Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Sept 7

7 September 2021

Text: Eph 6:1-24

 In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

 Dear friends, welcome to a new school year.  It is fitting that our Lord chose for us to open our year by reflecting on vocation, that is, upon our various callings.  St. Paul reminds us of our joyful obligations within family, society, and church. 

 In the family, the apostle exhorts us to be obedient as children, to honor our parents, and as fathers not to provoke our children to anger, but to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  In Society, St. Paul calls to mind our obligation to “obey [our] earthly masters” as though we were “rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man.”  He also reminds masters not to threaten, for we are all servants of the Lord.

 And it is in our vocation as Christians that St. Paul calls us to the life of the warrior, the soldier.  And while the world espouses a twisted view of gender, Scripture does indeed teach a metaphorical gender that transcends biological sex.  For the Christian is part of the Church, and the Church is feminine: for she is the bride of Christ, obedient to her Lord, even as the Lord gives up everything for the sake of His bride.  But as individual baptized Christians, there is a masculine gender, as we are all “sons” – that is, heirs.  And we are also militant.  All Christians, men, women, boys, and girls are on the front lines of, in the words of the ancient Easter hymn: “that combat stupendous.”

 And so the apostle encourages us to “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”  St. Paul teaches us that this struggle is not “against flesh and blood,” but “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

We Christians are equipped with the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the shoes of the “readiness of the gospel of peace.”  We “take up the shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”

 And as we stand at our post, dear friends, we pray “at all times.”  And in so doing, we “keep alert.”  And this is all by God’s grace, for in Holy Baptism and in the Gospel, we are equipped for battle.  Let us begin this school year with God-given zeal for our vocations: in family, in society, and in the kingdom of God.  Let us be the joyful warriors that our Lord has called into divine service. And may the cross ever be before our eyes.  And as St. Paul greets us, let us receive the blessing: “Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Amen.

 In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.