Difference between revisions of "Sermon for April 7th, 2024"

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Ephesians 2:1-22 (NT p.192)

1You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

11So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

United We Stand, Part II

The funniest religious joke of all time (as ranked by several different publications) is told by Comedian Emo Phillips, and it goes something like this:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!”

He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?”

He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”

He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me too! What denomination?”

He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me too!”

“Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die heretic!” And I pushed him over.

What makes this joke funny is our tendency, in organized religion, to divide ourselves over small and seemingly insignificant points of doctrine...while ignoring the vast majority of things that unite us. And this tendency goes back almost to the very beginning of church history.

The very first "split," in the earliest days of Christianity, was between the original followers of Jesus, who were all Jewish (like Jesus himself), and the first non-Jewish converts to Christianity, who tended to be Greek. Some of the early church leaders in Jerusalem (like James, the brother of Jesus) wanted all of the Greek converts to first become Jewish--meaning they would have to be circumcised, and follow all of the Jewish laws and customs--before they could be welcomed into the church.

Other church leaders (usually outside of Jerusalem, like the Apostle Paul), thought this was unnecessary, and that both types of Christians--Jewish and Gentile--could co-exist and even worship and serve together in the same congregation. This was the case with the church Paul started in the ancient Roman city of Ephesus, to which he writes in his letter to the Ephesians. The Ephesians were a bold experiment in unity--the church coming together as one body under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, instead of dividing, splintering and fragmenting under the weight of cultural, linguistic, and theological disagreements.

In the first chapter, which we covered last week, Paul introduces the metaphor of the church as the Body of Christ. This is a great metaphor, because your right arm is not the same as your left leg--they are different, and they do very different, but equally important things, just like different people or groups within the church have different backgrounds, different skills, and serve in different ways.

Perhaps more importantly (for the metaphor and for the church), neither your right arm nor your left leg is likely to say, "See you later--I'm gonna go over there by myself and be my own body." Instead, all of your body parts (usually) work together to accomplish whatever goal your head, your brain puts them up to. In Paul's metaphor, Jesus is the brain, the head of the church, the one we (as body parts) take our marching orders from.

Now, in chapter two of Ephesians, if you don't look carefully, you could be oblivious to the two different groups Paul is addressing here, separately, but in the same letter. The key is to look for the words "we, us, and our" vs. the words "you and your." You see, Paul himself is Jewish, and so he identifies himself with that group. When he says in verse 1, "YOU were dead through trespasses and sins" he's talking specifically to the Greeks, the gentiles in the church. And he uses their own philosophical language and cosmology when he talks about the "ruler of the power of the air" and the "spirit . . . at work among those who are disobedient." Hellenistic Greek Philosophy of Paul's time taught that δαίμωνες or "spirits" representing abstract concepts like "justice," "illness" or "disobedience" filled the air around people and influenced them accordingly. This was not a Jewish belief, but Paul adapts his message to his audience.

In verse 3, when he says "All of US once lived among them . . . and WE were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else" he is turning to his Jewish brothers and sisters, and this time using a very Jewish concept (children of wrath) to say in effect "WE have this in common with THEM." You're either subject to the wrath of God for breaking the law (in our Jewish tradition) or you're subject to the influence of malevolent demons in your Greek tradition. Either way, everyone is toast! Everyone might as well be dead.

BUT!

Verse 4--in Greek this is an even more emphatic transition than it is in English--(Ὁ δὲ) something more like "That was then, BUT NOW..."

Out of his great love, God made us alive with Christ, God raised us up with him, and seated us in the heavenly places. I love how for Paul, the Easter resurrection of Jesus becomes our resurrection, too, and his position in the heavenly places also becomes ours--which makes sense if he is the head and we are his body.

Then in verse 8 begins one of the most eloquent and concise articulations of Paul's theology--which is at the core of Christian theology, and especially Reformed and Presbyterian theology:

8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

So much of Jewish theology AND Greek Philosophy in Paul's time revolved around being perfect, getting everything right all the time, making sure all your t's were crossed and all your i's were dotted--in Judaism, following all of the laws, and all the Rabbinic interpretations of the laws to the letter. In Hellenism, going through all the right rituals and making all the right oblations to your ancestors and to every single δαίμων that could possibly be floating around you.

In Egyptian popular belief (which heavily influenced Greek religion), when you died your sins and and your failures would be placed on one side of a scale, and on the other side...would be a feather. If your sins and failures weighed more than the feather (which was very likely) you were doomed to be eaten by the devourer of souls.

Talk about a heavy burden--a stressful way to go through your life! It is into precisely this sort of tense religious environment that the Apostle Paul says you have already been saved (in this life! before you die!) not by your deeds, but by your faith, your belief, your hope--and even that is not something you have to "choose" or "do" but rather it's a gift; it's the way God made you; already, before you were born. Yes, you can and will do good things--but not out of fear of punishment. You'll do good things because it's a better way of life, and you're gonna be irresistibly drawn to that.

In verse 11, Paul turns back to the Greeks, the Gentiles, the "uncircumcised" and just in case they're still not sure they're included in all this, he makes that crystal clear. You were once aliens, strangers, hopeless, and far away... but now, in Christ, you have been brought near.

Then in verse 14, Paul begins to address both groups--no longer two separate and distinct peoples, but one body, one flesh, one "new humanity" with no walls of separation between them. And Paul talks about Peace.

I want to end today talking about peace, because I think it's something that's on our collective minds right now. We see fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, and peace seems elusive. In our own country, it's an election year--we see fighting between Democrats and Republicans, and peace seems elusive. Some of us don't have to look any further than our own homes, marriages, or relationships--even here, sometimes there is fighting, and peace seems elusive.

I think there's a reason for that. I think, at least in part, it's human nature to splinter, fragment, and divide ourselves against each other. In Darwinian Evolution and Natural Selection, anything that is sufficiently different from me is a potential threat to my existence, and the safest thing to do is kill it, before it kills me. That's survival of the fittest.

But also in Darwinian Evolution, there is a competitive advantage that comes from collaboration. You are different from me, but that guy over there is WAY different than both of us...let's team up so we can kill him first. But wait... maybe instead of killing him, we can work with him so our tribe will be bigger than that tribe over there... because they're REALLY different, and we definitely need to kill them! And of course, this is how individuals become tribes, and tribes become cities, and cities become nations. The conflict is carried out on a larger scale, but so is the cooperation. There is movement in the cumulative direction of peace.

Now whether your believe that is a result of gradual genetic mutation over billions of years, or part of a conscious plan from an omnipotent divine being who created us... that's probably a discussion best left for another day! What perhaps the Christian and the Evolutionary Biologist can agree upon, however, is that there are powerful forces or instincts at work to divide us, often violently, but also powerful instincts or forces at work to unite us and bring us together in peace. I'm going to call that second powerful force "God," or more specifically, "God working through the person, the message, and the example of Jesus Christ."

Paul says in verse 14 that "he IS our peace," and in verse 17 that "he came and proclaimed peace." But here's where I think we get peace all wrong: We think of peace as being reconciled to each other, getting along with each other, maybe even loving each other. It's at least a coming together, a movement toward each other rather than moving away from each other or a stasis. And left to our own instincts and impulses, we're not very good at that. Our natural inclination, as I've already said, is fragmentation and division. We need something (or someone) to push and pull us in the opposite direction.

Verse 15: He (that is, Jesus) abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create IN HIMSELF one new humanity in the place of two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups (NOT TO EACH OTHER, BUT) TO GOD in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

We've been focusing our efforts in the wrong direction: In order to be reconciled to each other, FIRST we have to be reconciled to God. Think of an equilateral triangle with God at the tip, ourselves on one side, and our enemies on the other side. What happens when we move further away from God? We move further away from our enemies, too. What happens when we move closer to God? We move closer to our fellow human beings.

If you want peace in the world, if you want peace in our political system, if you want peace in your home, your marriage and your relationships... try shifting your focus. Try raising your gaze. Stop looking at the person across the triangle from you and expecting them to change into what you want them to be. Instead, try embracing and living into the person that God created YOU to be. Verse 18: Through him you both have access in one Spirit to the Father." Take your place in the body of Christ, in the household of God, or (verse 21) the holy temple of the Lord. When you get into the right place, the right path, the groove you were made to fit into--the rest of the bricks, the rest of the household, the rest of the body (choose your metaphor!), everything else in the world will come together, will fall into place in God's perfect timing, according to God's perfect plan.