those who are far off

Peace

Ephesians 2:17 NIV

He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

Ephesians 2 is one of my favourite announcemetns of our gospel hope.

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

Head - Heart - Spirit

Paul has this habit of starting off in a somewhat convoluted and complex forensic argument and then soaring off into some beautiful prose.

It’s like a piece of grit that gradual pearl.

It’s one of the reasons I like Paul - he’s working it out right in front of us.

In his letters he is usually responding to some issue that has been brought to him by members of churches in far off places. This time, he’s talking to the church in Ephesus.

Talking to all of us, but first and foremost ot the church in Ephesus, where, it seems, that they have this problem. Christians of Jewish heritage and Christians of Gentile heritage are separated off from one another.

This irritates Paul. They know, and he knows that something needs to be done.

So he starts off in his head, with his reason. And those first couple of verses sound like something out of a legal textbook.

Therefore, remember that formerly...

But then he gets to the heart of the matter.

Christ Jesus.

You who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Then, well then he takes off.

Soaring language.

Rich imagery

Destroying the dividing wall

creating one new humanity out of the two

The cross where he put to death their hostility

foreigners and strangers become fellow citizens and members of God’s household

A dwelling for God, a holy temple, built from our lives on the fondation of the apostles and prophets with Christ himself at teh centre of it all.

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

We could spend months in this one passage and never plumb the depths of its beauty and relevance to our lives and our world.

This is what we mean when we say that scripture is God-breathed. This is what we say when we call the Bible God’s living Word.

It’s beautiful.

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

The one phrase that leapt our to me this week is this one

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

It’s a beautiful idea, and we can apply it just as well to our current situation, as the Ephesian church could to their situation all those years ago.

Who are those who are near?

Who are those who are far off?

Answering these two questions will go a long way towrds answering the question of how we too can build the living temple of God. How we too can participate in the great work of reconciliation that Jesus accomplished and began on teh cross.

These questions frames our mission as a church.

These questions frame our identity as followers of Christ.

Even more than that, How we go about answerting these questions will say so much about how we go about reading scripture and engaging with God’s word.

Two questions, two ways

The first way to answer these questions is very specific and particular:

Paul says it himself, it’s right there in black and white. Those who are near are teh Jews. “The circumcision”. Those who have been set apart as God’s Holy people since the days of Abraham.

Those who are far off are the uncircumcised. The gentiles. Those who cannot whakapapa back to Father Abraham.

Framed in this way, the answer is straightforward. All of us here are those who are far off. Good News for us. Because in Christ Jesus, we have been brought near. We are citizens and members. Living stones.

And that is Good News. I’m thankful that I have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

And it is humbling for us too: it’s good for us to remember that we are not here by divine right, but through divine grace.

But there’s a problem here too.

Because if we make our answers so particular, so specific, so literal, then these words are locked in history, locked in stone. These events have already ahppaend, and there’s nothign to add.

What about those who are still far off?

What about the fact, that, after all these years, we are those who are near?

When we take this reading of scripture to the extreme, then our faith becomes a dusty and dry religion, where every circumstance is fore-ordained by a specific example and rule from scripture. And when we come across some new situation, the situation and scripture itself are twisted until we can fit them together in our pre-conceived interpretations.

Taken to the extreme, we foolishly seek to kill God’s living Word.

On the other hand, we can read these words and answer these questions as generally applicable.

The jews and the gentiles, they are merely a convenient example that happen to reveal a deeper truth about God’s nature.

That is, through Christ Jesus, God is the One who draws near those who are far off. Wherever there are two humanities, God is the One who re-unites and reconciles and redeems.

On one level, that is far more helpful for our mission as a church, because every time we enter a new circumstance, then we can frame our mission in the terms of God’s peace. Locals and refugees? One new humanity. Church and commnuity? One new humanity. Farmers and townies? One new humanity.

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

But there’s a weakness here too.

If the important thing is God’s nature in general, then the particular circumstances quickly become irrelevant.

The Jews, the Gentiles, even Jesus himself, are ploughed under until we are left with a general, disembodied principle that, in the end, doesn’t even need God to exist. Doesn’t even need us.

The particulars of our lives no longer matter.

And you can’t read the words of this passage without seeing how deeply and truly we matter to God.

It’s not general ideas that make the difference, it’s Jesus. It’s not just for this one event that God is reconciling, it is for all humanity and for all time.

Where to from here?

So how do we move forward?

hold these two things, the general and particular in tension. It is not a case of either or, it is a case of both and.

The division of Jews and Gentiles truly mattered to PAul, and truly mattered to God.

Listen to the language in teh middle of the passage there: “setting aside in his flesh the law and its regulations”, “through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

It’s not words about Jesus that make the difference here, it is Jesus himself. On the cross. Torn apart, making us whole.

And teh general principle also applies. This is truly God’s nature revealed in Christ, that apllies just as much to our divisions today, as it did to those in the church 2,000 years ago.

In Christ, he kotahi tatou. In Christ we are one.

And we ned to take this with us as we go into the world.

REmembering that we may be near, and those we are reaching out to may be far off, but God is already at work bringing us back together, through Christ.

Peace to those who are near, and peace to those who are far off.

And we should not be afraid to take Jesus with us into these situtations, we can’t rest our hope on the general idea of reconciliation and hope being enough, because it is Jesus who crosses the barriers that we cannot even reach.

So as we go, we should go expecting to meet Jesus already at work in our community. Whoever that community is, and whatever their background and belief.

In Him we too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.

Peace to those who are near. Peace to those who are far off.

Amen.