SPECIAL DAYS: Confirmation Sunday

May 16, 1999 - LESSON: Ephesians 6:10-18, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Armor-All

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. Sometimes a story helps to create understanding
  2. The Touch System, by Marilyn Cram Donahue, Church Educator, May 1999, pages 19-20
    1. I was a substitute teacher in a large school district, working on a long-term assignment. By the end of the day, I could see why the last two substitutes hadn't lasted.
      1. Most of these eighth-graders were undisciplined, antagonistic, and rude.
      2. They called themselves "teacher-eaters."
      3. The few who wanted to learn didn't have a chance.
      4. Neither did I, unless I thought of something fast.
    2. I dodged paper clips, retrieved the teacher's lesson book from the trash, stopped two serious fights, and dealt with one enterprising youth who was armed with rows of long pins sticking through the sides of his shoes.
    3. I was beginning to panic. I knew I couldn't handle these young people if I didn't have their respect.
      1. I could send offenders to the office and give them F's.
      2. In other words, I had the power to punish.
      3. But power was only a temporary solution. They would not respect me for resorting to that.
    4. Something inside me insisted that respect was a two-way street. But how could I respect these students? Some of them were actually repulsive. Especially Julian!
    5. Julian sat at the back of the room near the door, ready to make a quick getaway.
      1. His assignment papers were crumpled on the floor.
      2. His voice was surly, his body dirty, his hair uncombed.
      3. His vocabulary was peppered with four-letter words.

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    6. I remembered the old phrase, "I'd like to get my hands on that child!"
      1. But I didn't want to touch Julian, not even to discipline him.
      2. If I ever needed God's help, I needed it then-and He must have known it.
    7. I was in front of the room, looking at the sea of faces, when to my surprise I began seeing individuals, one person at a time.
      1. It struck me that this must be the way God looks at us-as individuals, not as a nameless mass.
      2. A startling thought filled my mind.
        1. These "trouble-makers" were, each and every one of them-children of God.
        2. Even if I couldn't condone their actions, I could respect them as God's creations.
    8. I studied all 32 faces. "God loves you," I thought deliberately. "I really don't see why, but I know He does." Then I looked at Julian. "Even you, Julian. He loves you just as much as He loves me."
    9. This was a sobering thought, a little humbling. Behind each unfriendly face was a potentially perfect human being.
      1. There had been detours along the way, mistakes, unhappiness, a lot of misdirection.
      2. But I was sure of one thing-God believed in their potential. I had no right to "put down" what God had created.
      3. And the students looking back at me were surely God's creations.
    10. Accepting this was a step in the right direction. But there was still a wide gap between teacher and students. Somehow I had to reach across it.
    11. I walked to the back of the room where Julian sat, with his book propped in front of him so that he could work on his rapidly growing pile of spit wads.
      1. He knew I was standing there. I could see the thin smile at the corner of his mouth.
      2. Tentatively I put one hand on his shoulder. His reaction was totally unexpected.

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    12. Julian cringed, jerking away from me with his head bent low and one arm raised as if to defend himself. I saw the paper airplane he had been secretly folding.
      1. He glared at me. "You gonna take it?" he demanded.
      2. "Not me. I'm not very good at flying paper airplanes. Why don't you put that one away so nothing will happen to it?"
      3. His eyebrows raised. "Ain't you gonna do nothin' to me?" he demanded.
      4. I reached out and let my hand rest casually on his shoulder.
        1. "You'd better believe it!" I retorted.
        2. Then I briskly patted him once.
        3. "I want you to look at your book. Go on. It won't bite."
      5. "I'll look, but I ain't gonna read it," he informed me.
      6. I shrugged and touched his hand briefly. "We all make choices," I said.
    13. I walked on without looking back, going slowly up and down each aisle, pausing occasionally to lean over someone with a problem.
      1. Whenever I could, I touched.
      2. The reactions all followed the same pattern.
      3. Suspicion ,curiosity, then a kind of armed truce.
      4. Finally I wrote an assignment on the board.
      5. It was the first time I'd dared turn my back on the class.
    14. From that point on I walked unafraid.
      1. These young people with the loud voices and belligerent attitudes were vulnerable human beings.
      2. Many of them were unsure and full of fear. But they were not going to hurt me.

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    15. Perhaps no one had ever reached out to Julian without hurting him. And he wasn't the only one. I reached out and felt suspicion, fear, loneliness, longing-and sometimes no response at all.
      1. There were times when I felt as if I were groping my way, but I improved. I learned that the light touch is best.
      2. After all, it doesn't take a hammer to flip on a light switch.
    16. When I found a "no response" student, persistence was the answer.
      1. Somewhere, locked away in the closed closet of his mind, was the potential that only God knew about.
      2. Perhaps, if he were touched often enough, something inside him would click, and he would find the key to open the door.
    17. Ramon was like that. Ramon with the no-expression, stony face.
      1. Day after day I passed his desk, with no response.
      2. Ramon, I was told, was someone to watch out for-a real troublemaker.
      3. Ramon was really a big fake.
    18. The window next to his desk was stuck.
      1. My prying was ineffective.
        1. I tapped Ramon on the shoulder.
        2. "Do you think you can help me?" I asked. He shook his head.
        3. 'Why not?' He shrugged.
        4. "Hold up your hands!" I ordered.

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      2. He stared at me distrustfully, but he held them up.
        1. I put my hands against his.
        2. "Look at that!" I told him. "See how much bigger your hands are.
        3. You're telling me that you can't help me open that window?"
      3. He shrugged again, but he got up and opened the window. "Does that suit you?" he asked.
      4. "It's a step in the right direction,' I told him.
        1. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.
        2. I chose to believe it was a potential smile.
        3. Ramon, whether he liked it or pot, was a different person that he had been a few minutes before.
        4. It's hard to feel hate for someone who has touched you with friendship.
    19. Day after day I practiced what I began to call the touch system, armed with nothing but an outstretched hand.
      1. I found that once I had established physical contact with a difficult student, a small miracle happened.
      2. I don't mean that all the problems disappeared, but there was a lightening of spirit, a feeling of trust, an occasional smile.
    20. There was an unexpected bonus in store.
      1. I found that this method of reaching out and making contact produced minor miracles in my church school classes-we run up against difficulties there, too.
      2. Children have problems, no matter what their backgrounds.

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    21. I also learned that the art of touching is something that takes practice to perfect.
      1. Just as in touch typing, you don't become an expert overnight.
      2. The problem is that we depend so much on what our eyes tell us, on what we hear, smell, and taste, that we forget to heed the many feelings and vibrations that come through our fingertips.
      3. I'm talking about the ability of sensitive fingers to recognize tense muscles, a troubled mind, a happy spirit, a gentle soul; the ability to feel when things are going right or when they are going wrong.
  3. What Marilyn Cram Donahue discovered is the application of true armor.
    1. We think of armor as defensive protection.
      1. That which we will use to protect ourselves.
        1. There is all kinds of armor.
        2. Most of it is of the physical kind.
        3. We resort to weapons.
        4. No amount of armament can totally and fully protect us.
      2. There is another kind of armor which can be used defensively.
        1. It is called the armor of God
        2. It is not in a sense musical, it is spiritual.
          1. 14 Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist,
            1. Not only to speak the truth.
            2. It also to be true to what you know is true,
          2. and put on the breastplate of righteousness.
            1. Righteousness is a verb of action, doing what is right.
            2. It is also character, the character from which doing what is right springs.

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          3. 15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
            1. the gospel is the good news.
            2. Peace is a state of being and a way of acting.
          4. 16 With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
            1. Faith is a condition
            2. Faith is also the belief structure from which the condition is born and grows.
          5. 17 Take the helmet of salvation,
            1. Salvation is to be rescued
            2. To live in safety (phys. or mor.)
            3. To be healthy
          6. and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
            1. The sword is a great weapon.
            2. The word is a greater weapon.
          7. 18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication.
            1. Prayer is communicating
            2. Prayer is a state of being
    2. If you have all this you will be able to be strong.
    3. You will be able to develop the ability to tell the difference.
      1. Gale-force winds and sub-zero temperatures had taken their toll: snapped electric wires were sparking and snaking dangerously about the ever-building snowdrifts.
      2. As a foot patrolman, Raymond E. Callahan was assigned to a desolate intersection to provide security at the scene of a downed wire.
      3. It was 12:40 a.m. and two degrees below zero when he relieved the initial guardian of this dangerous area.
      4. He pointed out the thin line swinging ferociously from the main electric circuit.
      5. As he entered the squad car for his return to warmth, I pulled my coat collar up to my earmuffs, tightened my scarf and placed myself in a position to protect the public.
      6. Finally, at 4:40 a.m., a utility truck arrived. The linemen checked the wires, let out roaring bellows and continued laughing as they descended toward me.
      7. "Well, mate," one of them said, "Congratulations. You've successfully guarded a frozen kite string all night."

Raymond E. Callahan (Narragansett, R.I.) in READER'S DIGEST

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    1. If you use all this you will grow into a mature and useful human being.
      1. There is a story about a traveler in Italy who watched with curiosity as a lumberman occasionally jabbed his sharp hook into a log, separating it from the others floating down a mountain stream.
      2. When asked why he did this the worker replied, "These may all look alike to you, but a few of them are quite different.
        1. The ones I let pass are from trees that grew in a valley where they were always protected from the storms. Their grain is course.
        2. The ones I have hooked and kept apart came from high on the mountains.
          1. From the time they were small they were beaten by strong winds.
          2. This toughens the trees and gives them a fine grain.
          3. We save them for choice work.
          4. They are too good to make into plain lumber.

(The above illustration is from the Reverend Wayne Rouse.)

  1. As Paul reminds is in our lesson for today.
    1. Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.
    2. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
    3. 12 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.
    4. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

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