Jesus is Our Peace

Based on Ephesians 2:11-22

It was a tradition in my family growing up that most summers our family would rent a pop up trailer, hitch it to the station wagon, and take off on a road trip. We drove all over, often stopping at KOA campsites and visiting state and sometimes national parks. Every now and then, as we drove down the highway, we would come across the sign that pointed to a scenic overlook. We would pull over, get out of the car to stretch our legs, enjoy the view for a few moments, and then get back on the road.

It’s in that spirit that you and I are taking a summer road trip through the letter to the Ephesians. We are in the second week of our journey and are about to pull over to our second scenic overlook. Last week’s scenic vista was a glorious view of all the grace God has lavished on us, inspiring us to give worship and praise to God. Let’s see what this week’s scenic view looks like.

As we look around, what we see is a glorious vision of unity in which everyone of every ethnicity and culture are gathered together worshipping God. This vision is described in vs. 21 as a holy temple. This temple is not a physical structure of wood or stone. No, this temple is a community of people. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, the key that holds this community together. This Christ held community is the dwelling place for God. It is such a beautiful display, of one people with all kinds of diversity united in worship. It is a vision of our national motto: e pluribus unum: from a plurality, one. But this is not a nation we are looking at, but the whole human race united in worship to God our creator. Glorious!

How did this come to be? What effort did it take to bring the whole human race together in praise and worship of God? Especially when we consider how easy it is for human groups to separate from others and even build up walls to keep others out, we certainly have doubts that this great assembly was pulled off by human effort. It’s hard enough just to get your family together for dinner sometimes, much less pull the entire human family together in worship as one massive holy temple. Surely, God must have had a hand in bringing about this glorious vision of unity. Let’s see how God did it.

When we look at vv. 11 and 12, we find a description of the situation of the Gentiles B.C., before Christ. It’s not a pretty picture. “You were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Ugh! What Paul is describing was the idea that there were two groups in the world, Jews and Gentiles. Jews, the chosen people of God, had the land of Israel, they had the promises God had made to Abraham, they had the security of always being the people of God. The Gentiles may have had land and their own gods and goddesses, but they had no claim on the covenant God made with Abraham, they did not serve God, they had no hope. Their gods couldn’t protect them or have anything for them. To say it bluntly, the Jews were the insiders and the Gentiles were the outsiders and there was a chasm between the two, a thick wall that separated these two groups. That was the state of things B.C.

Then comes verse 13 which starts, “But now in Christ Jesus.” With Jesus, everything changes. There is a new arrangement. The aliens and strangers, the outsiders, the Gentiles, the ones who were far off are now brought near. Jesus did that. In some mysterious, unexplained way, the blood of Jesus is the means by which the outsider Gentiles become insiders, included in the commonwealth of Israel, included in the promises God made to Abraham.

It goes even further. Verse 14 gives us the key phrase of this whole passage. “Jesus is our peace.” Peace, in this sense, does not mean quiet stillness. The kind of peace that is being referred to here is equivalent to the Hebrew word “shalom.” This word describes wholeness, harmony, mutual flourishing, where everything and everyone belongs. It’s like when the jigsaw puzzle is all put together into a beautiful whole. That’s the peace that Jesus makes possible. Jesus is the means to get to our wholeness, harmony, unity. And this peace that Jesus makes possible is radical. What does it say? “He has made both groups into one…He creates in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.” One new humanity? Wow! What we have here is the suggestion of a new creation. There were once two human groups and now there is just one human group: not a Gentile group or a Jewish group but one new group in Christ, united as a holy temple where God dwells. Wow. This is mind blowing stuff.

That’s how we have gotten to this gorgeous and inspiring scenic vista of one humanity worshipping God. No dividing walls. No insiders and outsiders. No Gentiles and Jews. Just one human family, all united in praise to the God who has established peace, wholeness, shalom. God did this in Christ. Did, not is doing. This is the really real, if you will. Again, go back to verse 14 and see it is written in past tense. Jesus has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, the hostility between Gentiles and Jews. That wall was torn down by Jesus. In vs. 21 it says this holy temple is joined together and grows in the Lord. This is the present reality. God, through Christ, has done this.

And yet…our current lived reality does not conform to this glorious vision. It even sounds ludicrous to say that Jesus has torn down the dividing wall and that Jews and Gentiles have been morphed into a new humanity akin to a temple where God dwells. This sounds like an idealistic fantasy and a far cry from reality, certainly the reality that you and I are living in. What are we to do with this? It would have been a lot better if Paul had written that Jesus will tear down the dividing wall and that this temple will be held together with Jesus as the cornerstone. But the word is not will. The words are has and is. This reality and the reality we experience are two extremely different realities. What are we to make of this?

I suggest that the reality that we are experiencing is tragic. It is a tragedy that people, us included, keep rebuilding the walls that Jesus tore down and then imprison ourselves behind those walls of our own construction. I can give you one example. There are people that have been in my life for many years. Over the years it has become clear that our views on theology, social issues, and politics have impacted our relationship. It’s not like we can’t talk to each other or be civil. But it’s not the same. There is a bit of a wall between us now that wasn’t really there many years ago. That’s an example in my own life. You probably have your own. These last several years in our body politic have been particularly nasty, as bad as it has been since the 60s and some even suggesting our nation hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War. A little hyperbolic to me but you get the point. Then there are the issues that have divided the United Methodist Church, setting the stage for a big exodus of people and churches who will go off and start their own, what is being called the Global Methodist Church. That’s just another example. If I gave you 30 seconds to write down on a piece of paper all the ways we are divided, I bet you could come up with a long list. And these walls do imprison us. Especially when we become so polarized, we are afraid to step out of our bubbles and engage with people who we deeply disagree with or don’t understand and maybe are a little afraid of. We trap ourselves in our bubbles, silos, whatever term you want to use. We are not free to build relationships with people who are in different bubbles. Heck, we may not even know those people are there. We live in our own constructed worlds and have no idea what the world is like for the people who work in the kitchen at the Mexican restaurant we eat at or the people who live over in Wedgewood.

Are all these divisions understandable? Yes. Isn’t it true that birds of a feather flock together? It is. But I want to remind us that the essence of sin is broken relationship, a failure to love God, neighbor and self. At its core, the divisiveness, the walls we construct, the bubbles and silos we maintain that prevent mutual love for one another, has the stain of sin all over it. The walls we rebuild that Jesus tore down is sinful. We need to tear those walls down that block us from loving people on the other side of those walls.

How do we tear those walls back down? Maybe verse 18 gives us a clue. “For through Jesus both of us, that is, Gentiles and Jews, have access in one Spirit to the Father.” In other words, every person has a soul. Every person has access to God through the Spirit. No person is a stranger or alien to God. Every single person. This is the truth. This is really real. No person is a stranger to God.

This truth challenges us to look at people differently. A few days ago, I was at Kroger waiting for our pick-up order to be delivered to the car. As I sat there waiting, I decided to do a little experiment. As people walked in and out of Kroger, I would look at them and say to myself, “Child of God, child of God, child of God, child of God.” While I was doing this, I actually felt something stirring in my soul, a feeling of solidarity, of connection, even a little feeling of love. It’s a bit hard to put into words really but it was a moving experience. I invite you to try that sometime when you are in a public place where people are walking around. Look at each person and say to yourself, “Child of God, child of God, child of God.” See if that stirs up any feeling in you. I think this can be a good spiritual practice and in a small but significant way break up those reconstructed walls just a little.

This vision of unity, of this holy temple that keeps growing, where God dwells, this is what is really real because of what God has done through Jesus. We rarely get a glimpse of this reality. But it’s there. God has made it happen. It is a present reality that we miss. Let this vision, this scenic vista we have been enjoying, be a source of inspiration for us as we get back on the road of discipleship. Let this be a guiding vision in our interactions with other people, especially those we tend to divide off as outsiders, unwelcome, or whatever other term we want to use. Let this be our challenge, to peer over those walls that we have constructed and see children of God who have access to God through the Spirit, all because of Jesus.