ASHBURNHAM SESSION 3b - PHILIP MOUNSTEPHEN
Ashburnham Session 3b : Salvation & Unity
Ephesians 2: 11-22
For some strange reason I’ve always been fascinated by boundaries and borders. They are after all purely arbitrary lines on a map. Sometimes it’s true they follow the lines of rivers, or a range of hills, but in many instances they are just arbitrary, lying where they do for all kinds of accidental historical reasons. Venture exp... Animals don’t recognise them of course – they have their own boundaries - and yet they are powerful things, with a particular emotional power. Often you can’t see the boundary between Scotland and England – but which side you live makes a huge difference to how you see yourself – and indeed to how others see you.
And ‘boundaries’ is essentially the theme of this passage from Ephesians – or at least of the first two thirds of it. The passage we just looked at describes a complete and utter change of state and transformation. It’s about the crossing of a very fundamental boundary.
It is of course a process of individual transformation – but it's not only that. This is a letter written to a church, after all, not just one person, and in this passage 2: 11-22, Paul spells out the implications of this transformational boundary crossing not just for individuals, but for people together – or rather for two distinct groups of people together.
The first group is the Gentiles – that blanket terms of course which includes everyone, of whatever race, who is not Jewish.
And the fact is Paul doesn’t have anything too flattering to say about those of us who are in that camp. Listen to v. 12 [ ]. We really are on the wrong side of the boundary – as if we were on the wrong side of the Berlin war at the height of the cold war – but much worse.
It’s not flattering language – but we have to recognise, those of us who are gentiles, that Jewish people have a privileged place in the purposes of God, a place that is not ours by right. It is with the people of Israel that God chose through Abraham to make his covenant, and it is through the people of Israel that God chose to bring blessing to the whole wide world. And if Israel failed in that calling it doesn’t mean that the gentiles automatically take their place – or indeed that we would have done any better. Israel was the people of God’s own choosing, and we Gentiles are those who were on the outside looking in.
Except now we’re not of course – because of Jesus – v. 13 [ ]. In Jesus the boundary for us Gentiles has been crossed. And there’s one very clear implication from the fact that we are brought near to God through the blood of Christ. It is that in coming close to God, in crossing the boundary between God and humankind – ethnic identity, descent from Abraham has been superseded by something better – by the blood of Christ. So what is sauce for the gentile goose is sauce for the Jewish gander – the same rules apply. Jewish people too come close to God, and cross the boundary by the very same method – by the blood of Christ. They may have been closer to the Father than the gentiles – but there was still a boundary to cross, and we all cross it in exactly the same way – through the blood of Christ. So Paul talks about God’s plan, in v. 16 [to reconcile…] and in v. 18 he makes it quite clear that [through him ]. The same rules apply. There is only one way to cross the boundary, and that is through the cross of Jesus Christ.
And this new equality in Christ between Jew and Gentile has another profound implication. If the boundary between God and Humankind – whether Jew and gentile – has been crossed – then the boundary – the wall – between Jew and gentile becomes utterly redundant. But even more than it being redundant, Paul tells us that it’s been destroyed.
And it’s been destroyed in the same way that the barrier between God and man has been destroyed – through the blood of Christ: v. 14 [ ]. So Jesus death breaks down not only the vertical barriers separating heaven and earth – but also all the man made barriers we like to construct.
That’s the point of what Paul writes in v.15, when he talks about [abolishing…regulations]. He’s not saying that the God-given law is now suddenly out of date – rather he’s referring to the Jewish practice of using the keeping of the law as a vital demarcation line – a boundary if you like – which marked them off from the gentile world. Not only were they the people who were given the law, they were the people who kept it – and that’s what made them different. But no, Paul, says, we’re all in the same boat. If we have the same access to the Father, then we have open access to each other. If the boundary between us and God has been broken down, then no boundary we set up between each other – whether it’s the law or anything else - has any validity. It’s gone: the wall has been destroyed by the power of the cross.
And it’s at this point in what Paul’s saying that the metaphor changes. We leave the boundaries, the walls behind. Of course we do – they’ve been knocked over. We move from walls which divide, to a dwelling place which unites: a dwelling place which unites, because we live in it together. It’s as if the Lord has knocked down the walls, and taken the stones and turned them into a house
And there are a number of features of this house which we need to notice. And the first is that for us Gentiles it’s a place of great privilege – listen to v. 19 [ ]. That language is Israel language. ‘Foreigners and aliens’ was language often used in the OT to describe the Gentiles, especially those living in the land of Israel - but we’re not them any more. Instead we’re fellow citizens with God’s people. We’ve got the passport and the identity card. We are members of God’s household, we can eat from the same table as the children. Indeed we are children with them.
And then again we belong to a house with very special architecture – it’s built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That’s a significant partnership: it points to the partnership between the Old Testament and the New Testament people of God – both of whom in the prophets and the apostles have born witness to the truth of God. And what (or rather who) ties the old covenant and the new covenant people of God together is, as we’ve already seen, Jesus himself – Jesus through whom we both have access to the father. Which is why in this building Jesus is the chief cornerstone – the one stone that gives the building stability, and without which the whole thing would tumble to the ground.
So it’s a dwelling place, a house, which all God’s people can share together, both Jew and gentile. And that’s fantastic. But it’s more than that. Listen to v. 21[ ]. You see it’s not just a house, it’s a temple, it’s a temple in the Lord. That has a very specific implication. The temple in Jerusalem was the very centre of the Jewish faith, the epicentre of all things Jewish, and it was that because it was the place where God had promised to meet his people.
Well Paul says, God still promises to meet his people – but not in the temple in Jerusalem. He meets us as we meet each other: as we belong together to his household, so we known his presence amongst us, we become a holy Temple in the Lord. The Lord is present amongst us. And in case we don’t pick up the heavy hint he’s dropped in v. 21 he spells it out for us in. v 22 [ ]. Once again in Ephesians Paul doesn’t soft pedal his language about the church. The church of God is nothing less than the place in which God lives by his Spirit.
So what does all this mean for us? Well for start, just be encouraged, whether you’re a Jew or a gentile. We’ve both us been brought near to God through the blood of Jesus. We’ve both therefore been brought near to one another. The dividing wall’s been knocked down: we share together in all the promises of God, and the Lord chooses to make his home here amongst us. And if that isn’t good news then I don’t know what is.
So be encouraged. Yes the boundaries have well and truly been crossed, yes we belong together, and yes together we belong to God. He makes his home amongst us. Don’t doubt it, rejoice in it.
But at the same time we also need to make sure that our attitudes and behaviour are of a piece with this truth. We need to live lives of genuine Christian integrity: lives of truth that reflect this truth.
That means I think that we need to do two things. The first is that we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down [x2].
Building walls, and setting boundaries that we don’t allow other people to cross is a very human tendency. We like to define ourselves by what we are not, we like to define ourselves by being different from other people. ‘Well I may not be up to much, but at least I’m not as bad as him’ as if that let’s us off the hook. Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector? The Pharisee who stood up in the temple and said 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. But it was not the Pharisee, who was all too ready to build walls between himself and other people, who went home justified before God.
And the walls of prejudice, or pride, or self-satisfied smugness have no place in the people of God. We all stand in the same place before God. We only have access to God through the blood of Jesus. So where Jesus has broken down walls we have no business to rebuild them. And we have to knock them down whenever we find ourselves rebuilding them – and we rebuild them when we become choosy about who we mix with, when we limit our circle of friends to those who are like us, when we all too easily write other people off – maybe they’re not bright enough, or beautiful enough, maybe they don’t the right job or enough money. Well if there is no barrier between them and God then we have no business building one ourselves – and if we do then all we actually do is cut ourselves off from the Lord.
So we need to repent of our wall building tendency and be genuinely open to one another, however different we are one to another. Your two churches are wonderfully diverse Churches. All human life is here – well nearly. That’s a real strength. But it’s also a real temptation within such a diverse parish to seek out those who are like us – which is really a form of self worship – and whenever we do that we’re building walls. But we’re not to. We’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. So let’s delighted together in our diversity, and see it as the real gift that it is.
So we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. And the second thing we need to do is to ensure that we don’t knock down the temple that God is building [x2].
I hope it’s becoming clear to you by now, if you didn’t know it before, that Ephesians gives us an incredibly exciting view of what it means to be the Church of God. So we’re told that Jesus is head over all – for his church; that the Church is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. In Ch. 3 we’ll be told that the church is God’s means for revealing his wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. And here we’re told that the Church is nothing less than a temple in which God lives by his spirit.
So we’re not to knock the church! That much at least is clear. There is a tendency in some Christian circles to do just that - but we’re not to join in. But it’s more than that. We knock the church when we undervalue the immense privilege of belonging, when we have a take it our leave it attitude to the church. It’s not about being blinkered, and doing nothing but church stuff – belonging to God’s church should not consume us, but should rather should fire us for living our lives for God in every area of life – at work, at home, at leisure, wherever. But Church won’t fire us and resource us to live for God in those areas if we undervalue the immense privilege it is to belong to his people. It is our passport, it gives us our most fundamental sense of identity. We need to know just how privileged a people we really are, and delight in it, and take its responsibilities seriously. It is an immense privilege to belong to the people of God. We’re not to knock down the temple that God is building, but work with him to build it, and ensure we are built into it.
There is you see a giveness about Church. We tend to think – rather sloppily – that you become a Christian, and then you choose a church. Well it really doesn’t work like that. To be a Christian is to belong to God’s people, is to belong to God’s church. We have to recognise that Church and God go together: you simply can’t have the one without the other. It’s not on offer.
That's why I think our Anglican parish system has so much to recommend it. We simply gather together from across the local area in all our oddness and diversity to be one people. And it's here in all your wonderful technicolor oddness and diversity that you can truly discover what it means to be the people of God, what it means to be a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. It’s here that you can discover what he can do through you, as he works among you, as he builds you as his temple.
So make sure you do nothing to undermine what he’s doing in your churches. Turn your backs on the separatism and individualism that surely does just that. Break down the walls that divide you. And let me encourage you instead to commit yourselves instead to work together and to work with the Lord in all he wants to do amongst us and through you. Be the temple he wants you to be – that in you, and through you his presence may truly be made known in Herne Hill. Let’s pray.
Identify walls and barriers in church life.
How can they be broken down?
How can you be built together into a temple in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2: 11-22
For some strange reason I’ve always been fascinated by boundaries and borders. They are after all purely arbitrary lines on a map. Sometimes it’s true they follow the lines of rivers, or a range of hills, but in many instances they are just arbitrary, lying where they do for all kinds of accidental historical reasons. Venture exp... Animals don’t recognise them of course – they have their own boundaries - and yet they are powerful things, with a particular emotional power. Often you can’t see the boundary between Scotland and England – but which side you live makes a huge difference to how you see yourself – and indeed to how others see you.
And ‘boundaries’ is essentially the theme of this passage from Ephesians – or at least of the first two thirds of it. The passage we just looked at describes a complete and utter change of state and transformation. It’s about the crossing of a very fundamental boundary.
It is of course a process of individual transformation – but it's not only that. This is a letter written to a church, after all, not just one person, and in this passage 2: 11-22, Paul spells out the implications of this transformational boundary crossing not just for individuals, but for people together – or rather for two distinct groups of people together.
The first group is the Gentiles – that blanket terms of course which includes everyone, of whatever race, who is not Jewish.
And the fact is Paul doesn’t have anything too flattering to say about those of us who are in that camp. Listen to v. 12 [ ]. We really are on the wrong side of the boundary – as if we were on the wrong side of the Berlin war at the height of the cold war – but much worse.
It’s not flattering language – but we have to recognise, those of us who are gentiles, that Jewish people have a privileged place in the purposes of God, a place that is not ours by right. It is with the people of Israel that God chose through Abraham to make his covenant, and it is through the people of Israel that God chose to bring blessing to the whole wide world. And if Israel failed in that calling it doesn’t mean that the gentiles automatically take their place – or indeed that we would have done any better. Israel was the people of God’s own choosing, and we Gentiles are those who were on the outside looking in.
Except now we’re not of course – because of Jesus – v. 13 [ ]. In Jesus the boundary for us Gentiles has been crossed. And there’s one very clear implication from the fact that we are brought near to God through the blood of Christ. It is that in coming close to God, in crossing the boundary between God and humankind – ethnic identity, descent from Abraham has been superseded by something better – by the blood of Christ. So what is sauce for the gentile goose is sauce for the Jewish gander – the same rules apply. Jewish people too come close to God, and cross the boundary by the very same method – by the blood of Christ. They may have been closer to the Father than the gentiles – but there was still a boundary to cross, and we all cross it in exactly the same way – through the blood of Christ. So Paul talks about God’s plan, in v. 16 [to reconcile…] and in v. 18 he makes it quite clear that [through him ]. The same rules apply. There is only one way to cross the boundary, and that is through the cross of Jesus Christ.
And this new equality in Christ between Jew and Gentile has another profound implication. If the boundary between God and Humankind – whether Jew and gentile – has been crossed – then the boundary – the wall – between Jew and gentile becomes utterly redundant. But even more than it being redundant, Paul tells us that it’s been destroyed.
And it’s been destroyed in the same way that the barrier between God and man has been destroyed – through the blood of Christ: v. 14 [ ]. So Jesus death breaks down not only the vertical barriers separating heaven and earth – but also all the man made barriers we like to construct.
That’s the point of what Paul writes in v.15, when he talks about [abolishing…regulations]. He’s not saying that the God-given law is now suddenly out of date – rather he’s referring to the Jewish practice of using the keeping of the law as a vital demarcation line – a boundary if you like – which marked them off from the gentile world. Not only were they the people who were given the law, they were the people who kept it – and that’s what made them different. But no, Paul, says, we’re all in the same boat. If we have the same access to the Father, then we have open access to each other. If the boundary between us and God has been broken down, then no boundary we set up between each other – whether it’s the law or anything else - has any validity. It’s gone: the wall has been destroyed by the power of the cross.
And it’s at this point in what Paul’s saying that the metaphor changes. We leave the boundaries, the walls behind. Of course we do – they’ve been knocked over. We move from walls which divide, to a dwelling place which unites: a dwelling place which unites, because we live in it together. It’s as if the Lord has knocked down the walls, and taken the stones and turned them into a house
And there are a number of features of this house which we need to notice. And the first is that for us Gentiles it’s a place of great privilege – listen to v. 19 [ ]. That language is Israel language. ‘Foreigners and aliens’ was language often used in the OT to describe the Gentiles, especially those living in the land of Israel - but we’re not them any more. Instead we’re fellow citizens with God’s people. We’ve got the passport and the identity card. We are members of God’s household, we can eat from the same table as the children. Indeed we are children with them.
And then again we belong to a house with very special architecture – it’s built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. That’s a significant partnership: it points to the partnership between the Old Testament and the New Testament people of God – both of whom in the prophets and the apostles have born witness to the truth of God. And what (or rather who) ties the old covenant and the new covenant people of God together is, as we’ve already seen, Jesus himself – Jesus through whom we both have access to the father. Which is why in this building Jesus is the chief cornerstone – the one stone that gives the building stability, and without which the whole thing would tumble to the ground.
So it’s a dwelling place, a house, which all God’s people can share together, both Jew and gentile. And that’s fantastic. But it’s more than that. Listen to v. 21[ ]. You see it’s not just a house, it’s a temple, it’s a temple in the Lord. That has a very specific implication. The temple in Jerusalem was the very centre of the Jewish faith, the epicentre of all things Jewish, and it was that because it was the place where God had promised to meet his people.
Well Paul says, God still promises to meet his people – but not in the temple in Jerusalem. He meets us as we meet each other: as we belong together to his household, so we known his presence amongst us, we become a holy Temple in the Lord. The Lord is present amongst us. And in case we don’t pick up the heavy hint he’s dropped in v. 21 he spells it out for us in. v 22 [ ]. Once again in Ephesians Paul doesn’t soft pedal his language about the church. The church of God is nothing less than the place in which God lives by his Spirit.
So what does all this mean for us? Well for start, just be encouraged, whether you’re a Jew or a gentile. We’ve both us been brought near to God through the blood of Jesus. We’ve both therefore been brought near to one another. The dividing wall’s been knocked down: we share together in all the promises of God, and the Lord chooses to make his home here amongst us. And if that isn’t good news then I don’t know what is.
So be encouraged. Yes the boundaries have well and truly been crossed, yes we belong together, and yes together we belong to God. He makes his home amongst us. Don’t doubt it, rejoice in it.
But at the same time we also need to make sure that our attitudes and behaviour are of a piece with this truth. We need to live lives of genuine Christian integrity: lives of truth that reflect this truth.
That means I think that we need to do two things. The first is that we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down [x2].
Building walls, and setting boundaries that we don’t allow other people to cross is a very human tendency. We like to define ourselves by what we are not, we like to define ourselves by being different from other people. ‘Well I may not be up to much, but at least I’m not as bad as him’ as if that let’s us off the hook. Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector? The Pharisee who stood up in the temple and said 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. But it was not the Pharisee, who was all too ready to build walls between himself and other people, who went home justified before God.
And the walls of prejudice, or pride, or self-satisfied smugness have no place in the people of God. We all stand in the same place before God. We only have access to God through the blood of Jesus. So where Jesus has broken down walls we have no business to rebuild them. And we have to knock them down whenever we find ourselves rebuilding them – and we rebuild them when we become choosy about who we mix with, when we limit our circle of friends to those who are like us, when we all too easily write other people off – maybe they’re not bright enough, or beautiful enough, maybe they don’t the right job or enough money. Well if there is no barrier between them and God then we have no business building one ourselves – and if we do then all we actually do is cut ourselves off from the Lord.
So we need to repent of our wall building tendency and be genuinely open to one another, however different we are one to another. Your two churches are wonderfully diverse Churches. All human life is here – well nearly. That’s a real strength. But it’s also a real temptation within such a diverse parish to seek out those who are like us – which is really a form of self worship – and whenever we do that we’re building walls. But we’re not to. We’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. So let’s delighted together in our diversity, and see it as the real gift that it is.
So we’re not to rebuild the walls that God has knocked down. And the second thing we need to do is to ensure that we don’t knock down the temple that God is building [x2].
I hope it’s becoming clear to you by now, if you didn’t know it before, that Ephesians gives us an incredibly exciting view of what it means to be the Church of God. So we’re told that Jesus is head over all – for his church; that the Church is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. In Ch. 3 we’ll be told that the church is God’s means for revealing his wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. And here we’re told that the Church is nothing less than a temple in which God lives by his spirit.
So we’re not to knock the church! That much at least is clear. There is a tendency in some Christian circles to do just that - but we’re not to join in. But it’s more than that. We knock the church when we undervalue the immense privilege of belonging, when we have a take it our leave it attitude to the church. It’s not about being blinkered, and doing nothing but church stuff – belonging to God’s church should not consume us, but should rather should fire us for living our lives for God in every area of life – at work, at home, at leisure, wherever. But Church won’t fire us and resource us to live for God in those areas if we undervalue the immense privilege it is to belong to his people. It is our passport, it gives us our most fundamental sense of identity. We need to know just how privileged a people we really are, and delight in it, and take its responsibilities seriously. It is an immense privilege to belong to the people of God. We’re not to knock down the temple that God is building, but work with him to build it, and ensure we are built into it.
There is you see a giveness about Church. We tend to think – rather sloppily – that you become a Christian, and then you choose a church. Well it really doesn’t work like that. To be a Christian is to belong to God’s people, is to belong to God’s church. We have to recognise that Church and God go together: you simply can’t have the one without the other. It’s not on offer.
That's why I think our Anglican parish system has so much to recommend it. We simply gather together from across the local area in all our oddness and diversity to be one people. And it's here in all your wonderful technicolor oddness and diversity that you can truly discover what it means to be the people of God, what it means to be a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. It’s here that you can discover what he can do through you, as he works among you, as he builds you as his temple.
So make sure you do nothing to undermine what he’s doing in your churches. Turn your backs on the separatism and individualism that surely does just that. Break down the walls that divide you. And let me encourage you instead to commit yourselves instead to work together and to work with the Lord in all he wants to do amongst us and through you. Be the temple he wants you to be – that in you, and through you his presence may truly be made known in Herne Hill. Let’s pray.
Identify walls and barriers in church life.
How can they be broken down?
How can you be built together into a temple in which God lives by his Spirit.
posted by Parish Administrator at 12:05 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home