エフェソの信徒への手紙6:10-20 Ephesians 6:10-20,
わたしたちの戦いは、血肉を相手にするものではなく、支配と権威、暗闇の世界の支配者、天にいる悪の諸霊を相手にするものなのです。 （エフェソ6:12）
「血肉」とは血や肉をもった人間の存在のことです。つまり、キリストを信じる人は、その信仰に基づいて戦うのですが、その戦いは人間に対するものではないということです。それでは、何に対して戦うのでしょうか？11節には「悪魔の策略に対抗して立つことができるように、神の武具を身に着けなさい」とありますから、悪魔に対して戦うのだということがわかります。つまり、人間の背後にあって人間を支配しようとする悪の力と戦うということです。
12節では、その悪の力が四つの言葉で言い換えられています。最初は「支配」です。「支配」と翻訳されているアルケーというギリシア語は、もともと「始め」という意味ですが、この世界の活動やプロセスを支配する目に見えない力を指すときにも用いられました。二番目は「権威」です。「権威」と翻訳されているエクスーシアというギリシア語は、やはりこの世を支配するスピリチュアルな力を指しました。三番目は「暗闇の世界の支配者」です。この手紙の5章8節には「あなたがたは、以前には暗闇でしたが、今は主に結ばれて、光となっています」とあります。そして、この「暗闇」とは具体的に言えば、この手紙の4章31節にある「無慈悲、憤り、怒り、わめき、そしり」などのことです。ですから、「暗闇の世界の支配者」とは、私たちを「無慈悲、憤り、怒り、わめき、そしり」などに駆り立てる力のことです。
四番目は「天にいる悪の諸霊」です。「天」とはこの世を超えたところです。「悪の諸霊」とは、人間を悪い思いや悪い言葉や悪い行いへと駆り立てるスピリチュアルな力のことです。ですから、この世界を超えたところには、人間を悪へと駆り立てる力が存在しているのです。そして、この手紙の2章2節に、信徒たちもかつては「この世を支配する者、かの空中に勢力を持つ者、すなわち、不従順な者たちの内に今も働く霊に従い、過ちと罪を犯して歩んでいました」とありますように、私たち人間は生まれながらに目に見えない悪の力に支配され、駆り立てられて生きているのです。ところが、キリストが十字架について死に、そして復活したことによって、それらの悪の力に完全に勝利してくださったのです。そして、キリストを信じキリストに従う人も、悪の力に勝利することができるのです。
（7月30日の説教より）
The war between Russia and Ukraine is raging and it is difficult to find a way to peace. In this context, the international situations in the world are also becoming increasingly tense. Therefore, today we would like to consider what our struggle is based on the Christian faith and the Bible.
In considering this subject, I have repeatedly read two other books besides the Bible. One is a novel by Mr. AISAKA Touma titled Comrade Girl, Shoot Your Enemies. This novel tells the story of a girl who killed many German soldiers as a sniper during the war between the Soviet Union and Germany in World War II. The other book is a non-fiction literature entitled The Unwomanly Face of War by Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The book documents the testimonies of women who took part in the Second World War between the Soviet Union and Germany. According to historian Mr. OHKI Takeshi, about 27 million people, both combatants and civilians, died in the Soviet Union during the Second World War against Germany. Before I get into the teaching of the Bible, I would like to briefly introduce these two books.
There is an award called the “Honya-Taisho” (Bookstore Award), in which bookstore clerks across Japan vote for the book they want to sell the most this year. The novel, Comrade Girl, Shoot Your Enemies, won the “Honya-Taisho” for the year 2022. Also, do you know that there is an award called the “Koukousei Naoki-Sho” (High Schooler Naoki Award)? The “Naoki-Sho” (Naoki Award), along with the “Akutagawa-Sho” (Akutagawa Award), is the most traditional of Japan’s literary award. The “Koukousei Naoki-Sho” is selected by high school students as the best work among the “Naoki-Sho” nominees from the recent past year. This novel, Comrade Girl, Shoot Your Enemies, also won the “Koukousei Naoki-Sho” for the year 2022.
The protagonist of the novel is an 18-year-old woman called Serafima from the small Russian village of Ivanovskaya, who graduated from high school at the age of 18 and was soon to enter university in Moscow. Serafima was fluent in German and wanted to become a diplomat in the future to improve relations between the Soviet Union and Germany. However, one day, German troops invading the Soviet Union came to Serafima’s village, raped the women and killed all the villagers. Serafima’s mother was also killed by a German sniper called Jäger. Serafima was also nearly raped and killed, but was rescued by Soviet troops who arrived shortly after the Germans. The commander of the Soviet troops was a woman called Irina. Irina did not bury Serafima’s mother’s body, but had it burnt on the spot with petrol. Irina also had the entire village burnt so that it would not be used by the Germans in the future. Serafima hated Irina for insulting her mother’s body and she hated the German sniper Jäger who killed her mother. She then became obsessed with killing the German soldiers, killing the sniper Jäger and finally killing Irina, who had insulted her mother’s body.
Serafima was sent to a school for training female snipers. The leader of that school was Irina, whom Serafima hated. There, she was thoroughly trained to become a sniper. Snipers are specially trained soldiers who shoot and kill enemy officers and soldiers with rifles from long distances away. The novel also features a real-life female sniper, Lyudmila Pablychenko, who sniped and killed more than 300 enemies. I will not discuss the detailed plot of the novel today, but Serafima, who initially felt discomfort when pulling the trigger of a rifle on the battlefield, eventually transformed into a sniper who enjoyed increasing her sniper score, i.e., how many people she had killed. She then shot and killed not only a German sniper Jäger, but also a Soviet officer who was trying to rape a German woman. Finally, Serafima reconciled with Irina. And after the war, she worked with Irina to rebuild her home village, which had been destroyed by the war. The novel asks the reader the serious question: “What is the enemy?”
While Comrade Girl, Shoot Your Enemies is a work of fiction, Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War is a work of non-fiction. It records the testimonies of Soviet women soldiers who actually took part in the war against Nazi Germany. A Japanese translation of The Unwomanly Face of War was published by a publisher called Gunzosha in 2008 and was out of print. However, after Alexievich was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was reprinted in 2016 as a book in Iwanami Gendai Bunko. A cartoon version was then published by Kadokawa in 2020, and in 2021 it was featured in NHK’s programme “100-Pun de Meicho” (Famous Book in 100 Minutes), making it well known to many people.
The testimonies of female snipers are also included in The Unwomanly Face of War. One sniper recalls as follows.
The first time is frightening … Very frightening …
We were in hiding, and I was the lookout. And then I noticed one German poking up a little from a trench. I clicked, and he fell. And then, you know, I started shaking all over, I heard my bones knocking. I cried. When I shot at targets it was nothing, but now: I—killed! I killed some unknown man. I knew nothing about him, but I killed him.
Then it passed. And here’s how … It happened like this … We were already on the advance. We marched past a small settlement. I think it was in Ukraine. And there by the road we saw a barrack or a house, it was impossible to tell, it was all burned down, nothing left but blackened stones. A foundation … Many of the girls didn’t go close to it, but it was as if something drew me there … There were human bones among the cinders, with scorched little stars among them; these were our wounded or prisoners who had been burned. After that, however many I killed, I felt no pity. I had seen those blackened little stars … (Kindle, 9-10)
Another female sniper got married after the war and had two children. A boy and a girl. The girl had a severe intellectual handicap. The girl is in hospital and this woman goes every day to the hospital where the girl is. Having a child with a handicap is not a bad thing. But her husband, instead of caring for her, left her, hurting her, saying that she gave birth to a handicapped child because she went to war. It was not only her husband who hurt her. How did people greet this woman who loved her country more than anything else, when she fought in the war, defeated many enemies and returned without dying? Did they welcome her with applause? She stated as follows.
How did the Motherland meet us? I can’t speak without sobbing … It was forty years ago, but my cheeks still burn. The men said nothing, but the women … They shouted to us, “We know what you did there! You lured our men with your young c——! Army whores … Military bitches …” They insulted us in all possible ways … (Kindle, 248)
What these testimonies, as well as many others in The Unwomanly Face of War, have in common are the cries of sufferings of women who volunteered to fight the enemy with pure hearts and joined the war, and who suffered deep wounds in mind and body.
The state encourages and orders its citizens to take part in the war. In the case of the Soviet Union, it did not encourage or order its people to take part in the war in the name of God, because it is based on atheistic communist ideology. However, in Russia today, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill justifies the war by saying that the western countries are responsible for this war. According to a report by the global news company CNN, Patriarch Kirill said during a celebration of the Divine Liturgy on Sunday, “The Church prays that this battle will end as soon as possible, so that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war.” And he added and said as follows.
At the same time, the Church realizes that if someone is driven by a sense of duty to fulfill his oath of office, he stays true to his calling and does what his duty tells him to do. And if, in the performance of this duty if a person dies, then he undoubtedly has committed an act on par with a sacrifice. He is sacrificing himself for others. I am sure that such a sacrifice washes away all sins that a person has committed.”
(https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-09-27-22/h_2ab378fc95a147a373a12e1343741566 viewed 24 July 2023)
This is a frightening teaching that it is God’s will for a person to participate in war and that a sacrifice of dying in war “washes away all sins that a person has committed.”
Does the Bible really teach such a thing? We want to be reminded what the Bible teaches us about our enemies. In verses 11 and 12 of today’s Bible passages we read:
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle 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.
“Flesh and blood” refers to human existence in flesh and blood. This means that those who believe in Christ fight on the basis of their faith, but the fight is not against human beings. Then, what are we fighting against? Verse 11 says: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” So we know that we are fighting against the devil. In other words, we are to fight against the forces of evil that are behind human beings and seek to control them.
In verse 12, that evil power is paraphrased in four words. The first is “the rulers.” The Greek word arkeh (ἀρχή), translated “ruler,” originally meant “beginning,” but was also used to refer to the unseen forces that govern the activities and processes of this world. The second is “the authorities.” The Greek word exousia (ἐξουσία), translated as “authority,” also referred to the spiritual forces that govern the world. The third is “the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” In 5:8 of this epistle Paul says: “At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” And according to 4:31 of this epistle, this “darkness” specifically refers to “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander.” “The cosmic powers over this present darkness” are therefore the powers that drive us to “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander,” etc.
The fourth is “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” “The heavenly places” is the places beyond this world. “The spiritual forces of evil” are those that drive human beings to evil thoughts, evil words and evil deeds. Therefore, beyond this world, there are forces that drive human beings to evil. And as it says in 2:2 of this epistle, the believers “once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” We human beings are by nature controlled and driven by unseen evil forces. However, through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection, Christ has completely triumphed over these evil forces. And those who believe in Christ and follow him can also triumph over the forces of evil.
The forces of evil still drive us human beings to hatred. People whose beloved country was invaded will hate the invading enemy. Those whose beloved homelands were destroyed will hate the enemy who destroyed them. Those whose beloved families were killed will hate the enemies who killed them. And all these should be taken for granted. But the Bible tells us to fight not human beings, but the very forces of evil that drive us to hatred. And that is not something you can do simply by being religiously Christian. The war between Ukraine and Russia that is going on in the world today, religiously speaking, both countries’ people are predominantly Christian.
So how do we fight the forces of evil that drive us to hatred? Verse 18 of today’s Bible passages teaches as follows: “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.” The night before being crucified, Christ prayed: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. (Luke 22:42)” He then went on his way to the cross. So if we want to walk following Christ, we must constantly pray for two things. One is to be honest and frank with God about what is in our hearts, including our emotion of hatred. And the other is to surrender everything to God, praying, “Your will be done.” When you read the Old Testament psalms, you may be surprised at how many of them pray to God for vengeance on their enemies. But that means, in other words, that the psalmist himself does not take revenge, but leaves it to God’s impartial judgement. The Apostle Paul teaches in Romans 12:19-21 as follows.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Let us take this teaching to our heart and fight against the forces that drive us to hatred.