks to have had some kind of white powder poured over her head, maybe coffee creamer. When the picture is taken, a young white man is in the act of emptying the sugar jar on the head of the white woman. These three young people, their backs to the mob, sit there and take the abuse. Wearing God’s armor they don’t run away or lash back, but they stand their ground, making evident the presence of the forces of evil. It is the evil embedded in Jim Crow segregation, the evil that motivated such hostility in the crowd of white men to action. It is a demonstration of the forces of evil being resisted by those three young people sitting at the lunch counter. We also see one other person in the picture who gets what is going on. He’s an older white man, sitting at the end of the counter. He is looking down and away from what is happening. His face has a look of shame. These young people standing their ground against the forces of evil prompted in this man the need to acknowledge that the evil of segregation was not right. His heart was opened a little that day. For him, this experience became a small transformation. He was not the same.

            The struggle is real. There are threats to unity and peace all around us. We see it in our political life here in the United States, with so many voices of division. Racism and fear of the stranger manifests itself in so many ways, not only through rhetoric but through policy. Our food systems separate us from where our food comes from, so much of it heavily processed in some factory somewhere. Our urban way of life separates us from the land. We see it in our churches that are moved to divide over all kinds of issues, including our own United Methodist Church, which has been confronting a spirit of divisiveness around matters of human sexuality for forty years. Misunderstandings and quarreling put stress on families to divide, relationships to come to an end.

            With so many manifestations of evil in the world, we must engage. Love requires it. We don’t need Paul to tell us to. How can you and I not engage with the forces of evil that seek to divide and destroy? We know that we must engage. But how are we to go about engaging these forces, which, again, are not people, but something spiritual?

            Well, I would say the first step in engaging with evil forces is to be determined in your will to do it rather than turn a blind eye. And I know how tempting it is to look the other way. There is a temptation to stop reading the papers or tune out the news, to cocoon ourselves the best we can with our friends and family in an attempt to shut out those forces from our awareness. But that’s a fool’s game. These forces are everywhere and can’t be avoided. We are tempted to rationalize what we see, and interpret the situation as something that happened without any evil intent. Every police department has a few bad apples. It’s unfortunate that Sue had to be cut off of her life saving treatments because of insurance. The work of evil forces is all around us. The first step is to acknowledge this and be real about it rather than turn a blind eye or rationalize evil away.

            The second step in engaging with evil is to be set in our minds not to lash out. A violent response is not the go to move. I think again of those three young people sitting at the lunch counter. If any one of them turned around to lash out at a single one of that mob it would have been an all-out beat down and nothing redeeming and transforming would have happened. That man with the shameful look on his face may have then thought to himself, “Ah, just some troublemakers.” They would have lost the moral high ground by lashing out. Remember, our struggle is not against people. It is against spiritual forces. Lashing out at people is aiming at the wrong target. Violence is destructive by its very nature.

            We set in our minds that evil forces are real and need to be engaged. We resist lashing out at people. Third we use the armor God has given us. We speak the truth. We represent righteousness. We proclaim the gospel of peace. We exercise our faith in the power of God when evil forces send out the fiery darts of discouragement and the sense of futility when struggling against these forces. We trust in our salvation. And we ground our resistance in the word of God, the word that comes to us from the Spirit. By word Paul does not mean only what is on the printed page of scripture. He is talking about Spirit inspired messages. Sometimes people say in times of need, can you give us a word? It is just the thing we need to hear in times of struggle. That’s the word that cuts through the noise, the doubts, the hurts and confusion so that we are clear about what is happening and what we need to do to resist these forces. This is the armor, God’s own armor, that God has given to us to use to struggle against these forces that seek to divide and destroy community.

            Finally, engagement with evil forces is done through constant prayer. That’s what Paul wrote after describing the armor. He instructs us to pray in the Spirit at all times. Doesn’t that make sense? If we are engaging evil spiritual forces, should we not be tuned in to the Holy Spirit that works through us to vanquish these forces? We want to be a conduit through which the Spirit can flow. This happens by being aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit within us and allowing ourselves to be directed by the Spirit in our thoughts, words and deeds. Dare I say it, we must intend to be possessed by the Holy Spirit. It beats being possessed by an evil spirit. We receive so many different influences in every moment of our lives, influencing what we see, what we feel, what choices we make in responding to a particular situation. What Paul is saying is to give the highest priority, zero in on, the influence of the Holy Spirit. Let this influence be the guiding one throughout our day. This grounds us and directs us so that we can engage the evil forces effectively so that we can stand our ground.

            And remember that the struggle against evil is not your struggle alone. We do it together as the body of Christ. This is a community struggle, not the uncoordinated efforts of individuals. In this struggle we truly need each other. There really is strength in numbers. And the body of Christ has numbers! There are over a billion of us on this planet right now and when you add in the billions more that are now in the church triumphant that’s a lot of members in the body of Christ. We don’t often think about how massive the body of Christ is. We buy in to the rhetoric of division within the church, another evil force that we need to engage and resist. Remember that the unity we have in the body of Christ is not something we create. It is what God has given us. Our challenge is to acknowledge the unity God has provided and build on that. But as long as the body of Christ buys into and even adds to the rhetoric of division we are less effective in the struggle against the evil forces that seek to divide and destroy. See every Christian you know, no matter what church they belong to or what their theology or views they have on social issues as a brother or sister in the struggle against evil forces. That alone is a struggle. We have a lot of work to do to realize unity in the body of Christ even as we engage in the forces that are seeking to rip apart human society and to disrupt the cycles of nature that sustain life on this planet. This engagement with evil forces is way bigger than any one of us can do. It has to be an entire group effort.

            In the end, we have reason to be confident in this struggle. Even though we don’t always win the battle, even though many times we are complicit by being influenced by these forces and do harm, even though we fail to maintain that spirit of unity in the bond of peace, this is ultimately God’s struggle. The power we have at our disposal to resist evil in all its forms is divine power. And we know the end game. God will bring unity out of the chaos. Love will conquer all. The world will be mended. This is God’s determination. You have heard that phrase, maybe original to Martin Luther King or maybe he got it from someone else: the arc is long but it bends toward justice. This is truth. Our struggle, haphazard, faltering and frustrating as it is, is not in vain.

            So I close with the prayer Paul offered to the Ephesians. Please pray with me.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. It is in this name, the name of Jesus, that we pray. Amen.