Sermon - Spiritual Warfare

'Struggle' From the History of the American People by Jacob Lawrence

A sermon given during Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 29th October 2023 (The Twenty First Sunday after Trinity) based on readings from Ephesians 6.10-20 and St. John 4.46-end and the Collect for the week: Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From strength to strength go on, wrestle and fight and pray; 
Tread all the powers of darkness down and win the well-fought day. 

Words from our opening hymn – part of a poem by Charles Wesley based on the text of our first reading from Ephesians.  The language may seem dramatic – perhaps even unreal - to some. But for Charles and his brother John - the founders of Methodism - that fight against the “powers of darkness” was no mere figure of speech. The poem was written at a time when Methodists suffered from physical as well as verbal abuse.  

Just a few months after taking on the lease of the chapel down the road in West Street – where he frequently preached from the pulpit under the gallery to my right – Charles’ brother John Wesley was violently attacked by a mob in the West Midlands, after preaching in the open air. 

He wrote in his journal how he was dragged through the streets by his hair, the crowd shouting “knock his brains out; down with him, kill him at once.” 

The violent reaction not a response to what John Wesley had said – but a result of fear. Fear of difference; of the fervent, extemporary preaching. Fear of change. Fear that the popularity of Methodism – particularly amongst the working classes and women – was a threat to the established order. 

Fear. Three hundred years later, we don’t have to look very far to see how that unseen power is having very real consequences for the lives of all in the Holy Land, in Ukraine and in so many other places around the world.  

The Evangelical Revival in Britain and America which John Wesley and his contemporaries inspired, paved the way for the growth of what became known as Pentecostalism. The movement spread fast because anyone who possessed the power of the spirit could baptise, preach, perform acts of healing and speak in tongues - allowing them to be understood in other languages. It wasn’t long before these linguistic skills were put to the test. Pentecostal missionaries set sail for Africa, following in the footsteps of those from more established denominations.

The spiritual warfare described in Ephesians 6, became their guiding text.

 

Believing Christ’s return to be imminent, the battle to bring as many people as possible into the light of the gospel was urgent - made even more so by what they saw as the growing ‘threat’ of Islam in Africa. Armed with the gospel - what Ephesians describes as the sword of the Spirit - the Pentecostal missionaries went into battle. 

 

They interpreted the traditional approaches to healing they encountered - including the use of witch-doctors - as examples of the “spiritual wickedness” described in Ephesians. Burning parties were held at which newly professed converts would cast talismans, charms and other ritual objects into huge bonfires. 

 

But as Pentecostalism grew exponentially, the influence of what the movement saw as the “dark power” of African tribal religion - which the missionaries were fighting against - also began to spread. The intense, dramatic and fervent attacks they made against it had seemingly made such practices more real - enhanced their status and power - in the public consciousness.

 

 

C.S.Lewis understood this. In the preface to his popular novel “The Screwtape Letters” he wrote:

 

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. [The Devils] themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight….”

 

Each chapter of his novel is a letter from Screwtape - a senior Demon - to his nephew Wormwood, who is in training to capture and devour his first human soul. 

 

Screwtape offers practical advice on how to corrupt humanity, much of which involves capitalising on the chinks of division caused by small, everyday sins. Envy of another person’s success, irritation with how someone looks or behaves, contempt for a different point of view. 

 

Lewis believed that it is in these seemingly petty everyday events that that most people in Britain encounter the unseen forces of the devil today. 

 

Like the Wesleys before him, Lewis knew that the battle between good and evil is no mere figure of speech. Writing amidst the rise of fascism and the horrors of the Holocaust, his book shows how the most destructive, horrific sins start as small ones. “The safest road to hell [he wrote] is a gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

 

Portraying the “wiles of the devil” through a systematic sequence of letters from a

manager to his trainee, Lewis revealed how the theatre of spiritual warfare is no longer in the urban squalor that provoked the Evangelical Revival - or even the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. But in the places where such evils are conceived. 

 

For Lewis, the devil found his home behind the desk of a quiet, clean, well lit and comfortable office. He believed that God and the devil are a reality – the illusion is our conviction that they do not exist. 

 

 

Like the Wesleys and C.S. Lewis, it is hard to see how the author of our first lesson could not have been influenced by the context of physical violence; written at a time when the Roman Army occupied Ephesus, now in modern day Turkey. 

 

In the closing passages of the text we are called to fulfil the promises we made at our baptism - to fight against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness and spiritual wickedness in high places. 

 

The author draws on elements of a soldiers uniform as metaphors for the divine grace we have received for use as armour in this spiritual battle. We are instructed to put on God’s armour - "in full". A belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit - the Word of God.

 

John Wesley cleverly observed that no armour is mentioned to cover our backs - so it is no use trying to deny or turn away from the threat; the reality which the metaphor of spiritual warfare seeks to convey. The fear, envy, greed, jealousy, pride, the anger. It is no hiding from the reality of these unseen forces, which we know through their destructive effect on each of our lives and on the world around us. 

 

Nor - as the example of the Pentecostal missionaries in Africa demonstrates - is it helpful to dwell excessively on or overplay the metaphor. As many have commented on the militarisation of language in other healing contexts – the use of phrases such as “they lost their battle with illness” - is offensive and harmful.

 

Both denial and overuse of the language of warfare, struggle, battle against dark forces - generate anxiety, for different reasons. A state which is the very opposite of the “quiet mind” that we prayed for in the words of this week’s Collect and which we are all searching for.  

 

C.S.Lewis saw this as yet another effect of the devil’s dark forces. Screwtape, the master Demon, writes: “There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy [by whom he means God]. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

In our gospel reading we encounter a man full of anxiety. He had heard about the miracles Jesus had performed and travelled to plead with him to heal his son, who was at the point of death. As he made the journey from Capernaum, that man’s mind must have been racing with “what if’s”. But when Jesus said to him “thy son liveth” he believed. His mind was quietened. And at that very moment of pure belief, out of sight and miles away back at home, his son was healed.

An act of faith which would have spooked Lewis’s demons. Screwtape writes. “Do not be deceived, Wormwood [he wrote]. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human…looks round upon a universe from which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished …... and [yet] still obeys.”

In that moment the nobleman in our gospel reading becomes a metaphor - for the perfect believer. The model Christian soldier. One who wears God’s armour in full and carries it well. His faith in our salvation in Christ - his hope in the face of all the odds, his knowledge of God’s love for us – reveals our path to victory.

He shows us that the very real battle against the unseen forces of fear, envy, greed, jealousy, irritation, contempt, pride, the anger which beset each of our lives and hold us captive through anxiety - can be overcome through faith.

We’re here to strengthen ours - in prayer, worship and fellowship. To repent and be pardoned for those times when we have failed to recognise and respond to the spiritual battles we each face. To be fitted again with the armour of God - before going out to stand firm in the name of his truth, justice and peace.

In the words of our offertory hymn;

Oft in danger, oft in woe,
Onward, Christians, onward go;
Bear the toil, maintain the strife,
Strengthened with the Bread of Life.

Image: The American Struggle by Jacob Lawrence
Link: A shorter and amended version of this sermon was given at Choral Evensong on Sunday 29th October and can be read at this link.