So there I was quietly doing my devotions and planning what the Thought for the Day might be today and my phone rang.
It was a lady.
She and her husband (Christians from very different cultures in a cross cultural marriage) had bought a small piece of land, moved to Wales and ... didn't understand the laws, rules, regulations, culture.
Understandably, it had been an unsettling experience and they had moved to a quite conservative rural area where there were NO other people like them.
The thing about being a stranger
The thing about being a stranger is that you don't get it, you don't understand, you upset people without realising and you not only don't 'belong', you don't necessarily even know HOW to belong there!
The downward spiral of 'outsider-ness'
You easily get into a spiral of increasing 'outsider-ness'.
Just imagine what it would be like for you being without family, without understanding of the culture, not knowing how local society works, not understanding what is expected of you in situations and relationships, not realising how you may be cutting across laws or failing to comply with the requirements and simply not 'fitting in' with the locals ... not because you don't want to but because you are a square peg in a round hole?
And then ... you have no standing, no inheritance, possibly no solidarity or possibility of co-operation, even let alone help from the people around you.
People look on you as an outsider, and without wanting to you can easily just make things worse.
It is difficult.
Life becomes difficult, people become difficult, the authorities become difficult, pursuing a business and making a living becomes difficult ... STAYING becomes difficult.
What do we need as people?
'Belonging' is a necessity of life
We need family, we need friends, we need understanding, acceptance, help, encouragement, support, people we can relate to because we have things in common ... we are created for mutual supportive relationships ... people need people!
This is nothing new, and irt explains the trouble these Ephesians were in in our passage today.
The trouble these Ephesians were in
For non-Christian pagans coming to Christ from a world that was built on idolatrous lines, coming to faith in Christ and joining what was a very different sort of society that was still largely Jewish and therefore really DIFFERENT to what you had known, well, that was going to be an unsettling experience ... particularly because when someone who was steeped in a Graeco-Roman world became a member of the 'sect' known as Christians they were excluded and ostracised at least to some extent by the culture they'd come from.
Ephesians 2:19 speaks to that sort of situation ... both to strangers and to people belonging to the community they enter.
but fellow citizens with God’s people
and also members of his household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
Now that all sounds very nice ... we'd all like the sound of that ... but the crucial word there is that 'consequently'!
The importance of that little word 'consequently'
"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers".
This no longer being strangers in God's community in God's world is not presented here as a wish but as a fact.
It is a fact built on a solid foundation and not just a nice-sounding aspirational wish.
How come?
The verses immediately before explain it ... by what happened at the Cross.
"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
- in one body to reconcile both of them
- to God
- through the cross,
- by which he put to death their hostility.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."
Ephesians 2:14-18
The Point
What Jesus was doing on the Cross by dealing with the separation between God and all His people (together) was to 'bring all things together again' (Ephesians 1:10) under the headship of Christ.
His purpose was to create one new humanity, not to establish another 'tribe' to add to the division, and to reconcile their differences by reconciling all to God through the salvation that Christ bought at the Cross.
And so He came to preach peace to those both far off and near ... 'insiders' and 'outsiders' alike.
Furthermore we experience the new unity created as through Jesus all we who follow Christ have access through Christ to the Father by the Holy Spirit, which gives experiential reality of the unity Christ creates.
You want to talk about 'inclusive'? This is IT, because this sacrifice of Christ on the Cross deals with sin and therefore deals with the deepest things that divide us!
The Takeaway
That is the plan and purpose of God through Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection ... to bring the two divided parties together, and to unify humanity under Christ.
It doesn't matter what newspaper we read, what our politics are or whether we think of ourselves as patriots of whatever country you care to mention.
The most relevant question is this: are we co-workers with God in this Gospel or are we going to be going against Him?
And if co-workers, how will we who have been brought in to the community of Christ relate to the strangers in our midst?
No comments:
Post a Comment