We are Church – Sunday 21st July

Ephesians 2:11-22, Household of the Holy Spirit, pastor adrian kitson, We are church

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’ (which is done in the body by human hands) – ¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by 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, ¹⁶and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

In these times of such divided politics, countries, communities and churches was there ever a more timely word on God’s intention to bring us all together, and that in Jesus, we are always unified and at peace?

Paul tells us God’s intention for all he did in the sending of his Son:

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace …

Paul breaks into lofty words about the lofty work of God to bring the world together.

The world for Paul as a Jewish person is of course split in two – Jew and Gentile; the chosen holy people of God and all the rest who are not that.

In Jesus, he says

¹⁴… he himself [Jesus] is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…

How did Jesus do this?

In his own body, he fulfilled all the commands and rules in the Jewish Law perfectly as a human being, thereby reducing them to redundant when it comes to living in peace with God the Father of us all.

Now that wonderful peace and unity we find together in the Lord is not earned by keeping the many commands and rites and regulations on purity and food and etc, etc.

Now we are gifted peace and unity with the Lord by his grace, actively gifted to us in Jesus and only received on good faith – trust; trust in God’s truthful Word which reveals his gracious goodness.

Paul says that this new creation life of peace and unity was always God’s intention; that human beings live in the peace that Jesus’ peace brings.

He did it and we have it. Praise the Lord!

¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

For us who have equal access to the grace and kindness of God who we now know as our heavenly Father, there is a name for what we are. It is in the Creed we confess very regularly here.

The name is the ‘communion of saints’. We say we believe in the ‘communion of saints’ as we speak those words of faith in the ancient Apostle’s Creed.

‘Communion of saints’. What do you say you believe in when you say that?

There have been two main ways in which Christian have understood and spoken this little name.

One is to do with the fellowship, unity and peace we share as Christians in a community. We are the holy community of God called, gathered and transformed daily by the Holy Spirit. We are part of a global, timeless citizenship of God’s new and better country: a koinonia; a fellowship of faith in Father, Son and Spirit.

The other is to do with Holy Communion. We say we believe that this special meal we share is a sign of who we are; a means by which the Spirit re-confirms us as citizens of this new and better country; or as Paul says here to Gentile Christians:

… you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household …

This is beautiful. This is who God says we are: his holy community made holy by his holy Son’s body and blood forever in fellowship as God’s one, holy and apostolic church in his world.

But so often it does not feel like it or look like it!

We still carry this drive to be alone, be self-made, be independent of God, of his meal and his holy people.

We still have all those things within us that can come out of us the create disunity, hurt, blame, shame, and the like.

Of course, there is always the Evil One at work trying to get us to turn in ourselves as we feel shamed and blamed, believing that we need to win at any cost, be right and prove everyone else wrong, be good while everyone else is not so good and etc…

And we are all dealing with just being limited beings – sick, unwell inside or out or both, facing the darkness of what it is to have to die and lose people we love to that too.

We hear God’s word differently. We differ on lots of things in the Bible – how we hear them, how we see them being done…

But here is where the community of saints we live in really shines. Here is where all divisions and danger and fear about our church and our future and our country and this world can be outdone and even overcome.

Here’s Luther:

Whoever is in despair, distressed by a sin-stricken conscience or terrified by death or carrying some other burden upon his [or her] heart, if he [/she]would be rid of them all, let him go joyfully to the sacrament of the altar and lay down his woe in the midst of the community [of saints] and seek help from the entire company of the spiritual body.

Luther picks up on Paul’s use of that image of a ‘household’ built on foundations of the Word of God being built together into a spiritual building or human body …

[This community of saints in which now live] is like a city where every citizen shares with all the others the city’s name, honour, freedom, trade, customs, usages, help, support, protection, and the like, while at the same time he shares all the dangers of fire and flood, enemies and death, losses, taxes, and the like. For he who would share in the profits must also share in the costs, and ever recompense love with love.¹⁴ Here we see that whoever injures one citizen injures an entire city and all its citizens; whoever benefits one [citizen] deserves favour and thanks from all the others.^[1]

^[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 35 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 51–52.

So, friends, in this household of the Holy Spirit; this new city of God called the assembly or gathering of this holy community we share in the good of this new country and we share in the risks and the dangers and the stresses by love – self-giving, self-sacrificing love – agape love.

We live in the unity and peace of Jesus at the same time as face our fears, dangers and shortcoming together with him. This is being church.

But, I know, we do not always treat each other well or know what to say or do and sometimes we do and say the wrong thing and we hurt each other.

We also do not hear God’s Word the same way and we feel ‘out of sync’ with fellow citizens in this city of God.

We know that we are in really difficult times that make us feel unsure or even at times a bit sad or even without much hope. Nothing seems to be easy and so much of our church life is overshadowed by big issues that seem so hard to find peace and unity together in.

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