Who Are We? : Community

What I want to do this morning is to share exactly what we here mean when we say that we are a community. And then let’s unpack it and discuss what practices flow from our understanding of community.

What do we mean when we say that we are a community? By that we mean that we forever belong to one another in and through Jesus.

And I think we see this arising out of Ephesians 2:11-22. So turn with me to Ephesians 2:11. Here, Paul is writing to a predominantly Gentile, meaning not Jewish, group of Christians living in the great city of Ephesus. Ephesus was a cosmopolitan city. It was very diverse, and home to many different religions. So the bulk of the Christian church there was made up of Gentiles - people from all over the known world who had come to Jesus from all kinds of other religions.

But there were some Jewish Christians in the Ephesian church as well. Now, formerly, before the arrival of Jesus, Jews and Gentiles would never have mingled like this. They lived intentionally separate lives, and there in fact existed between the two groups a good deal on enmity and conflict. The division was religious, but also sociological and ethnic.

As an example, even if a Grecian pagan were to give his sole allegiance to Yaweh the God of Israel, and desire to worship him alone as the one true God, and were to make a pilgrimage to the great temple in Jerusalem, he would encounter a physical barrier keeping him separated from Jewish born worshippers. He’d be kept in the outer court, known as the court of Gentiles, which was essentially a bazaar or marketplace, whilst Jewish born worshippers were granted access into the inner courts up on the temple Mount. [Josephus quote?] So even in the same religious camp, there was division. There were those on in the inside and those left out.

And Paul begins this section reminding the Ephesian church of this former reality, beginning in verse 11.

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

This was the former reality - the former way of things. There were two camps. Insiders and outsiders. But in verse 13, Paul notes an earth-shattering turning point. And he introduces it with the words, “But now...” Before there was a deep separation and divide,

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Paul is saying that where there was once division, there is now peace. Where there was once two kinds of people, there is now one. And this has come about through the death of Jesus - through his flesh and his blood.

What Paul is saying is that the sacrifice of Jesus did not only reconcile humans to God. But that same sacrifice also reconciled humans to one another. The amazing thing about the Cross is that by it, Jesus doesn’t just bring peace between me and God, but he also brings peace between me and you.

And Paul is not talking about the capacity for peace between us, he’s talking about the reality of peace between us. When Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and reconciled us to the Father, Jesus bound us all together into one body and one family. So it is not that the case that the groundwork has been laid for you now to pursue and create community with others. No, Jesus has united you to himself, and in doing so, you are now united in an eternal community with everyone who has been united to Christ. You now belong to them forever in and through Jesus. Jesus has accomplished this himself. He is our peace, and it is done.

Now, how does this bond actually play out in the flesh and blood? Well, Jesus solves the issue of belonging.

Every community has something upon which belonging is grounded. This is the thing that holds the community together. Think about your workplaces. What is the foundation of belonging at your work? It’s a person’s ability to produce. Everyone at your workplace is there because they have demonstrated that they have a set of skills that help further the objectives of the organization. That is what cements a person’s belonging in your work community. At the end of the day, it’s because they produce. If you can’t produce, you don’t belong, and you won’t be in that work community for very long. Our work community is founded on merit.

But not every community is founded on merit. Many groups of people are bound together by a shared interest. Think about a sunrise yoga group. What binds them all together? A love of misery. This is the reason they are together. Well, what happens when you’re a part of the group but you lose interest in yoga? Or you sprain ankle? Well, you lose your place in the community because what unites this group of people is an interest that you no longer share or can no longer engage.

Belonging can be a fickle thing, especially because our sinful nature has this unfortunate tendency to get in the way of forming deep and lasting community. Our sin gets in the way of our truly knowing, loving, and drawing near to other people. We get competitive with others, or manipulative, or deceptive, or overly controlling - and as a result our union with others falters. It’s actually really hard to find true belonging in this world.

So how does Jesus solve the problem of belonging? Well, what is the foundation of the church community? What is the bond that holds us together as the church? It’s not merit. Nobody here earns their place in the community of God. Neither is this community founded on shared interests or passions. Sure, we are committed to the same vision and mission, and we worship the same God. But that shared worldview is not what binds us together in community. That is a result of our unity, not the cause.

The glue that holds us together is Jesus himself. Remember what Paul said to the Ephesians: “For he himself is our peace.” The reason you are my brother and the reason that you are my sister is because Jesus has delivered both of us from our sins, and he has called both us to faith and eternal life. The basis for our community together consists solely in this: that Jesus has rescued you, and he has rescued me. In our Easter Liturgy, we proclaim this truth at Christ’s table when I call to you: “We are God’s people.” To which you respond, “We are the Redeemed.”

We are the Redeemed. What makes this community so unlike any other on the planet is that Jesus stands between us. When we look at one another, Jesus stands between us, in all his glory and grace, and we are reminded that the person we are looking at is our kin - because just as Christ gave it all up for me, so he did for them as well. And because of this, I can go on living with you through sin and struggle, and you can go on living with me through sin and struggle, because we know that we do so under the blessing of grace.

There’s a moment in our service that rehearses this beautiful reality in a subtle way. When we read the gospel every week, the cross is brought into the midst of the people, to recall how Christ delivered his message of salvation in our midst. And as the cross comes to rest in the middle of the congregation, we all turn to face the cross as the gospel is read. You might think that we turn to face the cross as a sign of respect or reverence, or simply because it is natural to give it our full attention - and those are true. But there’s another reason. In that moment, as we are all turned inward with an eye on the cross, but the rest of the congregation is also know in view. We’re facing each other in that moment. You’ve probably made awkward eye contact with someone across the isle before. Well, in that moment, you can’t see your church community without looking past the cross of Christ. The faces of your church community cannot be seen without also seeing the cross, and this is intentional. This is a reminder of what binds us together and what unites us in a way that nothing else could possibly do is Jesus, in all his glory and all his grace. He stands between us as our great Mediator - uniting us together in his eternal family by his grace.

I am united to Christ forever, with you. And you are united to Christ forever, with me. And because we belong to him, we belong to one another as well.

This is what we mean when we say that we are a community. We forever belong to one another in and through Jesus.

Now, if this is true, then our community should manifest a number of characteristics and practices. And so I’d like to turn to speak briefly about a few characteristics that should mark our community, given its foundation in and through Jesus.

First, if we are a community founded on grace, than we are free to be a community of confession. There are a thousand places in this world where we must conceal our faults and flaws, always putting our best foot forward, and frankly forced to pretend that we are far better person than we truly are. The church is not one of those places. In this place, with this people, we are free to be the flawed and compromised human beings that we are. We are free to take off our masks and costumes, because every one of us is a sinner who has received the great mercy of God.

We are free to confess. We are free to share. We are free to unburden our hearts. I can dare to be the sinner that I am - and this is such good news, because it is only sinners who can be saved. If we are not allowed to utter our desperate plea for help, than we will never know the blessing of forgiveness and new life. But in the community of Jesus, you can bring your secrets out of the darkness and into his healing light. This is the first characteristic: that we are free to be a community of confession.

Second, we are to be a community of prayer, because it is primarily in prayer for one another that we keep Christ between us. In his book, Life Together, which a number of us read together this past month, Bonhoeffer says that, “A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.” It cannot be overstated how important it is that we regularly pray for one another. Intercessory prayer means nothing more than lifting someone up into the presence of God, to see them as they are: poor and desperately in need of God’s grace (as we all are), and to pray for God to act in love and mercy toward them. In effect, intercessory prayer means granting our brother or sister the same right that we have - which is to stand before Jesus and share in his mercy.

You can see, then, how regularly praying for one another fosters the environment of grace that is necessary for a healthy community. Without a doubt there will come a time when I tick you off, or offend you, or even hurt you. I will. You’ll hurt me. It’s going to happen. We are all human. But if we are regularly praying for one another, it will be all but impossible for those wrongs to break our relationship.

Finally, we are to be a community of generosity.