Meeting the Principalities and Powers

Sermon; St. Matthew’s, Chandler

Ephesians 6:10-20

 “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

I have always been interested in why people do the things they do. I was blessed that I was able to focus on that passion in my academic work.  In my undergraduate program, I focused on history and sociology to prepare for teaching social studies. During that time, my studies took a dark turn.  I focused on 20^th century history with an emphasis in genocide and religious violence.  An intense class on holy war within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam set the trajectory that took me from teaching high school to further study of religion and conflict at ASU, where I studied violence, torture, religion, sexuality, and politics—all of which are topics one is supposed to avoid in polite conversation at dinner parties. 

As I was studying these grisly topics, and continuing today, I’m haunted by this question:  To what extent can we name the violence of the last century and this century as something beyond the depravity of humankind?  What do we make of the Holocaust? Rwanda? Armenia? This country’s genocide of (and later attempts to wipe out the cultures of) indigenous peoples? Is it enough to chalk up the body count of the last 120 years to mechanized warfare, arms races, totalitarian governments, and effective propaganda campaigns by regimes bent on eliminating others?  We can fairly accurately describe the mechanisms of war, of economic oppression, of the social systems that hold others as deserving of apathy or death, but is there something else?  Is there something beyond the materialistic phenomenon we can study that accounts for the depravity humankind visits upon others? 

Paul would say there is something else afoot, something more than the material world we see.  And he does so in language that sounds odd to modern ears.  Paul speaks in a number of his letters of the "principalities and powers."  By this Paul means the spiritual and worldly forces that exist in opposition to God.  We hear about these powers in Ephesians today.

Contrary to the modern division between the spiritual and political that holds that the political is no place for the spiritual, Paul is:[1]

concerned with spiritual realities precisely in their relationship to political realities. Ephesians 6:12 contrasts the “enemies of blood and flesh” with the true enemies, using a five-fold repetition of the word “against”:

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh

          but against the rulers
          against the authorities
          against the cosmic powers
          against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places

While the first use of “against” describes those whom the struggle is not against, the remaining four uses describe the actual enemies against whom Christians are called to struggle. These four references move from the earthly realm to the heavenly, connecting the political realm to the spiritual. The terms “rulers” (archas) and “authorities” (exousias) are common terms in the New Testament and usually refer to human rulers and the authority they wield.[2] The third term, “cosmic powers” (kosmokratoras), is understood by most scholars as referring to a supernatural power, moving us from the [material] political realm into the spiritual. Finally, “spiritual forces” (pneumatika) refer explicitly to nonhuman forces, which are said to be not on earth but “in the heavenly places” (en tois epouraviois).

Taken together, these four terms describe “enemies” that span both the earthly and heavenly realms—transcendent, spiritual realities with earthly, political manifestations. The verse recognizes that earthly power relations are animated by spiritual realities that transcend any specific “flesh and blood” person or ruler.

More can be said about the powers and principalities, which stand for a dominion opposed to God.  The powers and principalities traffic in practices and ideas that keep us from seeing each other as equally beloved and redeemable by God.  The powers would prefer to derail the ministry of reconciliation Christians are called to witness to.[3]  Remember that a few weeks ago we read in Ephesians that Christ created in himself one new humanity, reconciling all to God in one body.[4]  In contrast, the powers and principalities keep telling us our differences are final and irreconcilable; attempting to cut us off from God and others.  Further, for the principalities and powers, there is active hostility to the equal loving regard we are offered by God.[5]  Colonialism, sexism, racism, and other forms of social stigma all fall within the control of principalities and powers that devalue the beloved of God while simultaneously telling others that they have a divine right to maintain an oppressive social order "for the good of us all."  Control and power is sanctified in lieu of holiness, forbearance, love, justice, and grace.  The principalities and powers resort to threat, harm, shame, and death.   You can know who you are dealing with by the fruits they produce.  And it is important to call the demons by their names.

The powers and principalities are not as transcendent nor as powerful as God, and yet they are more powerful than we humans on our own.  The promise of order and control that the powers and principalities offer is seductive.  This seductive quality of the powers and principalities explains their continued presence in our world.  We find ourselves caught by the powers and principalities in fallen institutions greater than the sum of our personal failings.[6]  And these powers are strong enough to corrupt even the holy things of God to their own use.  For instance, the very passage we are talking about this morning has the blood-stained dishonor of being one of the passages used to justify the slaughter of millions over the centuries through holy war In which Christians traded the spiritual armor and sword of God for that of leather and steel.[7]

This is the reality that Paul is speaking to:  that behind the forces of evil and degradation we see on earth, there are active spiritual forces at work seeking to destroy and corrupt the creatures of God.  To make such a case for spiritual evil in our modern setting is difficult.  And yet, it is worth noting that regardless of the degree to which we claim human or demonic agency in the problems of the world, it is evident that there are forces and institutions and persons that profit from death, degradation, alienation, and division.  These are powers that Christians have a duty to unmask, name, and engage.[8]

And there is good news.  Earlier in Ephesians, Paul writes that the greatness and goodness of God is at work through and in Christ, who is placed above the principalities and powers.[9]  The Church's role is one of proclaiming God's power—testifying to God's coming reign to these spiritual forces.[10]  And the promise we inherit is the coming complete destruction of these forces at the consummation of history.[11] 

How do we live into this good news?  How do we face this in-between time?

One way in which we practically live out our commitment to unmasking and engaging the powers is by heeding the reminder that they exist and that we are called to resist them.  At our baptism, and at our reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant, we promise and pray that we will “renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God" and ”renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God."[12]  These renunciations speak of throwing off the world's claims about the proper place of others and seeking instead to discern the wild and radical things God is choosing to do. It means de-centering the will to power we find within ourselves in favor of God's will and mission for humanity.  It may mean taking chances since resisting the powers and principalities is not a popular option; hence Paul’s warning to stand firm in truth and faith and righteousness. 

But there is also a promise we share; a conviction Paul held that we are also offered in sure and certain hope.  Paul was convinced “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[13]  This persistent love, stronger than the worst that the world and its powers can attack us with, is a love worth clinging to.  It is also the basis for a gospel worth proclaiming with boldness.

_________________

[1] The following block of text is taken verbatim from Robert Williamson’s “The Politics of White Supremacy—Ephesians 6:10-20.” http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-white-supremacy/.

[2] See, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:24; Ephesians 1:21.

[3] 2 Cor 5:14-21

[4] See Eph 2:11-22.

[5] See Gal 3:28.

[6] This current course of the world is what is meant by the terms institutional sin, or structural sin. 

[7] As I was meditating on these verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I couldn’t help but consider how these verses have been used in Christian moral reasoning in relation to violence.  In Christianity, there are three frameworks for understanding the use of violence:  pacifism, the just war tradition, and holy war (which is more of a notion than a clear framework). Both pacifism and the just war tradition name who is or is not a legitimate target of violence.  Pacifism holds that no one is a legitimate target of violence, and this was the prevailing opinion until the 300s AD.  Following Christianity’s conversion to the state religion of the Roman Empire, the just war tradition began its development.  A component of that moral reasoning was the attempt to delineate between combatants and non-combatants.  What makes holy war more of a notion than a framework is also what makes it instructive across religious lines—and holy war is different from pacifism or a concept of a just and limited war in that it divides the world into good and evil, eliminates neutrality, raises the stakes to a matter of ultimacy and immediacy, and prescribes no limits to the violence that can be visited upon the enemy. What makes holy war so dangerous and bloody is that the enemies made of flesh and blood are considered to be the earthly warriors in the ultimate cosmic battle of Good vs. Evil.  What happens on Earth is interpreted as a mirror or an outworking of the battle in the heavens, and so the targets of violence are to be given no quarter. In this thinking, there is no proper etiquette fit for those deemed to be direct agents of Satan. 

[8] These actions echo Walter Wink’s trilogy of books about Engaging, naming, and unmasking the powers and principalities.

[9] Eph 1:20-23

[10] Eph 3:7-12

[11] 1 Cor 15:24-28

[12] BCP, 302.

[13] Romans 8:38

Sin and Grace in History

Proper 9 Year A RCL
Track 1
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 11-18  or Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon at Nativity Episcopal Church, Scottsdale, AZ

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.”  Romans 7:15, 21

Good morning! 

It is a pleasure to be here with you today, and I am grateful to Susan and Wayne for giving me the opportunity to join you in prayer. 

My name is Robert Berra, and I am the Episcopal Campus Chaplain for ASU Polytechnic, a campus at the southeastern edge of the Valley, next to Gateway Airport in Mesa.   I think you have a short bio of me in your bulletin, but I’d like to tell you one more thing about me that might help this sermon make sense.  I love history.  My undergrad was a double major in History and Education and before graduate school, I taught high school.  I am fascinated by ideas—by how thought can change the world. So, I’d like to start with something of a history of an idea, and put it in conversation with our reading from Paul’s letter.

The time before World War One for many European and American people was a time of unparalleled optimism.  Society seemed to be on an upward swing—at least it was for those on top of the social order.  From the Enlightenment to the beginning of the Great War in 1914, human progress seemed unstoppable.  The physical sciences made possible the industrialization of society, with leaps and bounds in the development of transportation, medicine, exploration, and easily obtained consumer goods.  

The social sciences—economics, psychology, and sociology— were also coming into their own; and at least in the case of the social sciences, many saw the possibility of the human society reaching a Utopian goal of peace and perfect understanding.  From the dawn of modernity, the claim that the social goods of religion would be replaced by the discoveries of the social sciences gained ground.  Some of these social goods were a sense of caring about others, social cohesion, changes in the understanding of meaning to events, and a shift from clergy to scientists as the new keepers of knowledge.  Most famous of these predictions was Karl Marx’s observation that religion could serve as the “opiate of the masses,” masking the pain of an oppressive social order. This not quite incorrect observation was often coupled to the hope that all religion would be thrown off, people would finally see their oppression, and act to bring about a just and equitable social order on the rubble of faiths that would rather keep people longing for a heavenly reward instead of addressing the real and pressing issues of human flourishing. 

These were the challenges to Christianity; and to put it in simplistic terms, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the challenge of modernity meant that Christian thought in the United States split and ran a gamut between fundamentalists—who refused to deal with new knowledge about the natural world and new discoveries about the way the Bible was composed—and Christian liberals—who almost jettisoned ‘sin’ as a meaningful concept and substituted the hope of Christ’s coming again for a human-made Kingdom of Heaven achieved by adherence to the Social Gospel.  This split is roughly the reason why—in the U.S.— the mainline churches seem so different from the churches who cluster around fundamentalist or evangelical identities. 

In many ways, World War One caused a crisis for those Utopian dreams of uninterrupted progress, for both secular and Christian folks expecting an ideal society. War on an industrial scale.  The scale and the efficiency of the killing and mayhem were unlike anything the world had ever seen.  At the battle of Somme—a battle in 1916 that lasted five months—on the first day of that battle—the British army lost 19,240 men.  1,000,000 would eventually die just in that campaign.  This week marked the 98^th anniversary of that battle’s beginning; and actually, this month is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War One, in case you want to mark your calendar. 

After the end of the war, after the monuments, many in Europe were left wondering what had happened and traumatized.  The literature that came from men in the war witnessed death and futility become major themes.  Disillusionment with the possibilities of human achievement became a stronger intellectual stream.  Some recognized that even the optimism that attempted to label WW1 “the war to end all wars” was misplaced.  At the end of the war Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the commander of all the allied forces, thought the allies had not been tough enough in the extremely punitive Versailles Treaty and realized the world would go to war again.   He said of the treaty “This is not peace; it is an armistice for twenty years.”  He got it wrong by just 65 days.

In Christian thought, the war and subsequent world events—such as witnessing the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the excessive brutality of communist regimes— shook the optimism of some of the liberal theologians of the early 20^th century.  One theologian who exemplifies a shift away from the myth of uninterrupted progress to what would be termed “Christian realism” was Reinhold Niebuhr.  Niebuhr started his career as an idealistic young man, but the brutality of war and the behavior of nations throughout the 20^th century made him re-think liberal Christianity’s near-jettisoning of sin as a concept central to the understanding of Christ’s work in the world.  Niebuhr’s contribution is best summarized by this quote from one of his contemporaries: 

“[Of Niebuhr it is said that] he has refuted the false optimism characteristic of a great segment of Protestant liberalism, without falling into … the semi-fundamentalism of other…theologians. Moreover, Niebuhr has extraordinary insight into human nature, especially the behavior of nations and social groups. He is keenly aware of the complexity of human motives and of the relation between morality and power. His theology is a persistent reminder of the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence. These elements in Niebuhr’s thinking helped me to recognize the illusions of a superficial optimism concerning human nature and the dangers of a false idealism. While I still believed in man’s potential for good, Niebuhr made me realize his potential for evil as well. Moreover, Niebuhr helped me to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.”[1]

This quote, by the way, is from another great theological mind of the 20^th century:  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his intellectual autobiography.  The admiration was mutual between the two.

What does this mean for our reading from Romans?  What does an intellectual history have to do with our reality, both physical and spiritual?

I suggest it means mainline Christianity would be well served to recover a radical understanding of both the power of sin and the grace of God through Jesus Christ that gives us a fuller picture of where we find ourselves as a redeemed people in a fallen world. 

Our passage from Paul is one of the most incisive and difficult descriptions of the human condition according to Christianity.  Not only are there some people who actively choose evil, even those who would call themselves good—or those who we would think are good—are not perfect. There is something about us that makes even our good actions suspect.  According to Paul, sin is not simply an act of commission or omission.  It is not simply a missing of the mark.  It is not simply falling short of a series of ideals that are given to us either by the faith we follow or the cultural values instilled in us.  For Paul, sin is “an active, aggressive power that seizes hold of God’s good gifts and bends them toward death.”[2]  For Paul, this is what it meant to live under the law.   The law was good and holy, but the power of sin was able to turn even something good and holy to destructive ends, and Paul is speaking from experience.  For Paul, the greatest demonstration of the power of sin working through him was the persecution of the Church; and he did not do this in spite of the law.  He did this because he kept a law that sin had hijacked for its own purposes.  Sin is so powerful that it can wrench God’s gifts into serving its own ends.[3]

Furthermore, the way sin goes about this death-dealing work is not simply by our breaking of rules, but by the distortion of relationships.  Our proper relationship with God, centered on God, is turned inwards—into a self-centeredness—and we try to secure our own goals over against our neighbors and God.  We turn away from a loving God whose Son showed us a life of self-giving as the perfect expression of God’s will, and instead seek our own advantage.  We strive by our own will instead of by trust in God.  We see our fellow persons as competitors, not children of God; as expendable, not loved; as obstacles, not fellow workers in the Kingdom; as lesser than us, not as fellow heirs to the Kingdom. 

Historically, Christianity at its best has maintained this expansive view of the power of sin.  It sees sin not as simply the cosmic chalking up of an individual’s wrongdoing, but a state of humanity and an active force inherent in humanity that tears us apart and keeps us from recognizing the belovedness of others in God’s eyes. 

And so, at every level of society, within ourselves as individuals, as a city, as a state, as a nation, as a globe—sin interferes.  Think of all the awareness campaigns of problems and troubles in the world that we are inundated with.  There are so many, and we being finite beings can only choose a few to address.  Furthermore, I recognize sin within myself; like Paul I find within myself a mixture of motives to even the good that I want to do—wondering how ego plays into my decisions, how my status within the church helps or hinders humility, if I could do more for others if I but choose to do so. 

We recognize sin even in our history—for example, the Declaration of Independence, which enshrined the ideals and the rationale for the founding of our nation and the hope of freedom and equality for all was not free from the hold of sin.  The declaration was a world-shattering statement of belief that nevertheless was an ideal that would not be achieved at the time of its writing.  Before the Declaration could pass the Continental Congress, Jefferson was forced by southern delegates to remove a condemnation of the slave trade.  Our nation was created and built on the principle of the equality of all people, and yet from the very beginning people were shut out of that goal.  Niebuhr called this—and other examples from our national life—the irony of American History, in which, as a people, our great virtues can make us ignorant or accepting of our vices.

That is Paul’s message to us today:  virtue and vice are closely linked.  We sometimes find that we do the evil we would prefer not to do.  We find that in the good we do, something not quite right lurks nearby, perhaps as our motive or our method for bringing about the good. 

If this account of the nature of sin seems all-encompassing and pervasive, the radical nature of God’s grace and the unlimited reach of God’s reconciling work in the world is even more so.  For no other reason could Paul write, “ For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,  but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The results of sin are entirely within the scope of God’s saving work.  God’s presence through we who make up the Body of Christ, and the slivers and glimpses we see of the Kingdom of God in the world still make it possible to recognize the Good and call out the evil.  These glimpses of God’s reconciling power expose evil for what it is, even when evil is expressed in law and culture.  One example of these glimpses of the Kingdom’s reconciling power were the marches and the demonstrations of the Civil Rights era, which exposed the brutality and evil of the social order that was commonly called good in the Southern states as activists both black and white were beaten and attacked.  In those attacks on demonstrators, the sin of the system showed its logical outworking, finally was recognized for what it was, and repulsed many. I mentioned the slavery clause removed from the Declaration of Independence, but this week—July 2— was also the 50^th anniversary of the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which attempted to address inequality that has continued in our society.  The work of God in our midst. 

We, through God’s power, can effect good and be agents of the reconciling work of God.  But we have to be careful not to continue the mistakes of earlier generations.  Discounting the power of sin is one way in which the power of sin can grow.  Thinking ourselves capable of countermanding sin on our own ensnares us even further in its power.   As theologian Ted Smith has written:  “If the problem were weakness of the human will, then reconciliation would require nothing more than a little extra willpower.  Jesus would be something like a really good life coach, someone who could help us keep our resolutions.  If the problem, however, is the power of sin to twist the good gifts of God…to evil ends, then deliverance requires a defeat of that power.”[4]  And this is the Gospel we proclaim:  God does not just give individual humans the willpower to live our best lives now, or does God say that it does not matter if we do not have that best life.  In Jesus Christ, God sets the cosmos free from bondage, redeeming our lives and equipping us for the work God has given us to do.[5]  And the ultimate victory will be God’s.

May we remember that self-deception is always a possibility through the working of sin, and may we not forget that the discernment of God’s will is everyone’s vocation.   May we remember that we are not in this alone—that God working through us is the antidote to any notion that we go our own way with no help.  May we not abdicate our own responsibilities in this earthly pilgrimage to affect God’s love and justice in this world.  May we remember these lessons, and take to heart that a world in which freedom, justice, and love reign, a world in which we live up to the ideals of our Declaration of Independence—and more importantly the character of the Kingdom to come—is possible through God’s power, and only through God’s power.   

Amen.

           

[1] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence." The Christian Century 4, Sept. 1958: 479. 

[2] Ted A. Smith, Romans 7:15-25a, Theological Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr A Vol 3, 208

[3] Smith, ibid.

[4] Smith, ibid.

[5] Based on Smith, ibid.