July 19 Proper 11

I have some friends, a couple, who told me about moving to a new town several years ago and visiting the Episcopal Church there, a church they intended to make their home. They were welcomed at the service and at coffee—and were invited out to lunch with the priest and his wife, and another person, a lay-leader in the church. They settled in at the restaurant and the first thing the priest asked them was whether they were liberal or orthodox. Needless to say, this couple was pretty taken aback by this question; so often our denomination has been characterized by being open to a wide range of thinking, a denomination that has encouraged us to think about our faith and the consequences of our faith for our lives without dictating exactly what that should be, what it should look like. My friends certainly didn’t expect to hear this kind of question. And I would hope that if they showed up here, we wouldn’t ask them this question!

We tend too often to label ourselves and others, don’t we? Liberal or conservative, progressive or orthodox. Reasserters or reappraisers. And those are just some labels being tossed around in church circles these days. Add in our political leanings: again liberal or conservative, democrat or republican. CNN or Fox News.

Even further: introvert or extrovert, male or female, rich or poor, black or white.

And I don’t think any of these are right or wrong.

But we start getting in trouble when we identify ourselves with certain labels, and demonize those who may be on the opposite end of the spectrum. When we think we have all the answers, and those who disagree are discounted, shut out and alienated.

In the 1st century, there were few people further apart than Jews and Gentiles. The circumcised versus the uncircumcised. God’s chosen people against the nations, never mind that the Jews were chosen to be God’s people in order to be a light to all the nations, all the gentiles. In his commentary, William Barclay further explains the alienation and hostility between the two, and especially on the part of the Jews. He wrote:

The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile. The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell. God, they said, loved only Israel of all the nations that he had made . . . It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother in her hour of sorest need, for that would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world. Until Christ came, the Gentiles were an object of contempt to the Jews. The barrier between them was absolute. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the funeral of that Jewish boy or girl was carried out. Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death (qtd. Stott, John. The Message of Ephesians. IVP p. 91).

And this is the situation that Paul is speaking into in our Epistle. He first reminds his Gentile audience that before Jesus Christ, the people of Ephesus and Asia Minor, called the uncircumcision, were without Christ—and now they were in Christ. Before they were alienated from Israel, and now they too were God’s people. Before they were strangers to the covenants of promise—and they were now no longer strangers but friends of the promise, included in the covenants. Before they were without hope, no anticipation of relief, and in Christ they have hope. Before they were without God, and now they had been brought into relationship with God. Paul explains that even though they—who are now in Christ—they had been far off, and now they were brought near to God by the blood of Christ. This is sacrificial language—Christ died in order to bring them—and us—into a relationship with God. He died in our place, for our gain. The work of Christ brings us close to God.

How does this happen? Paul explains that Jesus himself is our peace. Christ equals peace, and peace equals Christ. He is peace, makes peace, proclaims peace. We have peace with God and each other, and the peace of Christ breaks down barriers, walls of hostility that divide. “The law as a set of regulations that excludes Gentiles” (Snodgrass, Kyle. The NIV Application Commentary: Ephesians. Zondervan p.133) is abolished. Gentiles are now included and accepted by God in Christ in the same manner as Jews. This destruction of hostility is accomplished by the Incarnation and especially by the death of Jesus—he took the sins and hostilities of Jews and Gentiles and all of us with him when he died, and in himself, in his body Christ creates a new humanity, a new people incorporated into his body. This brings peace and reconciliation. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we are brought into a relationship with God, and we are connected with each other in Christ. “Divided humanity is reconciled in Christ and joined into a unified, worshipping community” (ibid 134-5), a new man, a new race. No more name calling, no more labels, no more walls.

Through Jesus’ death on the cross, we have been reconciled with God and with each other. We are made one body to the end that hostility must cease. But it is God who by his grace always does the reconciling—he takes the initiative at restoring relations.

Jesus came to preach peace to those who were far off and to those who were near—to the Gentiles and to the Jews—and through him we have access to God by the Holy Spirit. It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that we are incorporated into Christ, united with each other, and have access to the very presence of God.

And now the Gentiles are citizens, part of God’s own household, fellow citizens, joined together, being built together as God’s people, the holy ones. Those who were excluded and alienated are now included and incorporated, sharing in the privileges that Israel has enjoyed as God’s chosen people.

The household of God is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and Jesus Christ himself is the cornerstone. He makes the whole structure possible. He is strength and security. He is the one on whom AND IN WHOM the whole building exists. In him the building is bound together—he is the cement. In him the building becomes a temple. In him the Gentiles and the Jews are built together to be God’s dwelling. All union with God and with each other is in Christ. The ones who were excluded from the temple now become the temple—God’s temple. Christ and his followers are the new temple, replacing the physical building in Jerusalem. In Christ we are a holy temple because God dwells in us. We are in Christ—he is our home. And together with Christ we are God’s dwelling place—we are his home.

When we consider the walls and labels that divide us, that become barriers to our peace and unity with each other, we must also consider what Paul has said about the wall of separation between the Jew and the Gentile—the wall that has been destroyed by Christ.

In his letter to the Galatians St. Paul explains that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but all are one—in Christ Jesus. And that’s the key. We are one in Christ Jesus. We are one, united with him, part of his one body, when we are in Christ Jesus. When he is the center, when he is the vine. When we confess that Jesus Christ and his life, death and resurrection are the focus of our life together. When we hold fast to the uniqueness of Jesus as the way to salvation. When we hold forth the Creeds of our church—because they emphasize Christ. Jesus is the main subject and the center point of our creeds. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. With Jesus as our center, as our foundation, as our cornerstone we are called to live in peace and unity. God in the flesh walked among us, died for us, was raised for us, intercedes for us, in order for us to be reconciled with God and with each other—in Christ. He is our peace. He is our unity. He is our reconciliation.

But when we forget Christ, when we fail to affirm the uniqueness and primacy of Christ, when he is marginalized and discounted, there is no hope of unity and peace.

Jesus is Lord.

Amen.