Trinity 2
Eph
2:13-22
6/30/19
In May of this year, there was a
rather unusual protest in Carbondale.
Now of course, as a university town, protests of various types are
nothing new there. But this one was quite different from anything I have ever heard
about before.
On the sidewalk in front of
University Mall, a group known as the “Bloodstained Men” were protesting the
practice of circumcision. Dressed in
white clothes, they had stained the crotch of their pants bright red and
carried signs that said things like: “Circumcision harms humans”; “Circumcision
is sexual mutilation”; and, “Foreskin is not a birth defect.” The group was on a sixteen day protest tour
in Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee as they spoke out
against the practice of circumcision.
Now this probably strikes most of us
as being just weird. Circumcision is not
at all something we think about as being an important issue. It’s a very common practice. According to the CDC, about 81% of the male
population is circumcised. As a nurse who has dealt first hand with this
subject, Amy says that it’s a no-brainer – yes, it’s a good practice.
While circumcision is something that
we give almost no thought to, it was an incredibly important subject in the
first century A.D. as the Church began to expand. Circumcision was, of course, the sign of the
covenant for Israel and those who descended from the nation – for the
Jews. Jesus came as Israel’s Messiah. His apostles and first disciples were Jews.
However, as soon as the Gospel began
to be preached to Gentiles, circumcision became an issue. Did Gentiles Christians need to be
circumcised in order to be part of God’s people? This wasn’t just an abstract
theological discussion. It was a highly charged emotional issue. Circumcision set apart Jews from Gentiles. To
Gentiles the practice was an abhorrent mutilation. To Jews it was a point of great importance and
solidarity that marked them off as God’s people.
Writing to the largely Gentile
church in the area of Ephesus, Paul says just prior to our text: “Therefore remember 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--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.”
Before they
heard the Gospel, the lack of circumcision really did mean something for these
Gentiles. It meant that they were not
part of God’s covenant people. Instead,
they were trapped in their sin, slaves of the devil and under God’s wrath. Paul wrote at the beginning of this chapter,
“ And you were dead in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world,
following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in
the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our
flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
However,
Pauls says in our text that the good news of Jesus Christ had changed all of
that. He writes, “But now in Christ
Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Cut off from God by their sins, Jesus’ death on
the cross had brought them near to God through forgiveness. And Paul says they
had also received life through the resurrection of Jesus. The apostle has just
said in this chapter, “even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us
alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--
and
raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus.”
Because God has done this in Christ,
Paul says in our text that he has reconciled Jew and Gentile into the one
people of God – the Church. He says, “For
he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his
flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments
expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place
of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body
through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”
Now having heard all of this, it is
quite possible that your response is: “So what?
What’s the big deal?” After all,
no one cares about circumcision any more. Well … no one except the
“Bloodstained Men,” and I don’t think any of us are going to take them too
seriously. The one Church is now
basically a Gentile church, and it has been that way for a long time. There is
no great hostility as it existed in Paul’s day.
And that is true. But let’s think a little more about the
implications of what Paul is saying. The
apostle has said that Christ is our peace – that he has brought peace. Then he
adds in our text, “And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and
peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit
to the Father.”
Jew and Gentile is not the only relationship
where there is the need for peace. So,
how are things in your marriage? How are
thing between you and your children, or between you and your parents? How are things between you and your brother
or sister? How are things between you
and your extended family?
When we look here, we find all kinds
of ways that that sin – our sin and their sin – creates hostility and fractures
peace. And Paul’s words about what Jesus Christ means for Jew and Gentile apply
directly to these too.
The apostle says, “For
through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Christ’s death and resurrection provided
access to the Father through the Spirit who has worked faith in Christ. The
same Spirit has worked faith in each one us and has joined us together. Paul says at the end of our text, “So then you are no longer strangers
and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the
household of God,
built
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a
holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a
dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Each of us is forgiven because of
Jesus Christ. Each of us has been joined together with one another in the body
of Christ by the Holy Spirit through baptism. This means that our calling as
Christians is now to live in forgiveness
towards one another. Our calling is
to seek to restore peace with one another.
Paul says this very thing a little
later in the letter:
“I
therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which you have been called,
with
all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
As Christians then, walk in a manner
worthy of the calling to which you have
been called. Your calling has been
made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Chris for you. That’s why Paul says, “Be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Christ calls us to live in peace
with one another. He does so because he
has given us peace with God through his death and resurrection. He does so because he has united us as one
through the work of his Spirit. Paul
says in this letter, “There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called
to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Do you hear it?: Paul mentions one seven
times - one body; one Spirit; one hope; one Lord; one faith, one baptism; one
God and Father of all. God has acted in Christ through the Spirit to unite us
as one. He has united us to forgive one
another and act in love toward one another.
The apostle says in the last chapter of this letter, “Therefore be
imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and
give himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
We can do this because through
baptism the Holy Spirit has made us a new creation in Christ. As Paul says in our text, “So then you are no
longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members
of the household of God, built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone.”
In Jesus Christ the risen Lord we
have the cornerstone that upholds our life and every aspect of it. Upon this cornerstone we have the foundation
of the apostles – the Spirit breathed apostolic witness in by which Christ
sustains faith. Though we were once far
off as Gentiles, here Jesus preaches peace to us. Because he has, we are fellow
citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. And so we walk in forgiveness and peace with one
another.
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