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Beginning with this passage, and continuing to the end of
the third chapter, Ephesians describes for us a legal, moral, social, and
practical order by which our citizenship, family, and very beings are changed
in him. Once we were bound by legal, national, and cultural differences that
separated us from each other. Beginning with Abraham, God’s covenant with
humanity even included a long list of laws and regulations that set the people
of God apart from the rest of the world. This separation of the Jewish people
was a sign to the world that they were part of God’s family. Their God was
holy, so they carried in their very bodies, lives, and relationships the mark
of that perfect and holy God. Their God was a just and peaceful God, and their
society was meant to reflect that justice, peace, and compassion.
For thousands of years the world changed around the Jewish
people. Through slavery and empire, through nationhood and exile, God remained
true to the Jewish people, and the symbol of their special relationship
continued. Imagine the significance of a statement like this one in Ephesians,
that would suggest a change in what it means to be a person of God. Suddenly
all of the exclusive history, culture, family, and law has been opened wide for
the whole world to enter. Our citizenship, our family, our lives are now able
to change, to be open to God, and to be open to all of humanity in all of its’
diversity. What a challenging thought for all of God’s people from all time.
Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I bow
my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is
named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be
strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ
may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in
love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth
and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is
able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the
power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
Immeasurably more than we can ever even imagine, according
to his power that is at work in us.
Long before Jesus came, the Jewish people had something very
special. Their relationship with Yahweh was different than the rest of the
world. Their books of law, their traditions, and their festivals all pointed to
their set-apart-ness. And they were. And the laws that governed the social
functioning of the community showed that they were set apart in the best way.
It was a beautiful community. At its' best, it reflected the character and
nature of God.
Ephesians 3:6
This mystery is that
the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the
promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
I think the radical nature of the opening passages of this
chapter could be lost to many Christians. 2000 years in, the Jewish foundation
and roots of our faith are often easily forgotten.
When Paul, a Jew, says in verse six that Gentiles
(non-Jewish pagans) can inherit salvation through Jesus Christ, he's dropped a
bomb in the religious world much bigger than Rob Bell (or whoever the
controversial Christian du jour may be for you). This likely hit the Jewish
people harder than any conversations about Universalism would hit an
Evangelical Christian today.
For thousands of years this ancient faith tied to a specific
ethnicity has had the doors locked on how to meet with God. Paul is suggesting
that those multi-breasted idol worshipping, temple-prostitute using, homosexual
bathhouse visiting, secular humanist Gentiles of all people could actually be
made righteous in the eyes of God through the person of Jesus Christ. Through
faith and repentance they could be made righteous, and adopted into the family
of God as though they had been Israelites their whole lives. They did not have
to take on one iota of Jewish cultural law or ever participate in a single
Jewish festival to do so. If you pause and consider, this is actually just as
potentially offensive today as it was then.
This is, of course, usually considered to be good news for
us Christians, many of us Gentile ourselves. From our perspective here in the
twenty-first century, it's usually those secular humanists that we would expect
to be offended by the gospel. But let's consider this from a first century
perspective. For thousands of years, Jewish faith has stood (mostly) alone as a
monotheistic religion. For most other faiths, many of them idol worshipers,
there was always room for one more God. People traveled, and got to know other
people who lived and believed and worshiped differently from them. As they got
to know each other, doing business and sharing life, they'd get to know one
another's gods and start participating in their religious practices. The
Israelite people were different. It wasn't just rules of worship that set them
apart from other cultures and peoples, it was every piece of their life and
law. Rules about what they could and couldn't eat, rules of what they could and
couldn't wear, laws regarding business and trade, all of these things would
serve to set them apart very significantly from the nations around them. While
everyone else was having a grand old time learning new recipes, enjoying the
latest fashions, and trading idols with each other, the Jewish nation was
sitting in the corner with long beards and flatbread and circumcision and
clothes made from only one fibre, as separated from the nations around them as
a vegan from a Southern Albertan rancher would be today.
These specifics in the laws and culture of the Jewish people
were part of what allowed their faith to endure. They loved God with all their
hearts. They were created and chosen for a special purpose. They were a holy
nation. They were a signpost of the kingdom of God. And every Jewish child grew
up knowing that they were different, they were special, they were set apart. It
was burned into the fibre of their being every day as they lived life
completely counter to the world around them. This was a highly significant part
of their cultural identity, and they loved it. They had good reason to love it.
They had communion with Yahweh.
So 2000 years later, consider who looks like these set apart
people today? From my view, I think that a lot of us North American Evangelical
Christians would have been just perfectly comfortable with the deal that the
Israelites had. We have a Christian version of everything. If we want to, we
can listen to "Christian" music, that we purchase in a
"Christian Book and Supply" store (what exactly are Christian
"supplies" anyway?), where we can also get "Christian"
novels and "Christian" self-help books, and even
"Christian" clothing. We can subscribe to Christian magazines, listen
to Christian radio, watch Christian sitcoms and television dramas. We can watch
Christian movies. We can vote for Christian politicians. We can send our kids
to Christian schools. After work, we can relax in a Christian coffee shop. When
our toilet breaks, instead of the yellow pages we can grab our copy of the
Shepherd's Guide and get ourselves a Christian plumber. We could even look
through the guide for a good place to find employment, making sure we have a
Christian boss. We make up rules about modesty and alcohol and hanging out in
bars or arcades that make it just a tad more difficult for our kids to hang out
with anyone but the youth group. For the more edgy among us, we can get our
tattoos from a Christian at a Christian tattoo studio.
Through all of this, we have made it possible to live as
Christians in the world without ever having to have contact or connection with
anyone outside of our isolated church communities. But was this what God
intended?
When Paul says that the great mystery is that even Gentiles
(of all people) can be included in the people of God, this changed the whole
world for the Jewish people. Completely setting aside the personal
offensiveness of the idea, consider the other practical consequences. If
uncircumcised, shaven, pork-eating pagans could be part of God's family, how
will God's family be visibly set apart from anyone else? And worse, if people
of God can now live among and as Gentiles, what will protect the community from
being affected or infected by the cultural and religious practices of others?
These are relevant and serious questions. Serious for first
century religious Jewish Christians, relevant for twenty-first century
religious North American Evangelicals.
It seems to me that in Christ, Paul doesn't seem to be so
concerned about these questions anymore. Instead, Paul tells about a
circumcision of the heart, a change that happens from within (Romans 2:29). John tells us in his
gospel (John 13:35-By this everyone will
know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.) and in his
epistles that children of God are known by their love for one another (1 John 3:14, 4:21, and others) . This
is the mark that sets us apart, so we don't need a mark in our skin anymore.
Against the law, Jesus touched lepers to heal them (Matthew 8:3, Luke 5:13), and even touched the dead when he raised
them to life (Mark 5:41). He taught
his disciples to go and live among and love the poor, lonely, disadvantaged,
and imprisoned (Matthew 25, John 12:8,
Acts 4:32-35). The truth is that this would have been very difficult to do
while also living under this law that set them so apart from the rest of the
world. It's just as difficult for us to do when we wrap ourselves in a
protective blanket of Christianized popular culture. In the parable Jesus tells
of a good Samaritan, he directly challenged his disciples that the blessing God
had called his people to be in the world meant that they would have to cross
uncomfortable cultural barriers to do so (Luke
10). Jesus even began his ministry in the multiethnic Galilee (Matthew 4:12-17), rather than Jerusalem
the centre of Jewish religion and culture.
Followers of Jesus practice mercy and justice and faithfulness among
those that are not their own.
On the cross, Jesus shouted "It is finished" (John 19:30), and with his shout the
curtain in the temple was torn (Matthew
27:50-52). For thousands of years the Spirit of God dwelt among his people
behind curtains, in tents and buildings. Access to God was made through a
mediating priest, by the practice of sacrificing animals. Jesus is God
incarnate.
He is Emmanuel. He is God with us. He put skin on and moved
into the neighbourhood (John 1- The
Message). He has become our perfect priest (Hebrews 4), our perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 10:10), and our perfect mediator (1 Timothy 2:5). With his resurrection, Jesus opened the door for
God to dwell among his people within his people. We, the body of Christ (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians
4:12), are the temple of God (1
Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Spirit lives inside you (1 Corinthians 6:19). This is what sets you apart. This is what
makes you the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-15). This brings the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, for
the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. We live now among all nations as a
blessing, as a seasoning, as a seed of justice and mercy and faithfulness.
Matthew 5:14-15
You are the light of
the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp
and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the
house.
We are light, and the property of our life is to shine. We
cannot be hidden. We are a city on a hill. We look like Jesus. Our lives of
service to Jesus will bring us to the most unlikely and obscure and dark places
on earth, and yet we will shine. The cross
was the darkest and most obscure place and time that ever has or will exist,
and yet it has been displayed for all the world to see. We are on a lampstand
as well.
On the cross, Jesus took on himself all evil, and all the
punishment for that evil. He took every eye, and every eye taken in punishment.
All eyes and all teeth have been repayed. From the cross Jesus experienced the
violence of the greatest of all violent offenders, those who would violently
put to death the sinless son of God. Of them he said “Father forgive
them”. And he loved them. Through faith
in him we live as disciples, walking in the image of that same radically
forgiving love.
This is the good news Paul is talking about at the beginning
of Ephesians chapter three. These are the consequences of this good news. We
should really let this sink in. Paul has blasted the doors of salvation wide
open. Followers of Jesus may not look a certain way anymore. There will be many
ethnicities. There may not be one single language. There will be different
worldviews and levels of education and ways of being human. If we're following
a man-made religion, this might be kind of scary. It isn't something we can
neatly package and control anymore. But if we believe that God is real, and
living among us, and even in us, we have nothing to be afraid of. We can be
free. And we can offer that freedom to others. We are free to live among all of
the people of the world, to love them, serve them, know them, and be known by
them. And we can share Jesus with them, not as a cultural or philosophical
lifestyle choice, but as a person who is alive and active in the world. We
don't need to try to make the world look like us. They may not. We introduce
them to Jesus, and together we all look more like him. We don't need to be
afraid of the world. Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33, 1 John 4:4). He
is with us. Let us be agents of his love, even among those we might humanly
believe to be the least likely candidates of that love.
Matthew 25:37-40
Then the righteous
will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or
thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit
you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one
of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
This last half of the chapter is one of the most beloved
passages in the New Testament. As you read, do not forget to everything that
has come before it. Paul is kneeling before the Father from whom all of his
family derives its' name. He is so overwhelmed by the goodness of God to open
his arms of love to the whole world that he erupts in worship to God for it. He
is so happy to see the result of the cross being a gift of salvation offered to
everyone. This is huge.
He wants us to be as fully blown away by the hugeness of
God's love and grace as he has been. He quickly reminds us of why we do not
need to worry about our separation from the world, because we have been
strengthened in our inner being by the Holy Spirit, and Christ now dwells in
our hearts by faith. God's love is so huge. And if we believe and receive the
power of the Holy Spirit to comprehend it, he will expand us to truly begin to
know the unknowable reaches of the transcendent love of an infinite God.
Finally, Paul challenges us to recognize that the freedom
Christ bought for himself and for us by now dwelling in us as a church is the
freedom to do through us even more than we could possibly ever hope or imagine.
It is through us and in this world that he wants to make his presence known. It
is here and now that his Kingdom of Justice and Peace and Love and Grace is being
established. Everywhere. Always. And bigger than we could ask for or imagine.
This is an outward focused life. This is a life of power and
affect. Let's knock down the walls we've built, cultural, religious, and
imagined, between ourselves and the world God loves and wants to love through
us. Let's get to know some new people, some naked people, some hungry people,
some criminals. Let's remove our expectations from them. Let's remove our
expectations from God. Let's do more in love and grace than we ever imagined we
could.
And let God be glorified always and everywhere.
Amen.
Amen.
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