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.
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