Ephesians 2.11-22
A sermon preached at St Margaret’s Nedlands 23 August 2020
When I was a young Christian – that’s 50 years ago now – the big thing was relevance. The church seemed to be losing ground and the culprit was irrelevance. People complained that Christianity was not relevant to their lives. Preachers and writers bent over backwards to be relevant – which led to much tinkering around with the Christian message to make it more acceptable, and what resulted was often was not Christianity at all. The church was further eroded from within.
Because I lived through that time, I have always been sensitive to the question of relevance, not of a modified gospel, but of the Bible’s true teaching, and it amazes me that when you get to what the Bible writers were really on about, it turns out to be incredibly relevant. This is certainly so of the reading for this morning. The Black Lives Matter movement is spreading around the world like Covid 19. Racism is in the spotlight. From 1993 – 2012 I led a college in South Africa, named after George Whitefield. It is now under attack for harbouring ‘structural racism’ and ‘white male privilege’ – along with the church I served, and just about every other institution in South Africa that still has a white leader. There is even a push to rename the college, because, in addition to being an Anglican, a theologian, an ecumenist, being active in good works, and the greatest evangelist the English-speaking world has ever had. George Whitefield was the man who introduced John Wesley to preaching in the open fields – from the back of his horse if he couldn’t find a better pulpit. He, Whitefield, led hundreds of thousands to Christ in Britain and America. But there were slaves employed his orphanage in Georgia, and that nullifies everything else. His statue is due to be toppled. In incidentally, George Whitefield died the same year Captain Cook sailed into Sydney Harbour.
Personally, I have been forced to ask, “What is my attitude to people of colour?” I have to give an answer for the twenty years of my life, when I, a white male, led a prominent institution. In a country coming out of apartheid, this was an issue I never could dodge. It is something George Whitefield College has a position on, has policies on, and teaches on. The Bible passage which has been the centre of my thinking and teaching, and I hope my actions, is the one we have before us this morning: Ephesians 2.11-22.
Ephesians 2.11-22
Remember, therefore, that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called “the circumcision” (which is made in the flesh by hands) — 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the both one, the dividing wall of hostility having broken down – the hostility – in his flesh, 15 the law of commandments in regulations having annulled, that the two he might create in himself inot one new man (person – anthropos), so making peace, 16 and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, killing the hostility in him. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Ephesians is an “us and them” letter. Most readers miss this. If you have your Bible and turn to Ephesians 1.11-13 you will see it. Paul writes that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, have been chosen and predestined to bring praise and glory to God, and he goes on to say, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.” He is speaking first of Jews, and then of Gentiles. When we read the Bible we tend to identify ourselves with the main characters, the Jews, and overlook that actually we are Gentiles. The Greek word we translate “Gentiles”, means “nations” – ethne, it was the way Jews referred to foreigners: everyone else in the world, who was not a Jew, was a Gentile. If you read Ephesians with this in mind it makes sense.
The first half of chapter 2 tells us how God saves individual people, all the same way regardless of their ethnicity. All are disqualified, all are dead before God; then God makes us alive in Christ. The second part of the chapter deals with the place of Jews and Gentiles. Most of the people he was writing to were Gentiles. “Remember,” he says, “that you once – Gentiles in the flesh – called the uncircumcision by those who call themselves the circumcision – made in the flesh with hands …”
Let me pause there and note that we have before us a piece of blatant racism. Jews saw themselves as God’s chosen people, marked by circumcision as children of Abraham, and they looked down on the rest of the human race as “uncircumcised”. The division between Jew and non-Jew in the ancient world was serious, the most serious form of racial superiority–inferiority belief. Greeks had their own form of racism: everyone who spoke Greek was civilized, and the rest were barbarians, but you could easily change by learning to speak Greek. The separation of Jew and Gentile was far more serious.
It was more serious because it was rooted in their faith. God had chosen Abraham and his descendants to be his own nation, and his priests to the rest of the world. He commanded them to maintain a distance from the other nations. They were given all sorts of laws to enforce a culture of separateness. It was the original system of separateness, “apartheid” in Dutch –– and it was established by God. Of course, in the time of Jesus and Paul the Jews were the oppressed minority, and their customs were mocked by the Greeks and Romans, but they maintained their pride; they knew they had the future. Some in the wider world saw that Jewish beliefs about God were much more likely to be true than their own. There were any number of non-Jews who attended synagogue, Sabbath by Sabbath.
What did it mean to be a Gentile? Paul describes it this way: “At that time you were without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope, and without God in the world.” Here is a Jew’s view of it: cut off from God and without any hope for the future. This is exactly the state of most Australians today.
But for these Gentiles Paul is writing to, things have changed. “But now …” he says: something has changed. Jesus has come and died and has risen from death, and proclaimed his kingdom, and now everything is different.
“But now, in Christ Jesus, you, once being far off, have become near in the blood of Christ.” What does he mean? The Gentile nations did not know God; they worshipped gods who were figments of their imagination. They did not want to know the true God, and he had left them to their own devices. They were “far off”. God had not drawn near to them as he had to Israel. But now God has brought them near. How? By Jesus dying for them! In his death he bore their sins and cancelled their guilt. Those who trust in Christ are now God’s people.
Let me say something about this phrase “in Christ Jesus”. “Christ” means an anointed one, and for Jews the word meant king – the promised king. When Paul says “Jesus Christ” he means Jesus, who is the King. When he says, “Christ Jesus”, he means “King Jesus”. To be “in King Jesus” means to be in his kingdom. These Gentile readers have a new identity.
He continues: “For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, by demolishing the middle-wall of separation, the hostility, annulling the law of commandments and regulations in his flesh.” This is a mouthful. What it means is that by dying on the cross Jesus cancelled the laws of Moses, which separated Jew and Gentile and created so much hostility. Jews and Gentiles can now be at peace. Jesus has demolished the apartheid of the Old Testament. There is now peace. All this is “in King Jesus”. It is not the experience of everyone.
Paul goes on to emphasize what he has just said: “… so that he might create in him (Christ) one new human being (anthropos), making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God, through the cross, putting to death the hostility in him (Christ).”
Instead of Jew and Gentile, two distinct races from a Jewish point of view, there is now one new man (human): one race, one family, those in Christ. The one body he speaks of is the Church. Jesus reconciles us to God by his death and makes us members of a new body, the Church, killing the hostility. The Church he speaks of here is not the local church, but the community of all those, past, present and future, who belong to Christ and make up his kingdom.
So then, “coming near, he announced peace to you, the far-off-ones and peace to those near. For in him (Christ) we both have access in the one Spirit to the Father.” This is sensational: every true Christian has the Spirit of God within him and is able to come into the very presence of God. How could you ever treat a person with those qualifications as an inferior?
Let me pause here and apply this to us. I assume I am speaking mostly to Gentiles like me, but if you are Jewish, know that it is the same. When you start to believe in Jesus, you are brought into relation to him in a way that makes his death yours. All your sin and guilt is paid out; you are free. You become a member of his kingdom, part of his body, the Church and are destined for eternal blessings. And so it is for every Jewish believer in the Messiah. Sin has levelled the playing field; we all come to God disqualified, and are all requalified by mercy, thorugh Jesus’ great sacrifice. The Jews had special laws and failed to keep them, and were brought out from under the law. We Gentiles have also broken laws and we too have been redeemed. And now we have all been brought to God in a new way. The great divide of the ancient world has been bridged. The middle wall of separateness has been demolished.
This sounds like heavy theology, but for Paul and the Christians of his time it was a revolution in their lives. In all the churches Jews and Gentiles were sitting down together to share a meal, where once they could not.
Perhaps it is not immediately obvious exactly what this has to do with racism, but if you think about it, it should be clear enough. God sent his Son to deal with the problem of Jew and Gentile, the only real racial division in his eyes, and he did it to create the community of the kingdom of his Son as a kingdom without barriers. We also know from Scriptures that it was always God’s plan to make Jesus the head of a new humanity, which would consist of people from every language, culture and nation. If we are blessed to find ourselves part of that kingdom, then we find ourselves amongst brothers and sisters.
There is another thing. If I am a Gentile, alienated from the chosen people, stranger to the promises, “having no hope and without God in the world”, and God in his mercy has given his Son to die for me and bring me amongst his people, how should I not receive it all with gratitude and put out a hand of real friendship to all the other brothers and sisters for whom Christ died.
We must conclude then that racism has no place in the church.
Paul was an enthusiast for this new thing God had done. He himself was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles, to “proclaim to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ”. He finishes these present thoughts with a magnificent statement: “Therefore, then, you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, King Jesus himself being the cornerstone, from whom the whole structure is joined together, and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom even you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
“Who am I?” is a question many are asking today. The question of identity. For many people, their nationality, or colour, or religious culture is a big part of their answer. In the world of Paul, citizenship was one of the first considerations. Is he a slave? Is he a freedman? Or is he a citizen – and of which city? As you know, Paul was a citizen of Tarsus, one of the three great learning-centres of the world. “No mean city,” he was able to say to the tribune who arrested him in Jerusalem. He also held the citizenship of Rome, a great privilege in his time. And he was a Hebrew-speaking Jew, raised in Jerusalem. Someone has said that with all that, he must have been counted amongst a very small minority of super-privileged people in the ancient world. We know that wherever he went he was treated as a person of great prestige. But that all fades into the background of the enormous privilege of being a citizen of the kingdom of God, the eternal kingdom which will not pass away, whose citizens are God’s family, marked to enjoy him and each other for ever. This says Paul is the real end-time temple, the place where God will be worshipped and praised and enjoyed forever.
So, you, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, this is your true and ultimate identity. Do not ever demean yourself by feelings of racial superiority or inferiority. Leave that to those who are still in the world, who will never cease from the hopscotch of precedence and preference. Raise your head above it, and seek the friendship and welfare of all – as every Christian should.