community

Putting on Christ (Sermon August 23, 2015)

Ephesians 6:10–20 (NRSV)

Praying Hands
Oral Roberts University
Tulsa, OK USA

The Whole Armor of God

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. ¹¹ Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³ Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. ¹⁴ Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. ¹⁵ As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

¹⁸ Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. ¹⁹ Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰ for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

When we began this series in Ephesians I am sure we learned many new things. The first being that the letter was not written to a Gentile majority but largely focused on Jewish people from an Essene perspective. But I hope that the main thing that we have learned is that there are always things that seemingly divide a group, but that in Christ we can come together and see the kingdom of God built around us.

As I have studied this letter the past few weeks it has been as if I have read it for the first time again. For the first time in a long time it is as if the words Paul wrote so long ago have spoken directly to my heart, causing me to look at things from a different perspective. The Ephesian Church is a church that is on the verge of a complete and total split. The members are lining up along one side or the other, looking at those around them and casting judgement on things that have little to do with the church, but mainly focused on differing perspectives. One side is focused on a three hundred year heritage built on tradition, while the other seeks to open the doors up to an emerging future. The Ephesian church has found itself at a cross road of history, the ending on one age and the beginning of another.

This is why I find it so fresh and new as I have been studying it these past few weeks, because I can imagine myself in the midst of the conflict. I can see myself on either side of the issues holding fast to the ancient traditions or embracing the exciting future. I can imagine myself from the perspective of either faction within this ancient church because there are aspects of these very struggles that we face today. The future is often cloaked in a fog, we only get a glimpse of it through the misty waves as the Spirit moves like the wind. But Paul tells them that we are not at war with one another because we are all the same, he reminds both Jew and Gentile that we are all born into the same condition and remain in that place until the community seeks to bring us in. Paul reminds them that the struggle should not be between Jew and Gentile but instead we should be laboring to bring people into the community through the power of God that has been given to us by the Spirit through Christ.

I want us to consider this struggle as we reflect upon this passage. I want us to remember just how tense and raw the emotions can be when a church is on the brink of splitting in two. I want us to remember this because Friends we have been there, I may very likely say that we are there right now. We can identify with this ancient church because we too are struggling to find our way into this cloudy future, a future that so many people throughout our society claim is post Christian. Paul knows that this ancient church is in the middle of a fight and that is why he writes the way that he does. Put of the armor of God!

I want us to stop for a moment right there because I want us to just consider how out of place this passage really seems. For the past five chapters Paul has encouraged this church to live in the love of God with each other because we are all members of one another, because we have all been joined together through Christ, he has urged us to sacrifice ourselves, give ourselves for the sake of the Gospel, and then he speaks about putting on armor for a fight? We have all read this passage out of context for probably our entire lives. Many of us have grown up coloring pictures of the armor of God thinking it is just wonderful, maybe we have even made costumes and dressed up in the armor claiming to be soldiers for God going out to do battle in the world. But I really think if we read this passage in light of the rest of the letter we would see it for what it truly is, a literary play on words that should cause us to think.

I say this because Paul begins this segment by saying, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Many, if not all of us, totally forget the first sentence of the passage, because we are too busy arming ourselves to fight. We are too busy and too focused on the struggle before us to actually listen to the words being said. We are so busy trying to demonize those that might have a differing view, or we might think has a different view that we totally miss the most important statement of this entire passage. Be strong in the Lord. This passage has very little to do with battle. It in fact is telling us to be clothed in Christ.

When we look at this passage from this perspective, we can begin to see things a bit differently. But why would Paul use such imagery if he is merely speaking about putting on Christ and not gearing up for battle, you might ask? For the very same reason most children stand amazed when they see a convoy of military vehicles driving down interstate or see a formation of jets pass overhead. The image of power and strength is great. But he again reminds us that this struggle is not between us, it is not between flesh and blood. We are not at war against our fellow human beings, the battle is more abstract. He says put of the armor of God because our struggle is against rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers.

It is very easy to misunderstand what these three things are, especially when two of the three are pretty much synonyms in our language. The word that is translated rulers is actually a term in the Greek that means the supernatural forces that are behind the unexplainable. The word authorities is the governing systems that can be just or unjust, systems of human behavior that encourage or exploit. And cosmic powers refers to the forces of nature. When we understand what these forces are it basically proves that the armor of God has very little to do with warfare and everything to do with our ability to survive in a seemingly crazy world.

Back to the armor. I mentioned that imagery of the military power is striking. It catches our attention and leaves us standing in awe. I remember attending an airshow at the air force base in Wichita as a child, being able to climb up and look into the cockpit of a jet, to touch a round that would be fired from one of the massive machine guns, and hearing the sound of the engines after I saw the plane pass quickly before my eyes. There are very few things that can show the strength more than these weapons of war. But Paul is telling us to put on Christ, which is an armor that is far more powerful than these.

If you want to move beyond these petty struggle and stand firm against the evil forces at battle all around us we must clothe ourselves in Christ. And it begins with a belt of truth. This idea of truth is not just facts. It is a lifestyle of truthfulness, a lifestyle of integrity. We should be centered on reality and authenticity, not playing games and putting on a show. If we want to see the kingdom of God being expanded throughout our community it begins with each of us being honest, humble, and vulnerable with one another. This is one of the foundational aspects of the Christian life, and one of the most important pillars in the Society of Friends.

Next comes the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate is one of the most visible and largest of all the pieces of armor in ancient days. But what is righteousness? In past generations we understood this to be holiness, and holiness can quickly morph into legalism. But righteousness is loving justice. The most visible aspect or the Christian life should be focused on the most visible aspect of the life of Christ. Jesus was all about justice. He was all about loving those around him and encouraging them to enter into a better lifestyle. The breastplate of righteousness is living a lifestyle of encouraging those around us to live the love of Christ with others. It is standing up in the defense of the exploited and helping those in need. It has more to do with right actions than right answers. And those outside of the community should be able to see this in all that we do.

Shoes to proclaim the gospel of peace. There are several things wrapped up in this aspect of armor. Simplicity so that we are able to move freely and readily. As well as a testimony of peace, meaning that we value the life of all people and seek unity instead of conflict. But most of all the gospel, the good news which is the message of reconciliation and access to God. To put on the shoes of Christ we position ourselves to hear the voice of the Spirit and move to act upon His leading.

A shield of Faith. Is more than just protection, but the assurance that though we may face trail we are on the right path. It is the ability to believe, trust and entrust our lives fully to God, moving forward into the valley of shadows and doubt without fear. Coupled with this shield is the helmet of salvation which like faith points to deliverance. Placing our trust not in ourselves but entrusting every aspect of our lives into the hands of God carry us though.

And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. I want us to think of this for a moment. Paul is telling us to put on Christ, to reflect Christ. All of these aspects of armor are visions of protective strength. Absolutely none of it is from ourselves but is the Lord, and His strength. Then we come to the sword the only actual weapon. Friends this is not our sword we do not wield this sword, just as we are not the armor but all of which is God. We do not convict, we do not judge, we only go where God calls us and bear witness of him as we reflect his life though ours. The Spirit is the one that wields the knife.

We are struggling but it is not against each other and it is not against other human beings either. The battle is against things beyond our control, so we cannot wield the weapon because we do not know how to use it. We only bear the armor. Living lives of integrity and truth, showing and being the love of Christ to others as we stand against injustice and stand for righteousness. Living lives of simplicity so that we can freely and quickly move into action as we share the gospel of the kingdom and promote unity and the sanctity of all life. And walking forward with our lives fully entrusted in the hands of God. If we bear the armor in the world of darkness the Spirit will do its work, God himself will take down the rulers, authorities and tame the cosmic powers that threaten humanity. And we bear this armor if we live the lifestyle that Christ taught us. A lifestyle where we withdraw often to the isolated places to pray, where we make it our customer to join together to worship and encourage one another, and go out into the world to minister to the needs of our community.

Putting on the armor of God is nothing more than living the lifestyle of Christ. It is loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit and living the love of Christ with others. As we enter this time of open worship and holy expectancy I pray that we will realize that the battle is not ours to fight, that we are not enemies but members of one another, that we are all equal in the eyes of God, and that if we are willing to live wearing and reflecting the life of Christ in all we do we will see His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

United to Love (Sermon August 2, 2015)

Ephesians 4:1–16 (NRSV)

Peaceable Kingdom
Hicks, Edward, 1780-1849
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C. USA

Unity in the Body of Christ

4 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

⁷ But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸ Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;

he gave gifts to his people.”

⁹ (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹ The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴ We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

There is much talk about the future of the church. Are we seeing the beginning of the end or just a renewal? I find that the book of Ephesians really speaks to this transitional period. As we learn more about the time and people that first received this letter, we learn just how much this letter speaks to our current condition as well. As scholars have dug into the writings we know as the Dead Sea scrolls we find that the religious order known as the Essenes taught things very similar to that of Jesus, and that these teachings eventually made their way to the dispersed people of Israel. The city of Ephesus was a city that became the home for many of these dispersed people. For over three hundred years Jewish people lived, worked and taught alongside people who followed the cult of Diana. The teaching of the Essenes intrigued the pagan people, it opened the doorway to uniting the people of Israel and the Gentiles of the empire. The first couple of chapters of Ephesians were written to the Jewish people, letting them know that according to the teachings of the Essenes all people were born as Gentiles that all people, including those that came from the roots of Jacob, are born uncircumcised and must be joined into the community. From the third chapter on, Paul teaches both the Jews and the Gentiles together, because he teaches that all people are equally in need of hope that is found through Jesus.

What then is the purpose of the church? This is the question that we all ask as we approach the future. This is the question that we as a community ask ourselves. Just as the Jewish people of the first century looked at spiritual landscape around them and saw that things were changing, we too see things around us changing. The things they once knew were changing, they were once known as the chosen people, yet as they were dispersed throughout the empires of Greece, Persia, and Rome that standing took on different meaning. The teachings of the prophets made their way to their scattered communities, which taught them to live within the world, to lay roots, to work for the good of the people around them. This is a different pathway, a different way to consider the world they lived than what they had known before. These teachings made it to the very heart of the empires. The prophet Daniel was held in high regard by the leaders of Babylon and Persia, these empires profited from their wisdom. Though this wisdom was given through the chosen people but it was not for them alone.

As the people made their way back to the land of their ancestors they brought with them the cross cultural forms of faith, expressions of faith that emerged when there was no temple and no sacrifice. Those that lived in Jerusalem returned to former ways of life but those that lived outside took hold of the teachings of the exiled because they too were people of exile.

It was the Essenes that taught that not even the Jewish people were righteous enough to enter into the kingdom, they set their communities up on the eastern banks of the Jordan, they taught about cleansing the body and the soul of unrighteousness. They taught the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans all who would listen and all who would repent.

It is from this school of thought the people of Ephesus began to see the church emerge. The church welcomed all people who believed in God and who repent. The church, the community was filled with Jew and Greek, but it was divided. The lines that were drawn revolved around outward expressions of faith expressions, physical expressions. Paul writes to them that this is nonsense. We were all born of the same essence, born uncircumcised. Division, Jew or Greek, Male or female, slave or free. This division was killing the emerging church. This division was cutting the very heart of the church apart, slicing away the very essences of its purpose.

Paul pleads with them, “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Listen to that plea. Hear the words that the apostle writes, feel the tears and anguish in which the pen carves the words into the paper. The community of God fearers was ripping itself apart, they so early forgot what and how they were brought together in the first place. The Jewish people listened to the words of the prophets yet failed to hear, the gentiles listened yet they too out of pride failed to hear the spirit behind the words. The Spirit that says from the cross, “forgive them for they know not what they do.” They fail to hear because they are too busy, they are too busy seeking their own ways instead of submitting to the ways of the one who does the calling.

Lead a life worthy of the calling. Consider that statement for just a moment. Every one of them and every one of us are not worthy of the calling that we have received. None of us are worthy of the title child of God. Each of us in some way have failed to live a life worthy of that call. Why then do we divide and try to prove which of us is better than the other.  Through our struggle to prove who is right we end up cutting off part of the body off and leaving ourselves crippled and unable to move forward. That is the church of Ephesus. The church that the apostle John penned the Revelation of Jesus to. Honoring them because they had toiled and endured, how they were intolerant of evil among them, yet condemning them because they abandoned their first love. All their toil, all their correct doctrine all their righteousness was seen as empty because they had removed their heart, the source of their love leaving only a cold shell behind. Yet Paul pleads with them to lead a life worthy of the calling, to live in humility, gentleness, patience and love.

Paul’s heart is bleeding for these people, his tears are running down his cheeks and falling on the very paper he wrote these words, he cries. He knows the passion of the Jewish people wishing to keep the faith pure. He knows the hope of the Gentile that was grafted into the community through the blood of Christ. He knows both sides of this community and that the future of the community is in unity.

Unity is the goal that every community should seek. That is the calling that Paul hopes to spark in the hearts of this community. Unity is the point and the purpose of the gifts that the Spirit gives us. These gifts are given to bring hope to the hopeless, and to encourage and bring healing to the hurting. The Spirit of God is calling each of us to participate in the uniting of the community. He is calling us to do this through humility, gentleness, patience, and love.

Live a life worthy of the calling. We all have an idea of what that is supposed to look like. The question is if our ideas of a life worthy of the calling of Christ is filled with unity or division? What are our ideals of the holy life filled with? If we were to step back and examine our lives for a moment would they be filled with humility, with gentleness, with love?

The past few months I have really considered this in my own life. In my dealings with those around me am I being humble or am I making people think too high or low of me? In my dealings with those around me am I gentle? Am I listening to their spirit and encouraging them to take steps of faith forward or am I in my righteousness putting them in their place? You know what I find when I examine my life, when I ask those questions of myself and allow the Spirit of God to answer them for me? I find that all too often I am not who I think I am. Because to be humble, gentle and to act out of love in the efforts of making peace and to promote unity means that I have to step back. When we are able to take that step back something begins to happen, we begin to hear.

Several years ago we as a community were faced with an uncertain future. That future is still uncertain in many ways, but we did something at that time. Our meeting was dividing, it was being split in half and before we did anything we prayed. We opened the meeting house and pleaded that we pray together. Something amazing happened when we prayed. We got a brief glimpse of what Paul pleads the church of Ephesus to take hold of. Out of our prayers we prayed that God show us who we really are and what He wants us to be. For a year we discussed this and we it wrote down as our mission. “Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, and Living the love of God with others.” That statement of who we are and what we are doing is important because there is no gray area in that mission. You are either doing it or you aren’t. The same can be said about the church of Ephesus. They are called to live a life worthy of the calling that they have been called: a life of humility, gentleness, love, and peace. You see there is no gray area you are living it or you aren’t. We can try to justify our actions all we want but if we want to be honest if we justify our actions we have already admitted that we failed.

We are living in a time of uncertainty. We are living in a time where the things we once place our hope seem to be failing all around us. Could it be that we have divided ourselves to such a degree that we have removed the very essence of who we were supposed to be. Could it be that we and our community are without hope because we do not even know where to find hope anymore? Paul wrote this letter to a divided church, a church that was split between Jew and Gentile. For so long we assumed he wrote this only to the Gentiles to give them hope in Jesus, but no he wrote it to all people. To all people that live a divided life. A life that is split between work and family, secular and sacred, and countless other factions. He tells them that we are all the same, born without hope destined to fail but there is one who can speak to our condition. There is one that left His throne in the heavens to live among mankind, one who took on himself the division allowing it to rip his very heart in two, and one that rose again to give hope to each of us. There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope to which we are called, One Lord, one faith, one baptism which truly cleans, one God and father to us all. He is not the God of the Jews, He is not the God of the Gentiles, it is not the faith of the Catholic or the Quaker but it is one. You cannot live divided it will consume you, we cannot live divided because it will consume us from the inside out. Division causes fear and hopelessness, Jesus is calling us to something more. He is calling us to unite in love and live a life worthy of that calling. He is calling us to be people loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit and living the love of Christ with others. There is no division if that is our vision and our mission personally and as a community. As we enter a time of open worship and holy expectancy I pray that that vision will become ours today and for all eternity.

Remember (Sermon July 19, 2015)

Ephesians 2:11–22 (NRSV)

Berlin Wall Fragment
The Historic Berlin Wall – a reminder of Freedom versus Oppression – was divided into pieces and distributed around the world when it came down. This is the piece of the Berlin Wall that is in Portland Maine, USA. A reminder for all of the need for Freedom in all parts of the world.
Michele Loftus Dreamstime.com

One in Christ

¹¹ So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹² remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens 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 by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he 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. ¹⁵ 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, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷ So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸ for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²² in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Do you remember? This is a phrase that we often hear especially as we all get older. Do you remember when we used to…? There is an importance to remembering the past. It is important to recognize what has happened before and where we are now. The biggest problem with remembering is we rarely remember correctly. There is a big concern among many that people are rewriting history, writing out the truth so that it will confuse the present and the future. I am sure it is an issue, but too often we fail to remember that there is more to history than we fully know. We only get a brief glimpse through a window and beyond that window the rest of the world. Remember?

We want to remember the greatness of our past, we want to remember the beauty of our heroes, the magnificence of our nations, but all of that is history skewed through ideology and in some cases idolatry. I love my country but it has done some terrible things. I have many heroes, people that have encouraged me to try harder and to seek more, but I have to admit that even George Fox was kind of a jerk sometimes. I would like to think I was a pretty good kid, but if I am honest I was a far from being a saint and really I am not much better today. I am human prone to error, my heroes are and were human and they too are prone to error, and my nation is a nation of humans that can get caught up in the emotions of a situation and overreact and cause great harm. Remember.

Paul wrote this letter to the early church in Ephesus. He wrote them calling them to remember. For centuries we assumed that the church in Ephesus was dominated by Gentile believers but as we learn more about the various histories of the people in that region we are finding out that this letter was largely written to the Jewish community that had called this city in Asia Minor home for over 300 years. It is important to know this because that context gives us greater understanding to what is being said throughout the rest of the letter. Paul calls these people to remember.

“[R]ember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands.” You might want to stop me right there and say that I am wrong in saying that this book was largely written to the Jewish community because Paul just said he was writing to Gentiles, but hear me out. During the first century there was diverse religious expression among the Jewish community, there were at least four expressions of the Jewish religion that was being taught in Israel, and then there were the communities that were scattered throughout the empires that each had their own interpretations of what it meant to be a child of the promise. In this portion of the letter Paul is actually being very derogatory to make a point. A Gentile is anyone that is any individual outside the nation of Israel. And when there was contentions within the larger community many begin to make claims that they have the true knowledge and everyone else is just wrong. Paul is using very colorful language to make a point. That point is that every human being is born Gentile. Every male baby that is born is by all physical appearances born outside the community of Israel, every male is born uncircumcised. To be joined into the community someone within that community had to physically get involved to bring that child into the community, someone had to quite literally pierce the skin and cause blood to flow before even the highest of high priest’s son could be call a Jew.

Everyone is born a Gentile. This goes right along with the teachings of John the Baptist, who was crying out in the wilderness that all should repent and be cleansed. He stood there in the waters of the Jordan and said “and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.” Every person is born outside the Kingdom of God. Every Ephesian that was born to parents that worshiped in the temple of Dianna, and every child of the synagogue at birth are equal in the eyes of God, uncircumcised Gentiles.

The reason that Paul wrote in such a fashion is because this is a very diverse city and therefore a diverse church. There were people that responded to the Gospel of Christ that were once dedicated to the gods of Rome, and people once dedicated to the teaching of Moses. This diversity among the church was causing division along cultural backgrounds and heritage. “Remember,” Paul continues, “that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Having no hope and without God in the world. The terminology in this statement is very profound. Paul is quite literally saying that every one of the people within that church were atheists without any hope. Today this term is thrown around all over the place, but it was used quite regularly in the ancient world to identify anyone that had a different belief than the common religion of an area. Christians were often regarded as atheists by both the pagans and the Jews. Many of the earliest Christian writers had to defend their faith against the claim of atheism. But Paul is using the very same statements to prove his point. You were atheists at one time without hope, without Christ. This is a powerful claim especially since he is saying this to a religious community that was largely comprised of people that claimed to be children of Abraham. They did not have God with them. They did not have Emmanuel. They were children wondering through the wilderness without hope.

With Christ thing change. Paul takes both the actual Gentile and the Jewish members of the community all the way back to the beginning of the history of Israel. Back to the original promise to Abraham. God did not say that Abraham was to be the father of a nation, but many nations. Many nations, consider this for a moment. What is a nation? It is simply a group of people with a common history and culture. The promise of Abraham was not to make one nation but bring the nations with their various histories back to the God that created them. The gentile people do not lose their cultural identity to become Jews, and the Jews do not lose their cultural identity, instead God brings the nations together under one promise in Christ. No longer atheist without hope but people with God and God with them.

In Christ we have a commonality, in Christ we have hope, and in Christ we have peace, because in Christ the walls that separate the nations break down and we are seen as we truly are. All of us are the same Jew and Greek, Catholic and Orthodox, Baptist and Quaker all of us are humans that recognize that our hope can only come through God with us, without that there is no hope. And Paul tells us to remember this.

In Christ there is no division, there is no separation of greater or lesser nations, and there are no aliens or strangers, because we are all similar. The physical divisions within the temple of God were ripped apart revealing that God is not held in a box but freely among the people. If God is not held in the temple of the Jewish people, why are we building walls? This has profound power in our contemporary age. For half of a century there was a wall that divided Eastern and Western Europe, this wall was built recognizing a division of ideology. On each side of the wall different nations, different cultures no unity only division. I was alive when that wall came down, many of you witnessed that event too. Maps were redrawn nations uniting and others dividing. Today our children learn a different geography than we did prior to the 90’s. That wall gave us a visual indication of the difference that nations can have, the divisions that can occur when we focus on ideology instead of humanity. There are other walls that show the same thing. But Christ came to break down the walls, to unite the nations under the promise of Abraham, not to diminish cultural identity but to build a kingdom of which there is no other type on earth. Uniting people in grace and mercy instead of national identity. Uniting people and urging them to live the holy lifestyle that God himself lived with us in Christ.

I know that most of us have read this letter to the Ephesians as a text to Gentile believers, a letter that is encouraging them that they too are part of this great promise that God gave to Abraham that was fulfilled in Christ. It is that but it is also a letter written to Jewish believers encouraging them to remember that the promise was not for them alone, but for the nations. It would be extremely difficult for an established community that lived three centuries under a certain framework to change their thinking. We are no different today. We remember history in ways that support our current ideals, and we conveniently forget the portions of history that contradict our stances. We must remember. We must remember that we were once something else. We were once without hope, but we now have it. That hope came to each of us freely through Christ. We have hope because God so loved the WORLD that He gave his only son, not to condemn the world but to save it. God loves the world. He loves the Canadians, the Mexicans, the Russians, and the Chinese. He loves the Germans and the Israelis. He loves the atheists as well as the Christian, he loves the Hindu and the Muslim, and He loves the CEO and the Union member. All of those nations, or groupings of people are things of flesh, things that man has defined to divide and define. Those divisions are not seen by God and have no place in the Kingdom because God loves the world. We have hope because the God first loved us and gave his son to redeem, free, and build a bridge of reconciliation with us. Remember. Remember that we were once without hope. Remember that we were once caught behind a wall of separation, but Jesus broke down the wall so that we could be free to love the nations. Remember that we too were once like those that do not yet know the God that loves them. Remember that each of us are here today because someone was led by Christ to see beyond the outward expressions of life and cause us to see that spark of God trying to take hold in our souls. Remember.