the Gospel according to clipart

Since I am going on vacation, I'm working on the next two weeks' bulletins, so this thought applies to the readings for Sunday, September 3.

The only part of the lection reading that had room for clipart was the Ephesians passage about the armor of God. You'd think there'd be tons of images there: at least these are tangible objects! But I couldn't find anything except little boys dressed up as roman soldiers. I knew I had to be careful with this: anything too militaristic would raise people's hackles here at St. Jonah's. But as I was searching, and re-reading the passage, it made me aware of how Paul is transforming the traditional images of warfare. Essentially, he's looking at the real soldier of his day and saying, yes, you need a helmet, but not one made out of --whatever metal they made them out of them--you need one of salvation. He's seeing equivalents, metaphors and the point is that soldiers of the Lord are not violent warriors. They are peaceful warriors, as yoga and tai chi would have it. It's a term that's been taken over a bit by the New Age folks, but if you engage in a martial arts practice, or yoga which has its warrior pose, you can get a sense for what this means....