Homily 23 — Ephesians 6, verse 14

“Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth.” [a]

He has drawn up this army and roused their zeal. Both were needed: that they should be drawn up in battle order and subject to one another, and that their spirit should be stirred. He has filled them with courage, for this was needed too. Now he goes on to arm them. Weapons would have been of no use if each man had not first been posted in his own place, and if the spirit in the soldier’s soul had not first been roused. We must arm him first within, and then without. If this is so with soldiers, it is much more so with spiritual soldiers. Or rather, in their case there is no such thing as arming them from outside; everything is within. He has roused their ardor and set it on fire; he has added confidence; he has set them in proper order. Now watch how he puts the armor on them as well.

“Stand, therefore,” he says. The very first thing in the art of war is to know how to stand well, and a great deal depends on it. That is why he speaks so much about standing. Elsewhere, too, he says, “Keep awake, stand firm” (First Corinthians 16, verse 13). And again, “So stand firm in the Lord” (Philippians 4, verse 1). And again, “Let the one who thinks he stands take care that he does not fall” (First Corinthians 10, verse 12). And again, “So that you may be able, having done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6, verse 13). Surely, then, he does not mean just any kind of standing, but the right kind; and all who have had experience of war know how much it matters to know how to stand. If with boxers and wrestlers the trainer urges this before anything else, to stand firm, much more will it be the first thing in warfare and in military matters.

The man who truly stands is upright. He does not stand in a lazy posture, leaning on something. Real uprightness shows itself in the way a man stands, so that those who are perfectly upright are the ones who stand. But those who do not stand cannot be upright; they are slack and loose at the joints. The man who lives in luxury does not stand upright but is bent over; so is the man given to lust, and so is the lover of money. The man who knows how to stand will find, from his very standing, as from a kind of foundation, every part of the struggle easy.

“Stand, therefore,” he says, “having girded your loins with truth.” He is not speaking of a literal belt for the body; everything in this passage he says in a spiritual sense. And notice how methodically he goes about it. First he puts the belt on his soldier. What does this mean? The man who is loose in his life, who has gone slack in his cravings, whose thoughts trail along the ground — this man he braces up with the belt. He does not let him be hampered by clothes tangling around his legs, but leaves him free to run with his feet unhindered.

“Stand, therefore, having girded your loins,” he says. By “the loins” he means this. What the keel is to a ship, the loins are to us: the base and groundwork of the whole body. They are a kind of foundation, and on them, as the schools of the physicians will tell you, the whole frame is built. So when he speaks of “girding the loins,” he is making the foundation of our soul firm. He is not, of course, speaking of these loins of our body; he is speaking spiritually. And just as the loins are the foundation of the parts both above and below, so it is with these spiritual loins.

Often, as we know, when people are tired, they put their hands there, as on a kind of foundation, and so hold themselves up. That is why the belt is used in war: to bind and hold together this foundation of our frame, so to speak. It is for this reason, too, that we fasten our belts when we run. This is what keeps our strength together. Let this be done with the soul as well, he says, and then whatever we do, we will be strong. And it is a thing especially fitting for soldiers.

Someone may say: “True. But these natural loins of ours we gird with a leather belt. What do we spiritual soldiers gird ourselves with?” I answer: with what is the head and crown of all our thoughts — I mean, “with truth.” “Having girded your loins,” he says, “with truth.” What, then, does “with truth” mean? Let us love nothing that has anything of falsehood in it. Let us pursue all our duties “with truth”; let us not lie to one another. If it is a matter of belief, let us seek the truth; if it is a way of life, let us seek the true one. If we fortify ourselves with this, if we “gird ourselves with truth,” no one will overcome us. [c]

The one who seeks the teaching of truth will never fall to the ground. That the things which are not true are of the earth is plain from this: all those outside are slaves to their passions and follow their own reasonings. And so, if we keep a clear head, we will need no one to instruct us about the tales of the Greeks. Do you see how weak and frivolous they are? How they cannot hold one serious thought about God, or anything above human reasoning? Why? Because they are not “girded with truth.” Their loins — the storehouse of the seed of life and the main strength of their reasonings — are ungirded. So nothing can be weaker than they are.

And the Manichaeans, again — do you see how everything they are bold enough to say comes from their own reasonings? They say: “It was impossible for God to create the world without matter.” Where is that so plain? They say these things groveling on the earth, reasoning from the earth and from what happens among ourselves: because a man, they say, cannot create any other way. Look again at what Marcion says: “If God took flesh, he could not remain pure.” Where is that plain? He answers: “Because neither can men.” Yet men can do this. Valentinus, too, with his reasonings all trailing along the ground, speaks the things of the earth; and so does Paul of Samosata. And Arius — what does he say? “It was impossible for God, when he begot, to beget without passion.” Where do you get the boldness to claim this, Arius? Only from what happens among ourselves? Do you see how the reasonings of all these men trail along the ground? Are they not all, so to speak, let loose and unbelted, and smelling of the earth? So much, then, for doctrines.

As for life and conduct, again: the sexually immoral, the lovers of money, and of glory, and of everything else, trail along the ground. Their loins do not stand firm, so that when they are tired they could rest on them. When they are tired, they do not put their hands there and stand upright; they sag. But the one who is “girded with truth,” first, never grows tired; and second, if he should grow tired, he will rest himself on the truth itself. What? Tell me, will poverty wear him out? Not at all, for he will rest on the true riches, and from this poverty he will understand what true poverty is. Or will slavery wear him out? Not at all, for he will know what true slavery is. Or disease? No, not even that.

“Let your loins be girded,” says Christ, “and your lamps burning” (Luke 12, verse 35) — with that light which will never be put out. This is what the Israelites too were commanded to do when they were leaving Egypt (Exodus 12, verse 11). Why did they eat the Passover with their loins girded? Do you want to hear the reason? Shall I give it as the history tells it, or by its hidden sense? I will give you both. And keep it in mind, for I am not doing this without a purpose, just to tell you the answer, but so that my words may become real in you.

They had their loins girded, we read, and their staffs in their hands, and their sandals on their feet, and so they ate the Passover. Awe-inspiring and fearful mysteries, and of great depth! And if they are so fearful in the type, how much more in the reality? They come out of Egypt; they eat the Passover. Pay attention. “Our Passover has been sacrificed, Christ himself,” it says. Why did they have their loins girded? They are dressed as travelers. Their sandals, and the staffs in their hands, and their eating standing up, declare nothing else but this.

Do you want to hear the history first, or the mystery? The history first is better. What, then, is the purpose of the history? The Jews were forever forgetting God’s kindnesses to them. So God tied the memory of his kindnesses not only to the time but to the very dress of those who were to eat. This is why they were to eat girded and with sandals on: so that when they were asked the reason, they would say: “We were ready for our journey. We were just about to leave Egypt for the promised land; we were ready for our exodus.” That is the type as the history gives it. But the reality is this. We too eat a Passover, Christ himself. “For,” he says, “our Passover has been sacrificed, Christ himself” (First Corinthians 5, verse 7). What then? We too ought to eat it with sandals on and girded. Why? So that we too may be ready for our exodus, our departure from here.

Let none of those who eat this Passover look toward Egypt, but toward heaven, toward “the Jerusalem that is above” (Galatians 4, verse 26). This is why you eat with your loins girded; this is why you eat with sandals on your feet: so that you may know that from the moment you first begin to eat the Passover, you ought to set out and be on your way. And this means two things. We must leave Egypt; and while we remain here, we must from now on remain as in a foreign country. “For our citizenship,” he says, “is in heaven” (Philippians 3, verse 20). It also means that all our life long we should be prepared, so that when we are called we do not put it off, but say, “My heart is ready” (Psalm 108, verse 1).

“Yes, Paul could say that, since he knew nothing against himself. But I need a long time for repentance; I cannot say it.” Yet to be girded is the mark of a wakeful soul. Listen to what God says to that righteous man: “Gird up your loins now like a man, for I will question you, and you answer me” (Job 38, verse 3). He says this to all the prophets too, and he says it again to Moses: to be girded. And he himself appears to Ezekiel girded (Ezekiel 9, verse 11, in the Greek Old Testament). More than that, the angels too appear to us girded (Revelation 15, verse 6), since they are soldiers. Being girded makes us stand bravely, just as our being girded comes from our standing.

For we too are about to depart, and many difficulties lie in the way. Once we have crossed this plain, the devil is on us at once, doing everything and contriving every trick, so that those who have been saved out of Egypt, who have crossed the Red Sea, who have been delivered at a stroke from the evil demons and from countless plagues, may be caught and destroyed by him. But if we keep awake, we too have a pillar of fire: the grace of the Spirit. It both gives us light and overshadows us. We have manna — or rather not manna, but far more than manna. We have spiritual drink, not water springing from the rock. We too have our camp (Revelation 20, verse 9), and we live in the desert even now. For without virtue the earth is a desert even now, and more desolate than that wilderness.

What made that desert so terrible? Was it not that it had scorpions and adders in it (Deuteronomy 8, verse 15)? “A land,” it says, “that no one passed through” (Jeremiah 2, verse 6). And yet that wilderness is not — no, it is not — as barren of fruit as this human nature of ours. At this very moment, how many scorpions, how many asps are in this wilderness, how many serpents, how many a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3, verse 7) are these people among whom we are now passing! Yet let us not be afraid. The leader of this exodus of ours is not Moses, but Jesus.

How, then, will we avoid suffering what they suffered? Let us not do what they did, and we will not suffer the same punishment. They grumbled; they were ungrateful. So let us not harbor these passions. How was it that they all fell? “They despised the pleasant land” (Psalm 106, verse 24). “How did they ‘despise’ it? Surely they prized it highly.” By becoming lazy and cowardly, and refusing to take on any labor to win it. So let us not “despise” heaven. This is what “despising” means. [k]

Again, among us too fruit has been brought — fruit from heaven. Not the cluster of grapes carried on a pole (Numbers 13, verse 23), but “the pledge of the Spirit” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 22), “the citizenship that is in heaven” (Philippians 3, verse 20), which Paul and the whole band of apostles, those marvelous farmers, have taught us. It is not Caleb the son of Jephunneh, nor Jesus the son of Nun, who has brought these fruits. It is Jesus the Son of “the Father of mercies” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 3), the Son of the true God. He has brought every virtue; he has brought down from heaven all the fruits that grow there; he has brought the songs of heaven. The words the cherubim say above, these he has charged us to say too: “Holy, holy, holy.”

He has brought us the virtue of the angels. “The angels do not marry, nor are they given in marriage” (Matthew 22, verse 30): this fair plant too he has planted here. They do not love money or anything of the kind; this too he has sown among us. They never die; and this too he has freely given us, for death is no longer death, but sleep. Listen to what he says: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep” (John 11, verse 11).

Do you see, then, the fruits of “the Jerusalem that is above” (Galatians 4, verse 26)? And what is more astonishing than all the rest is this: our war has not yet been decided, and yet all these things are given to us before we reach the promise. They had to toil even after they had entered the promised land — or rather, they did not have to toil, for if they had been willing to obey God, they could have taken all the cities without weapons or battle lines. Jericho, as we know, they brought down more like dancers than warriors. We, however, have no war after we have entered the promised land, that is, heaven, but only as long as we are in the wilderness, that is, in this present life. “For whoever has entered his rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4, verse 10). “So let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6, verse 9). [m]

Do you see how he leads us just as he led them? In their case, concerning the manna and the wilderness, it is said, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack” (Exodus 16, verse 18). And we have been given this command: “Do not store up treasure on earth” (Matthew 6, verse 19). But if we do store up treasure, it is no longer an earthly worm that spoils it, as happened with the manna, but the worm that lives forever with the fire. So let us “subdue all things,” so that we do not provide food for this worm. For “whoever gathered much,” it says, “had nothing left over.” This happens with us too, every day. We all have only the same measure of hunger to satisfy, and anything beyond that is only an addition of worries. What he meant to teach later, when he said, “The day’s own trouble is enough for the day” (Matthew 6, verse 34), he had been teaching in this way from the very beginning — and even so they did not accept it.

But as for us, let us not be insatiable; let us not be discontented; let us not go looking for splendid houses. We are on a journey, not at home. So anyone who knows that the present life is a kind of journey and a military campaign — what, one might say, they call an entrenched camp — will not go looking for splendid buildings. For tell me, who, however rich, would choose to build a splendid house in a camp? No one. He would be a laughingstock; he would be building for his enemies, and inviting them on all the more surely. So if we are in our right minds, we will not do it either. The present life is nothing but a march and a camp.

So I beg you, let us do all we can to store up no treasure here. For if the thief should come, we must get up in a moment and leave.

“Keep awake,” he says, “for you do not know at what hour the thief is coming” (Matthew 24, verses 42 and 43) — calling death by that name. Oh, then, before he comes, let us send everything on ahead of us to our homeland; but here let us be “well girded,” so that we may be able to overcome our enemies. May God grant that we overcome them, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, strength and honor to the Father, forever and ever. Amen.