After 9/11 we were living on the east side of Atlanta, operating our online ink supply business. We sold pint bottles of inkjet ink for $34.95 and shipped them all over the world. Almost every day, Saundra and I were on the phone from 9 AM to 9 PM – and then someone from California would call as we walked out the door to go home twenty minutes later. Every week we struggled to make payroll and pay our suppliers and every month we struggled to pay the rent on the office, warehouse, and our home. It was a time of great stress.
We finally moved from Atlanta to Lowell,
OH, to a home overlooking the Muskingum River, putting the office and the
warehouse within 100 feet from our house. Our costs dropped tremendously, and I
remember many evenings that summer walking home and sitting on the front porch
for a couple hours, watching the river flow. It was a wonderful time
reconnecting with God. It was a time of peace, a time to re-evaluate life, a
time with family.
I remember one evening watching the dogs
play. We had a ten-year-old Border Collie, a female long-haired chihuahua, and
she had 6 month-old puppies. And they played on the front bank, chasing the
border collie up and down the bank. We watched until the fireflies came out,
laughing at them, watching our three kids who were at home play with them. It
was a great evening. We’d never had that in Atlanta. Peace and family. And the
river in the background.
We spoke about the early part of Paul’s
letter to the Ephesian church last week. The Apostle continued in this letter,
first to thank the Ephesians for their faith in the Lord Jesus, and their love
for all God’s people. He prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be opened
so that they would know the hope to which God had called them, reminding them
of the mighty power of God with which God raised Jesus from the dead.
Beginning in Chapter Two, Paul reminded
the Ephesians that they – and all of us – were dead in our sins, in the ways we
used to live, following the ways of the world. We were all deserving of God’s
wrath, but “because of His great love for us”, God made us alive with Christ
solely by God’s grace, the gift of God. Our contribution is simply to have
faith, which is also given by God. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Now, at the beginning of our reading in
verse 11, Paul turns his attention to those of us who were formerly Gentiles by
birth. “Gentiles” are people who are not Jewish. The word comes from the Hebrew
term “goy”, which means a “nation”. The “goyim” were those who belonged to the
nations of the world. This entered the Latin language and became “gentilis”,
meaning “clan or tribe”
We are the Gentiles, for we are Gentiles
unless we have Jewish parents. Paul points out that we were once separated from
Christ, AND excluded from citizenship in Israel. We were foreigners to the
covenants of the promises made to Abraham and his descendants, the Jews.
Therefore, we were without hope and without God in the world.
To Paul, all the world was divided into
Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were given promises by God through an agreement, a
covenant made between God and Abraham, the ancestor of the Jews. That covenant
was renewed between God and the Israelites at the time of Moses. God agreed to
be their God, protecting them and supporting them, increasing their numbers,
while the Israelites agreed to worship God and follow God’s Law, given through
Moses.
The Gentiles were everyone else. The
various clans and tribes of Gentiles, from Romans to Egyptians to Canaanites to
Chinese to Germans to Russians to Persians to Scotts and Irish and English to
Africans all chose to worship their own gods or no gods, which ranged from
idols of wood and stone, carved by human hands to simply ancestors who had
become legendary to perhaps even fallen angels who had set themselves up as
gods and goddesses. But it was clear to Paul – and any good Jew, that Yahweh,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was the only God.
Until God sent part of Himself to earth
as Jesus the Messiah, the Savior, the Christ – the words all mean much the
same. And through the blood sacrificed by Jesus the Christ, all of us Gentiles
who once were far away from God have been brought near.
Behind this section is a history of
persecution, discrimination, and warfare. For in the Roman Empire, the first
true Emperor, Augustus Caesar, who had been Julius Caesar’s nephew Octavian,
won the Roman throne in the years-long civil wars after Caesar was killed in 44
BC. Augustus then promoted Julius to be worshiped as a god. Octavian, as
Julius’ adopted son, then took on the title of Divi Filius, or Son of
the Divine – or, as it may also be translated, “Son of God”.
And so, Augustus and his officials began
to spread word around the Empire that all citizens who wished to remain in good
standing must bring a coin and bow at the feet of a statue of Augustus in
worship. The Jews would not do this – and since they represented about 10% of
the Empire’s population and were prone to rise in revolt when pushed to worship
the Emperor, a compromise was reached – the Jews would pay the price in coin,
but did not need to bow in worship – in return the Jews would not revolt over
this issue. The Jews were also exempted from military service and generally
allowed to follow their customs.
However, customs led to many
disagreements. Imagine inviting a Jewish man to your home for a meal. He would
not come, because you probably would serve pork, maybe shrimp or lobster, maybe
even horsemeat, none of which a Jew could eat. You probably would not wash
before eating – which Jews were commanded to do. As a good Roman pagan, your
home would probably have in the corner a small shelf devoted to small statues
of your favorite gods or goddesses, again offensive to the Jew. And if he
explained why, you would likely be offended – after all, would you remove the
cross from your wall so as not to offend a visitor simply because they did not
believe in Jesus?
Despite the larger Empire-wide decrees,
locally, there were arguments, fights, and riots by and against Jews, which had
the effect of creating a distrust between the Jews and the local Gentiles.
And so Paul begins writing of the peace
of Christ in verse 14. “For He himself is our peace, who has made the two
groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by
setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.”
The early church in Ephesus, like many
early churches across the Eastern Empire, held members who had been raised
Jewish – and many members who were formerly Gentiles and pagans. In the church
meeting, there would be a former Roman soldier who had previously sacrificed
cattle to Mars, the god of war – and a woman who had been a temple prostitute
for the goddess Diana, and a man who had grown up reading the books of Moses
and avoided pork his entire life. Can you imagine the tensions that lie under
the surface? Can you imagine the tension when the Roman soldier suggested
everyone getting together for a pig roast? And I’ve seen churches fight over
the color the walls should be repainted!
And so Paul points out the advantage of
worshiping Christ together, “For He himself is our peace, who has made the two
groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by
setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His
purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making
peace.”
And believe it or not, this peace
happened. The Christian churches gradually grew, and even began to flourish.
Oh, there were fights – Paul’s letters are documents of making judgments about
those arguments. But in general, coming to know and understand what Jesus
offered put all those other arguments into perspective.
Early on, while living and teaching in
Antioch, a large city which is today just southeast of the northeast corner of
the Mediterranean Sea, Paul and Barnabus took a visit to Jerusalem to get a
ruling on how Jewish a Gentile needed to be to become a Christian. The
principal issues were over circumcision and the dietary rules. Naturally,
Gentile men thought that adult circumcision was going to far. The Council of
the Apostles in Jerusalem agreed. They judged that the leaders should not make
it difficult for the Gentiles who were turning to God. They sent back a letter
(which is found in Acts 15) by Paul, Barnabas, Judas Barsabbas, and Silas,
which read, in part:
“…It seemed good to the Holy
Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following
requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from
blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You
will do well to avoid these things.”
Paul saw that Jesus’ sacrifice upon the
cross reconciled both Jew and Gentile to God through the cross and this put to
death their hostility toward one another. As Paul said about Jesus, “He came
and preached peace to you who were far away and peach to those who were near.
For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. “
Despite the deep disagreements about
cultural issues, Jesus’ sacrifice brought the Jews and Gentiles together, even
though both thought their way was superior to the way of the other, and both
often felt looked down upon by the other. They recognized that Jesus had shown
them a superior way to both cultures, for He had died for all, something
neither side would have even considered doing.
So what does this have to do with us
today? Have you ever noticed that today, in the society of the world around us,
there are people we call Christians – and people we call “non-Christians”?
There are many parallels between the Jew/Gentile issues of Paul’s time, and the
Christian/Non-Christian issues of today. Let me make it clearer to you.
Imagine that you are a Christian inviting
a non-Christian over for dinner. You’ll probably not have beer at the table –
at least that is what the non-Christian will expect, and so he won’t bring a
bottle of wine or a case of beer. Your language will probably not use certain
words – at least, that’s what the non-Christian will expect, and so he’ll be
embarrassed if he uses those words – or you’ll be offended if he continually
uses those words. He may be expecting to dig right into the food; you’ll be
expecting to wait until grace is said. You’ll find you watch different
television shows, different movies, read different magazines, do different
things in your spare time. You’ll probably have different political opinions,
especially on social issues.
Can you see why there might be
disagreements, arguments, and misunderstandings between the Christian and the
non-Christian?
And yet, the same basic dynamic is still
there. Jesus died for all of us, Christian and non-Christian. All who see this
and choose to follow Jesus come under His protection, for He has shown us all a
better way. It doesn’t matter if we were born to Christian parents and baptized
a few days later – or if we are 70 years old and have never set foot into a
church, Jesus still died for all of us and offers us the gift of eternal life.
We just have to accept His gift and, as Paul says, we will no longer be
foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also
members of his household. This church, you see, is not a building, it is not
even an organization, but it is an organism growing up from a foundation
established by the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the
chief cornerstone and seed.
Just as a building goes together piece by
piece, not instantly at once, but gradually over time, so we all together are being
built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The church is an organism, not an
organization, not a building. It grows and changes over the years, the decades,
the centuries. Think about the trees in your yard. They were planted years ago.
They grew. Their roots found rocks in their way – some of which they simply
moved out of the way, some of which were too big to move, so the tree grew
around those rocks.
And like all organisms, the church needs
different nutrients to grow – different types of people. We are not like a Taco
Bell franchise, controlled from corporate, all looking the same, the same size,
the same menu. No, every church is different, made of different sorts of
people, and what brings us all together is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the
cross, which has us working together despite our differences in politics, in
wealth, in background, in speech, in appearance. Christ pulls us together – and
we learn to live a different way than we lived when we were in the world.
Instead of living and fighting alone, we
join together. Instead of struggling alone, we struggle together. Instead of
trying to each carry heavy burdens, we carry those burdens together. Our coming
together and asking for help from Christ is not a weakness, it is a strength,
for we have learned our limits and where to get help we need. And Christ shows
us His strength – and we learn our particular strengths as we help others.
Our Gospel reading happens in the week
after the execution of John the Baptist by King Herod. We forget that several
of Jesus’ disciples had been followers of John the Baptist. We forget that
Jesus was John’s cousin. And so, after the word came that John had died, the
disciples were upset. So Jesus said to them, ““Come with me by yourselves to a
quiet place and get some rest.”
For the struggle to survive in this world
is difficult. Every day is difficult. Every day people grow more aware they
need help. Every day, we lose jobs, we lose friends, and we grow exhausted. We
need a safe, quiet place to step back from the world around us. But the answer
isn’t sleep or video games or more television. The answer isn’t in alcohol or
food or other chemicals. Those all simply isolate us and depress us.
You may be working a job, a job with hard
manual labor. You need rest, and a time to exercise your mind.
You may be an engineer or a lawyer, you may be
running a business, a business with great stress that you carry alone. You need friends who aren’t fellow employees.
You may be a health care worker, a nurse,
a doctor. This has been a terrible year – you’ve seen disease, you’ve seen
death, and you’ve worried about your family. You need a safe place where life
is talked about, not death. You need to remember the good in the world, not
just the ugly.
You may be a teacher or a parent feeling
ripped apart by the last year. You need great healing and a chance to speak
with other adults.
And so I say to you who are listening, as
Jesus did, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Come away to spend an hour or so, once a
week, sitting among people who will become your friends, who will share your
burdens, who recognize the sacrifice that Jesus made, and are grateful for that
sacrifice. Come to Jesus and be taught many things. Come to Jesus and be healed
here at Cedar Grove United Methodist on Rt 47, just beyond WVU-Parkersburg. Our
live service this week is at 10:30 AM.
And if you’re already here, come forward
to the altar rail to pray for your peace, your rest, your healing – or pray for
the peace, the rest, the healing of another person, a friend, a relative, a
neighbor. Come forward to support another person and help them with their
burdens. Come to the altar rail as we sing.
Amen!
Benediction: May God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit fill you and guide you this week, that you may do the will of God. Be blessed!
5 Closing Song
– They’ll know we are Christians by our Love 2223
Go and Praise God all week long!
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