How many of you have some place where you felt like you don’t belong, or that you were seen as being less than everyone else? We loved living in Quebec for 12 years, but I will admit that there were times when I felt as if I didn’t really belong there because my French was so poor. At times, because my family isn’t old-stock Quebecois, it felt like we were less. Our kids, while we lived in the USA, felt something similar. Growing up in a church where my family often saw things differently from the more prominent families in the church, there were many times when we didn’t always feel like belonged. Sometimes new followers of Jesus will admit that they don’t always feel comfortable in church because they may come from a different background or social status than most of the others in church.
That’s what Paul’s getting at here in his letter to
the church in Ephesus. It’s a church
filled with mostly Gentiles; non-Jewish people. This is likely a circular
letter, meant to be passed on and read in the other churches in the area as
well, so Paul’s goal is to help the churches understand better what God’s
doing, to give them insight into God’s purposes, and to give them a bigger
picture of who God is and what Jesus has done and is doing in their lives. In
the verses just before our passage, Paul explains that we’re made alive in
Jesus; that through grace we’ve been saved from our sin through the cross of Jesus
and have been reconciled with God. Paul’s writing about relationships: our
relationship with ourselves and our sin-filled lives, our relationship with God
that’s made right through Jesus, and now our relationships with others,
especially within the church.
Paul now moves on to the relationships found in the
church between the Jews and Gentiles. Paul is talking
straight to the Gentiles in these verses, reminding them of who they used in
the eyes of the Jews, who they were before they accepted Jesus as their Lord
and Saviour. Paul tells them to remember that formerly, before their conversions, they were Gentiles by
birth and called “uncircumcised” by Jews. Jews, being circumcised,
mocked all non-Jews by calling them the “uncircumcised.”
There was a huge social and spiritual wall between them.
Paul’s reminding the Gentiles who they are; they’re less than the Jews, God didn’t choose them,
God chose Israel as his people. Paul’s calling the Gentiles to remember their
story, to remember who they were. Paul now gives a huge “but,” “But now in Christ Jesus
you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
Jesus is drawing the Gentiles close, showing that he sees them, hears their
cries, cares about them. “For he himself is our peace,
who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing
wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and
regulations.” We see the welcoming nature of Jesus in these verses; a
desire to bring all his people together. Paul’s using powerful language here,
calling Jesus our peace. The Romans were proud of the peace they had brought
into the world, an enforced peace at the point of the sword, using torture if
needed and harsh punishments, including crucifixion. Jesus brings peace through
the cross and sacrifice rather than the sword. Jesus brings a greater peace
between God and humanity, and between Jews and Gentiles.
Paul uses the dividing wall of hostility as an example of what this peace looks like. Logos offers a number
of possibilities to what Paul’s referring to here, “The
wall that separated the inner and outer courts of the temple and prevented Jews
and Gentiles from worshiping together. Inscriptions in Greek and Latin warned
that Gentiles who disregarded the barrier would suffer the pain of death. Paul could also be talking about the
curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. This
curtain was rent at the death of Jesus and is representative of the separation
of all humanity from God. A third way
of understanding this wall of hostility is the “fence” consisting of
detailed commandments and oral interpretations erected around the law by its
interpreters to ensure its faithful observation. In reality, the fenced-in law
generated hostility between Jews and Gentiles and further divided them, as well
as furthering the enmity between God and humanity.” In all these
cases, the wall is about separation, about dividing people instead of bringing
people together. This helps us understand then why Paul talks about the law
being set aside in the flesh of Jesus through his life and death as Israel’s
laws were given to them to make them different from the nations around them, to
separate them from the Gentiles.
Brian Peterson writes, “By
Jesus’ death on the cross, the old cultural markers
of worth and status, of being “in” or “out,” have been abolished. Sin’s power
to divide the world has come to its end in Christ.” In the Old Testament, the Law divided the Jews from
the Gentiles and then at the coming of Jesus, Jesus’ sacrifice bridges that gap
and makes the two groups one. What are some of the dividing walls around today?
Politics has become a huge wall that separates people from each other. I know
of families where differences in who they voted for have become more important
than the fact that they’re family. Vaccines and masks are huge dividers between
people today, creating anger and frustration, yet we sometimes forget that
Jesus brings people together. We need to see the person first, especially if
they are fellow followers of Jesus, it’s time to take the anger down and work
to know each other more. Anger doesn’t change people or draw them close, but love and compassion do.
Paul now uses some powerful images to show the people what church looks like to Jesus. He begins
with the image of citizenship, that the Gentiles are no longer foreigners and
strangers, but with the Jews, they are citizens in God’s kingdom and Jesus is
their king. Citizenship in Rome was huge, giving a person certain privileges. I’m
proud of being a Canadian. It has nothing to do with who is in power in Ottawa,
it has to do with the values I believe Canada stands for. Air Cadets and the
Naval Reserve taught me that Canada stands alongside the oppressed, that we
fight for justice around the world, we stand for what is right and fight
against what is evil. It’s idealistic, I’ll admit, but I still hold to these
values as being Canadian and when I travel, I wear a Canadian flag proudly.
Being a citizen of heaven is like that. I believe in the values that Jesus
calls us to live out, to be salt and light, to care deeply about justice, show
mercy, and to walk humbly with God while standing alongside the oppressed, the
broken, the struggling, and the hurt as the hands and feet of Jesus to give the
world a glimpse of what Jesus’ kingdom is like and to invite them to join us.
Paul goes deeper; he tells the Gentiles that they’re members of God’s family, that they’re
also children of God with the Jewish people, that God so loves them that he
sent his son Jesus to die for them too. God’s our father and we’re sisters and
brothers to each other now, all adopted into the family of God where Jesus is
our older brother who protects us and stands up for us. I love this image. I
have two adopted sisters and a brother who was never formally adopted, but was
with us his entire life and became part of our family. Our family now is a
mixture of kids from different mothers and fathers all brought together in our
household in a glorious, often chaotic mess, but we’re family, we belong together.
Family, the one place you can always go that
they can’t kick you out, is a saying I heard a while ago and fits
what Paul’s talking about here.
Paul then moves to the image of the church as a
building where the Holy Spirit lives with Jesus as the
foundation, the cornerstone on which all the other stones find its place. If
you take out stones, the building gets weaker, if you take enough out, the building
falls. The building needs every brick. It’s the same in church. You belong, no
matter how young or old you are, you’re needed because you’re part of the
family of God. You belong to Jesus. You are needed and wanted because each of
you brings your experience and knowledge of life that’s different from mine and
everyone else’s. Each of us can helps each other to know Jesus better. This is
why I love youth and children’s ministry; I always get a deeper knowledge of Jesus
when I hear them talk about Jesus. Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit, to help you
know you belong, to remind you that you have a place and role in Bethel, that
you are important just because.
So why church? Because Jesus has designed church as the one place where we experience deep
belonging, joined together by the Holy Spirit.
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