7/20/03
Oneness - Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Last night I watched the recent movie, Gangs of New York. A dark and graphic movie, the film explores the life in New York City during the time of the civil war. The movie follows two separate gangs - one, the so-called Natives who have been in America longer, and the other, made up of Irish immigrants, fleeing their home country and seeking refuge in the United States. At the heart of the dispute between the two groups, says Bill Cutter, leader of the natives, is religious differences. He respected his Irish enemy, Bill tells, but he continues, "He and I have different views about the Lord." These different views lead to countless battles, the loss of much life, and community instability. In the end, though, neither group is the ultimate winner - the strife, the unrest, the racial divide, the bigotry and hatred all serve as factors that ultimately result in the destruction of all groups involved in the battle and conflict. Their separateness and dividedness was the sources of their own self-destruction.
It is in not too dissimilar a context that we find our Epistle lesson from the book of Ephesians today. Paul is addressing a situation, a community, that has experienced on one end or another a great deal of separateness and pain. What's been going on here? For us to really understand this passage Paul writes in a letter to the Ephesians, we need to understand exactly what Paul is talking about. When Paul was writing to these people in Ephesus, the church was still very young. The disciples, like Peter, James, and John, had just started their ministry following Jesus' death and resurrection. But they weren't exactly sharing the gospel message with everyone. They were only sharing the message with people of the Jewish faith, people like them, who were part of God's chosen people Israel. It is to these, who Paul calls "the circumcised," that the disciples were ministering, to these that they understood Jesus to be directing them. Jesus himself worked mostly among people who were Jewish by faith, and the disciples seemed to take this as a rule, directly ignoring or rejecting working with those who were Gentiles, or, as Paul names them, the "uncircumcised."
But Paul has another idea about ministry and who needs to hear the good news. He thinks that Jesus' message about God's presence in our lives was not just for the Jews, but for everyone. So his work and ministry was directed primary at non-Jews, at the Gentiles. Paul and the other disciples got into many disputes over the matter, and finally settled on the fact that Peter and the other disciples would do their work among the Jews, and Paul would work among the Gentiles, and they would respect each other's ministries from a polite distance.
I remember that it was in my first year of seminary when we were studying Paul's mission in a church history class that it first hit me - if it had not been for Paul's work and insistence on opening up the field of who could hear about Christ's message, most of us would never have heard the Good News. The disciples had no intention of sharing the gospel message with everyone - they didn't think they were supposed to. They were just going to talk about God to those who already practiced the Jewish faith. But Paul knew what he was called to do, and he had a vision of a bigger kind of ministry that was not exclusive and selective. He envisioned a ministry that included everyone, even the uncircumcised, even those who were considered outsiders to the community. It was Paul's vision of openness and inclusivity that radically changed our church and our work. So, in our text today, we find Paul referencing the separateness that seems to exist in his time in the body of Christ. Though he is working among the Gentiles, the church is still viewed as two groups - the circumcised and the uncircumcised, the Jews and the non-Jews. He emphasizes that in Christ, they are one, we are one, as Christ is their peace and our peace.
Perhaps, like my first reaction to the situation Paul addresses, your reaction at hearing that some of the early disciples did not want to share the good news with everyone is shock. We can't believe that those who lived with Jesus and listened to his teachings could ever believe such a thing - and we certainly do not - we realize the Good News is for everyone to hear, and we believe that everyone should have access to the message of Christ.
But maybe we shouldn't let ourselves off so easily today.Perhaps we do intend to share God's love with everyone, but the scriptures, in their living wisdom, always speaking to us, can show us where we fall short in different ways. Paul's words to the Ephesians still speak to us, though the details of the situations have changed. It is easy for us to read and understand this passage as one that is about who we should minister to, about who we should allow to be part of the body of Christ with us. It puts us in the role of power - we are the center of this story, and we should learn to love everyone and bring them into the fold with us.
But I think Paul is getting at something deeper. I think Paul is urging the Ephesians and even us today to hear things differently, to understand our role and our relationship as one in Christ differently. Listen again to Paul's words: Paul writes, "For Christ 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. He 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, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to God." Paul's message is primarily a message of reconciliation. Paul does not want the Ephesians or any group of Christian believers to see themselves as the center of the story, the ones making decisions about who does and does not belong in the body. It is Christ who is at the center, Christ who knocks down walls of discrimination, hatred, and separation, it is Christ who is our peace, Christ who is our core.
And it is Christ who helps us reconcile with those from whom we have been separated. It is by dwelling in Christ's spirit of peace that we can bridge the gap between us and those we have left out, with those we have deemed unworthy to be part of us. The peace and reconciliation that is our oneness in Christ goes deep. It is not just about us. One author writes, "Let us admit that we too feel more secure when freedom is in our hands than when it is in the hands of others . . . A Christianity obedient to Christ's peacemaking life, death, and resurrection must view each and every human being as one for whom Christ has died." Another scholar writes that Paul's message is not about "incorporating Gentiles into Israel. It is about bring both, together, to God. The reason why Gentiles now belong is not because they have been given something which the Jews already had; it is because God has done something for both which both needed."
What has God done for you? How have you experienced the living Christ in your own life? Who is at the center of what you do and who you are? Is it yourself? Or is Christ at your center? Do you seek peace? Are you willing to be reconciled with those from whom you have been separated? Reconciliation - peace-making - these can be difficult and humbling paths to take. It require not just forgiveness on our part of the party we feel has wronged us.