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Scripture for Sunday, October 1: Ephesians 2:11-22
This week we step away from our Words on the Wall series to join in a worldwide celebration of the Lord's Supper.
We'll remember that God's people are worshipping in house churches and in cathedrals; in prisons and outdoors; in fear of persecution and in freedom.
We'll remember that people from every tongue, tribe, language, and nation are among the company of those who belong to Christ--and that, both in the United States and worldwide, many of our siblings in Christ do not look or sound like us.
"HE HIMSELF IS OUR PEACE" (Ephesians 2:14)
One of the things I love about the Apostle Paul (and, of course, about the God whom Paul serves) is that he only gives commands after reminding us of who and whose we are. Someone smarter than me said this: Imperatives (commands) always follow indicatives (statements of fact).
Ephesians 2:11-22 is full of statements of fact, reflections on what Christ has done. In this passage, we have few commands. Verse 11's "remember" is the only one--which calls its hearers not to action but to remembrance.
The remembrance is tear-stained.
The remembering brings to mind namecalling. "Uncircumcised scum." "Jewish insider." It brings to mind outcast status. It brings to mind hopelessness and division. The division isn't only between people and God; it's also between groups of people--Jews and Gentiles. (Ephesians 2:11-12).
Meditate on what and where you were before you were in Christ, Paul says. It wasn't a good place.
At verse 13 there's a turn: But now--Paul says--now, you who are in Christ have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Christ himself, through the sacrifice of his body, brings all who were far from the Father near to the Father. No longer strangers to God, no longer strangers to one another. This is once-for-all ontological reality. Believe it or not, Paul says, whether we see it or whether we don't, in some kind of ultimate way that we just can't quite get our minds around, Christ himself has made a costly, effective peace.
Brought near to the Father. Brought near to one another.
Christ does this not just on an individual level, but also on a communal level. Christ is creating a "new humanity," in himself. "He reconciled the both in one body of God through the cross, killing the hostility in himself," the Greek says in verse 16.
Consequently, we are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of God's holy people--and members of God's household, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (vv. 19, 22).
And that news is both amazing--and hard, as we who are different from one another learn to live together in the love of Christ.
Questions for Reflection
1. Especially when we have been Christians for most of our lives, it can be difficult to remember that without Christ, we are strangers to God. Exercising your sanctified imagination, consider who and what you are without Christ. Try to be specific. If you can see ways that Christ has caused you to grow, to become new, consider who you would be without his work in your life. Take time to own your brokenness and to praise God for his renewal.
2. Where do you witness the pain of alienation between people as a result of sin in our world? Ask God to intervene in your own life and in the world in this area.
3. What "imperatives" (commands) do you believe grow out of the reality that Christ has reconciled different kinds of people to one another? What implications does this reality have on the way we see, think about, and interact with people whose backgrounds are very different from ours?
4. Read 2 Corinthians 5:26-21. What does it mean to you that God has committed a ministry of reconciliation to us?
5. Rev. Jonker is preaching on this passage as it relates to racial issues in the United States. Do you find the "surrender to Jesus" or "social justice" responses to racial tension more compelling? Where might you sense God asking you to step into an uncomfortable place as it relates to the issues we see between people of different backgrounds?
6. If you would like to do some further reflection on race, consider viewing and discussing the film (or book) Same Kind of Different as Me, which is based on a true story. There is a trailer here.
