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Veterans of Inner
Wars
By the
Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater,
Massachusetts, November 7, 1999
Readings
Psalm 144 The
Lord trains my hands for war
Blessed be
the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for
battle; my rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my
shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues the peoples under me.
O Lord, what
are human beings that you regard them, or mortals that you think of
them? They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow.
Bow your
heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains so that they smoke.
Make the lightning flash and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout
them. Stretch out your hand from on high; set me free and rescue me from
the mighty waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies,
and whose right hands are false.
I will sing a
new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you, the
one who gives victory to kings, who rescues his servant David. Rescue me
from the cruel sword, and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose
mouths speak lies, and whose right hands are false.
May our sons
in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner
pillars, cut for the building of a palace. May our barns be filled, with
produce of every kind; may our sheep increase by thousands, by tens of
thousands in our fields. and may our cattle be heavy with young. May
there be no breach in the walls, no exile, and no cry of distress in our
streets.
Happy are the
people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is
the Lord.
Matthew 10:34-39 Not peace, but a sword
Do not think
that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring
peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a
daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and
whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and
whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life
for my sake will find it.
Arcana Coelestia #3696.2 The inner war of temptation
When we are
being spiritually reborn, at first we experience a state of serenity.
But as we move into our new life, we move into a state that is not
serene. This is because the evil and false things that we had previously
made a part of ourselves then come and show themselves. They trouble us
so much that we go through temptations and trials brought about by the
devil's crew, who constantly try to destroy the new life we are
beginning.
Despite this,
we are at peace deep within ourselves. Without this inmost peace, we
would not put up any fight at all, since in all the conflicts we
experience, we see that peaceful state as our goal. If we did not have
that goal in mind, we would never have the power and strength to fight.
This is also what enables us to overcome. And since this is the goal
that we have in mind, we also enter a state of peacefulness when our
conflicts or temptations are over. It is like the spring, which comes
after autumn and winter, or like the dawn, which comes after evening and
night.
Sermon
Blessed be
the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for
battle (Psalm 144:1)
What a
warlike verse! What a warlike God it describes! This past Thursday, I
read this Psalm for an opening meditation that I gave to begin that
day's Field Education Supervision class, which I am taking at Andover
Newton Theological School. Afterwards, another minister in the class
thanked me for the meditation, saying, "That was always the kind of
Old Testament passage that I would just pass right over when I came to
it."
It is hard on
our modern sensibilities to read Bible passages describing the Lord as a
God of battle, who trains people for war and commands them to conquer
their enemies. Although war is certainly not a thing of the past, we
would prefer to leave the God that commands and blesses war firmly in
the Old Testament. Yet even in the New Testament, Jesus--whose birth was
heralded with a chorus of angels singing, "Peace on earth to people
of good will" (Luke 2:14)--said, "Do not think that I have
come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a
sword."
What is all
this war talk? And why is it in the Bible? With Veterans' Day
approaching, this is as good a time as any to address these questions.
And the 144th Psalm gives us a perfect way to do it. I would like to
take a journey through this Psalm with you this morning, from its
warlike beginning to its beautiful and peaceful conclusion. The Psalm
begins:
Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle;
My rock and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
My shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues the peoples under me.
Swedenborg
tells us that in the Bible's spiritual meaning, wars represent "the
temptations of religious people, which are nothing but battles and wars
with the evil things within ourselves, and therefore with the devil's
crew, which stirs up these evil things, and tries to destroy both
religion and religious people" (Arcana Coelestia #1659.3).
We have all
experienced these inner wars. Perhaps some of us are experiencing right
now the battles that rage in our hearts and minds when what we want
to do and what we know we ought to do are struggling to control
what our hands will do; when our commitment to love and care for
one another struggles with the bitter foes of jealousy, apathy, and
despair; when the voices of our friends, our family, and our God are
telling us that they love us and care for us, but hellish voices from
within are telling us that we are no good, destroyed beyond repair, that
we might as well give up and give in. And we have experienced the even
more bitter struggle when we believe that all who have ever loved
us--even God--have turned their backs on us.
Psalm 144
begins by reminding us that it is God who trains and teaches us to face
such battles, and it is God who gives us the strength, support,
protection, and power to win them. God also gives us spiritual
weapons to use in these battles. Paul describes these weapons
beautifully in his letter to the Ephesians:
Be strong in the Lord and in
the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 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.
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. Stand therefore, and fasten
the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of
righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you
ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 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. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the Word of God. (Ephesians 6:10-17)
Yes, it is
with the weapons of truth, righteousness, and faith that we can do
battle against all of the enemies within us and around us, which seek to
destroy us from within outward. These spiritual weapons are gifts from
the Lord. We may think we are not worthy of them--and the Psalmist
seemed to feel the same way when he wrote:
O Lord, what are human beings
that you regard them,
or mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
their days are like a passing shadow.
The feeling
of our personal insignificance in the face of mighty material and
spiritual forces is not new. When we contemplate the vastness of the
physical universe in which we live, or when, with the scientists,
psychologists, and mystics, we peer beyond the surface of the human mind
and gain merely a glimpse of the unfathomable depths within, how can we
help feeling small and insignificant in the face of such vastness?
Yet, God
cares for us so much that it is not too much to ask for God to exercise
the tremendous power of the Divine against our spiritual enemies. The
Psalm continues:
Bow your heavens, O Lord, and
come down;
touch the mountains so that they smoke.
Make the lightning flash and scatter them;
send out your arrows and rout them.
Stretch out your hand from on high;
set me free and rescue me from the mighty waters,
From the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies,
and whose right hands are false.
God makes
that tremendous power available to us, not in some xenophobic way to
rescue us from literal foreigners, but to rescue us from everything that
is foreign to our true, spiritual nature. God can rescue us from lying
words which tell us that money and possessions are the most important
thing in this life; that we can find rest for our souls in some bottle
or box; that feeling pleasure this moment is so important that we should
ignore the "idealistic" and "unrealistic" dictates
of religion and ethics. God can rescue us from every lie that we tell
ourselves when we are trying to justify attitudes, words, and actions
that we know in our heart of hearts will lead only to pain and
suffering.
As we equip
ourselves with the spiritual armor and weapons that the Lord offers us
to struggle against these lies, and as we use them to overcome all that
is false within us, we begin to feel the joy of victory. We begin to
overcome those parts of ourselves that had always held us back. As a
veteran, not of foreign wars, but of inner wars, we feel the joy
of spiritual victory. The Psalmist celebrates that victory with
us:
I will sing a new song to you,
O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
The one who gives victory to kings,
who rescues his servant David.
Rescue me from the cruel sword,
and deliver me from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies,
and whose right hands are false.
When we have
been rescued from the hand of evil influences that are foreign to our
true, spiritual nature, we begin to feel the fruitfulness of spiritual
life. Previously, our days had been a battle zone in which we were never
satisfied with our lot in life, never happy with the blessings all
around us, never joyful simply to be alive. Now, as God's love and truth
begin to take hold within us, we find ourselves blossoming in ways we
had never thought possible. In place of our former conviction that life
on earth is a struggle that ends in death, we find new life and new joy
in ordinary, everyday things. We find deeper satisfactions with our
family and friends. There is a new fullness to life, expressed
beautifully by the Psalmist:
May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
Our daughters like corner pillars,
cut for the building of a palace.
May our barns be filled,
with produce of every kind;
May our sheep increase by thousands,
by tens of thousands in our fields,
and may our cattle be heavy with young.
May there be no breach in the walls,
no exile, and no cry of distress in our streets.
We find that
our love and affection for the people around us grows stronger and
stronger, until it is like a pillar that sustains a spiritual palace of
mutual understanding and support, where before there was a slum of
mutual distrust and discord. Our mental and emotional crops of insight
and inspiration come in so thick and fast that we can hardly store it
all; we simply must share it with those around us, so that
everyone may be full and satisfied.
This is the
beauty of spiritual warfare. In literal warfare, what is left when the
battle is over is a field strewn with bodies and soaked in blood. But
when we engage in the inner, spiritual battles to which the Lord
calls us, there is no such bloody end. Instead, as we conquer our inner
enemies, we find that the demons within us that continually try to drag
us down will gradually melt away under the greater power of God's love
and wisdom. We will find that the longer we resist them through the
power of faith and prayer, the weaker will be their hold over us, until
the clash of inner battle eventually becomes a faint echo.
In the place
of a spiritual battlefield, we will find vast pastures dotted with the
sheep and cattle of love and kindness. Our mental storehouses will be
full to overflowing with rich crops of faith and understanding that can
sustain us through our inner winters, when our love and enthusiasm cools
off and we need to draw on the spiritual gifts we have stored up within
us. We will find that the Lord has blessed us with more than enough for
a full and happy life, whatever our outward circumstances may be.
We may want
to shrink from the battles that life puts in our way. We may want to
leave them for another day--to simply coast along on our past
accomplishments. But it is only when we face those battles, and gain
victory through the Lord's power, that we can know the joy of true
spiritual life. It is only when we have become veterans of our inner
wars that we can know the deep peace and satisfaction of living in
single-minded love and kindness toward everyone around us. It is only
when we have conquered our inner demons that we can know the serenity
and the joy of living up to our true, spiritual, God-given nature.
These are
joys and satisfactions that we can know only when we turn fully to our
lives over to the Lord, and struggle against everything that blocks the
Lord from coming fully into our lives with all the blessings that
infinite Love can bring. And as the Psalmist concludes:
Happy are the people to whom
such blessings fall;
happy are the people whose God is the Lord.
Amen.
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