Ephesians 6:10-18
The seeds for this sermon were actually planted way back in the very early spring. The seeds came from three different incidents that I either saw, heard about or read, and the combination of them made me begin to really ponder the theological nature of evil. The insidious, hidden, deceitful nature of evil which makes it so dangerous. The incidents were these:
The first were two scenes in the movie “The Passion” which many of you saw during Lent. The two scenes actually personified evil. The first one was one where Judas was in deep remorse and guilt and grief over having betrayed Jesus. He was in the wilderness and was in just desperate pain, and there was a circle of children around him - or so it appeared. But when those children turned around their faces were horrific, demonic faces that jolted me to the depth of my being. Another scene in that movie was one where a woman was holding what appeared to be a baby, but when that baby turned its face around it was not a baby at all. It had a very satanic, really devious, devilish look to its face and it was actually very frightening, because what it had appeared to be, it was not.
The second incident was actually a commercial and I think somebody told me it was a Super Bowl commercial but it was the beginning of April before I saw it. It was a commercial that appeared to be about a man selling popsicles. Many of you may have seen it also. The popsicles were coming down an assembly line, but the commercial was actually put out by the Surgeon General or an anti cigarette group. The popsicles looked very refreshing and delightful like you would just love to have one. And the man is saying, “Would you let your children eat these popsicles?” (and I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t until he explains that they are made of shards of glass), what in fact looked like a refreshing treat is something that you would know would kill your children. He was using that as an analogy to cigarettes that in the media and in advertisements appear to add glitz and glamour to your life, when in fact they tend to turn your lungs black and at some point in time to kill you. Again, it’s not what it appears
to be.
The third incident was actually an ongoing conversation with a friend of mine who is writing a wonderful book that I would recommend to all of you when it gets published. His name is Robert Sutter and the name of the book is “God Rules The Diamond – The Devil Roams The Stands.” It’s a book about children’s little league baseball - little league up through high school and how what should be just a pure recreational event, if it was left to the children on the field, is often corrupted and contaminated by the adults who get involved - sometimes coaches, sometimes parents and fans who seem to have the devil whispering in their ear instructing them on how to behave. For often the adults who get involved in what could be such a wonderful and innocent game, actually are led by their own egos, selfish pride, anger or anything other than concern for and interest in the children in the game. I’ve been reading this book as Robert has been writing it and it is really something that is a real eye opener for everyone whether or not you’re interested in baseball.
Well, all of these things were happening throughout the spring and I would ponder these theological thoughts about evil as I would drive down 400 to work and I was noticing the greening of the trees. The sides of the highway were going from the bleak, barren bark of a tree to a bright spring green. And then as spring went on, the trees began to be covered with what I used to think was the most beautiful sight on a southern drive. It’s the thick, deep green vines that are woven so closely they make a deep drapery miles and miles along the sides of the road. Or, if you get out into the countryside, they blanket what used to be a cornfield and an old barn. You might know that what I’m talking about is kudzu. Kudzu is also known as the “Mile A Minute Vine,” the “Foot A Night Vine” and even the “Vine That Ate The South.” As I did research, I begin to think about watching the growth of the kudzu that appears to be so lifelike, but which in fact is strangling out the life inside of it, behind it and underneath it, I began to think about the parallels between kudzu and evil.
Kudzu has quite a reputation in the South. In fact, Dickens wrote a poem entitled “Kudzu,” where he says, “You better keep you windows closed at night or it will come in and get you.” In fact, I know of a young boy whose name is Dooby. Back in the 60’s, he told his mother he wasn’t going to go to Sunday School any more because he had a really funny looking nose and he said the children there made fun of him. Well, his mother drew on Dicken’s poem and told him – oh yes he would go to Sunday School because if he didn’t, the kudzu would come into his window at night and it would strangle him if he was wasn’t going to church. Well this young boy took his mother’s warning seriously, and despite the sweltering heat of summer nights in the pre air-conditioned days, he slept every night the rest of his childhood with his windows closed, gasping for air in the heat of the night, because never would he let that Japanese vine come and strangle the life out of him. Dooby may have gone a little far with that, but he was informed and he was going to be prepared and protected. And that is exactly what Paul warns the Christians in Ephesus of when it comes to evil - and ultimately what he warns us of with evil. Be prepared and be protected.
The view of evil in Paul’s day was a little different than it is now. The people then believed implicitly in evil spirits that filled the air and were intent on harming humans. They believed that life was a battlefield with the satanic, the evil spirits, and that they needed to constantly be fighting them off because the spirits were fighting against God. And so the words that Paul used – powers, authority, world-rulers, those were all words that were familiar to the Christians in Ephesus because they were classes or categories of the evil spirits. And so he’s making clear by using imagery of the protective armor of a Roman soldier – words that were also recognizable to the Ephesians, “You’d better be protected against the powers of evil.” Now, when we hear this description and this understanding of evil, we tend to hear it as a bit extreme. But many churches and individual Christians have gone to the opposite extreme by Satan’s portrayal becoming a cartoon depiction of a little red creature with horns and a long tail and a pitchfork. That familiar depiction has become synonymous to us with the forces of evil. Therefore, we’ve laughed it off and we’ve thrown it out the window in its entirety, and that is a real mistake my friends because that is exactly what Satan is hoping for.
You see, Paul says we must be prepared and we must be protected, to wear the protective, armor because when we are unaware, when we are ignorant to the dangers of evil in our own lives, when we are completely out of touch with our personal weaknesses, we lay ourselves wide open and vulnerable for evil, like kudzu, to sneak in and to strangle the good life out of us before we know what has happened.
John was a young man. He took his first drink when he was sixteen as did so many of his peers. He was growing up in a family of alcoholism but he refused to believe the scientific research that says you are more apt to addiction if you have parents who are alcoholics. John threw all that out the window as well as the scientific research that says adolescents are more prone to addiction because of the way they metabolize alcohol. John took a first drink with his friends, just a social incident, at sixteen. By the time John was twenty-four, his drinking had progressed to the point that he was a full-blown alcoholic involved in an abusive relationship with his girl friend. The fabric of his life was fraying, was becoming completely unraveled. Kudzu was growing rampant in the garden of his heart.
Melissa left for work one morning kissing her husband good-bye and dropping the children at the daycare. She drove to work thinking life was so good. She felt like she just had it all. But that day in a staff meeting, a new colleague was introduced, a young man who was attractive, bright, creative, full of charisma. In a short time Melissa found that she was looking for excuses to have meetings with Paul. Meeting with him in his office every chance she got, planning dinner meetings alone in the evening. She found that she was taking a little more care with her appearance in the morning before work. But she ignored all the warning signs. And her attraction to Paul grew to a dangerous flirtation and in a matter of time to an adulterous affair. Her family’s life was in ruin. Kudzu was growing rampantly in the garden of her heart.
The Jones moved south. They moved to Macon. They were glad to be leaving the big snowy winters of Boston, happy to move south with their family. They bought a home in a lovely neighborhood, but it didn’t take long that first summer for the Jones to notice that their children were often not invited to join in the games at the neighborhood swimming pool. In a matter of time the Jones began to notice that they were not getting the information about neighborhood socials and outings. You see the Jones were the first African American family to move into this Southern neighborhood. The neighborhood was riddled with racism, unbeknownst to them. The Jones’ hearts were broken but the love in the hearts of their neighbors was strangled out by kudzu.
Jason was a young man who had come from very little. He was bright and he’d gotten a full scholarship to an Ivy League college. Everybody was proud of him for his driveness. He graduated and got a great job, but what people had been proud of - his drivenness, his ambition, his good work ethic, slowly turned to a drivenness where his heart was filled with
covetousness He had come from practically nothing, and now everything he saw around him he wanted. In the office next to him – the man got a new car and Jason said, “I’ll have that car.” His neighbors redecorated their house and Jason said, “I’ll do mine better than theirs.” Ambition slowly turned to covetousness that made a break in relationships from those around him.
Sarah was a good Christian woman. She had a fine Christian family, or so she would tell you. Sarah believed that her family was just a bit above the others. They went to church a little more often. They prayed a little more often, and their behavior was just a little bit better. And so Sarah and her family kept to themselves because the kudzu of self-righteousness had moved into their family and cut them off from all of those around them.
The vignettes that you hear described here are those where evil is represented as indifference, deceit, hostility, and enmity toward others that causes for a break in relationship. It is also depicted as self-destruction through a contradiction of what we were created to be. But if you notice, if you think about it, none of these things happened quickly and drastically. You see we would be able to resist that. If you’ve never done drugs before and you walk into a crack house, you’d probably be scared to death and be able to turn and run. No, as evil often does, it happens slowly. Kind of like the story of the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water. Some of you may have heard that if a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water it’s going to get right back out, but if a frog jumps into a pot of cold water, you can slowly turn the heat up under it until it becomes content with the warmth of the water and before long that frog has been boiled to death.
Well it’s the same with the way evil works. We’re able to resist that which is drastic and obvious. Think about it, in the Garden of Eden the serpent did not pull the fruit off the tree and cram it down Adam and Eve’s throats. No, with a grin on his face, he engaged them in conversation until he had broken down the resistance, desensitized them to what they knew to be the truth of God. You see that caused a brokenness among Adam and Eve and God - and that is when Satan sings his ultimate victory song - when we eventually turn away from God. There are two opposite polarities for the way this happens - for attitudes of godlessness. The first is an ultimate arrogance. A pride that makes us claim that we are the masters of our own lives. An arrogance that says, “I don’t need God, I won’t heed God, in fact maybe I don’t even believe that there is a God,” a self-reliance that bars us from praying because we don’t want God’s guidance or direction in our lives. So that is one attitude of godlessness. The opposite godlessness is a giving up on God. In John Claypool’s book “The Hopeful Heart,” he says that a rabbi told him that in the Jewish faith despair is the ultimate sin. The reason for that is because despair is giving up on the power of God. To view the world as blanketed in a darkness that cannot be lifted is to deny God’s power to work all things for good.
You see, for you to give up on you, for me to give up on me, is for us to give up on God. It is true that alone we can do nothing, but with reliance on God all things are possible. We rely on God by using the resources that God has given us for strength and wisdom. Paul warns us to rely on God by putting on the protective armor, to clothe ourselves. Paul says to clothe ourselves in truth and righteousness and faith. That is to walk in unity with our Lord Jesus Christ which is to protect ourselves from evil sources. But most important, Paul says, is to protect yourself with the Word of God and with prayer.
Friends we cannot live a Christian life, we cannot fulfill our purpose as designed by God if we don’t know what that purpose is supposed to look like. If we want the garden of our soul to be filled with the fruit of the spirit, we have to know what that fruit is. We have to know that is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When kudzu tries to sneak into the garden of your soul, you have to be aware and prepared or you will find yourself nurturing hatred instead of love, bitterness instead of joy, strife instead of peace, arrogance instead of gentleness, and the list goes on. So we must be protected by reading God’s word and knowing what is there for us.
And then there is prayer. This is not just prayer for “God I want this, please give me that, help me with the other, heal me, heal my friend.” This is prayer for discernment of God’s will. This is prayer for wisdom. Prayer for a willing spirit, to be open to the guidance of God, and that is the ultimate protective gear.
Now you may be saying, “Well that’s all great for preventive measures but what if some brand of kudzu has hold of me already.” Well, let me just tell you, although to drive along 400 or through rural South Georgia you would not believe that Kudzu can be eradicated, but it can. It can with the right knowledge and with a lot of persistence and hard work, with a lot of chemical preparation, with tractors and root pulling, and cutting back and replanting, kudzu can be eradicated from your yard and from your heart - but it takes persistence. It takes persistence in God. God will not give up on us. We should not give up on God. God gives us the tools to keep the kudzu out of the garden of our soul. No matter how fervently the spirits of evil and temptation work on you, remember that through the death on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and then His Resurrection, through those events, God won the ultimate victory over evil and God’s love and grace and forgiveness are stronger than any cleverness or deceit that Satan can ever employ. And so you, the worshipping congregation of First Presbyterian Church, I encourage you, pick up your pruning shears, go into your prayer closet and invite God to be the master gardener of your life.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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