whole armor of God - revisited

I’m having difficulty this week after visiting http://www.armorofgodpjs.com/. Many of the lectionaries have the Ephesians 16 passage as the epistle reading for this Sunday. I keep reading that as part of my daily meditations and wonder how something as inane as pj’s could be considered relevant to a passage about armoring oneself for battle.

I picture the writer of Ephesians in prison looking at the jailors in armor and finding a way to talk about preparing to face torture. If I had children IÂ’d read that passage to them as we prepared for school and work as an example of looking for ways to spread the message. I sure wouldn’t read it as getting a good nights sleep. For a good nights sleep a passage like the letter to Timothy where the author is worrying about the health of the other. For a good nights sleep a pssage like Solomon praying for wisdom over other gifts. For a good nights sleep a geneaology to show that God cares for each person. But Ephesians seems like a wake-up and start your daily tasks being prepared for trial, temptations and troubles.

That’s why I place these items in the Christianist category. They aren’t about being Christian, but about saying one is Christian. They aren’t about living the faith, but avoiding difficulties. They treat a particular image of Christ as more important than the person of Christ. They want to meet the Christ in the pomp and pageantry and avoid the rags and ills.

Yet the picture of the judgment day is that some will not realize they’ve seen the Christ, but find that in the cup of water to the thirsty they met their God. And others will ask when they ignored the Christ and find they did so when they didn’t visit the prisoner. The Christ is not find in having the correct doctrine or trying to make your children feel safe. The Christ is found in the city streets and the rural byways, in poverty and need, in prison and in sickness. And the call of the Christian is not to be a good family man, but to be a servant of the risen Lord. Special pajamas are nice, but Christians aren’t called to be nice, they’re called to be followers of one who was despised and rejected.

There is a difference.