Eph 2.11-22, 21st July 2024
If you have ever sat at the back of Church during the week, perhaps especially on a Saturday – you will have seen people who come up to the door, peer in and walk away. Sometimes the Church sitters, the welcomers, will go out and say Please do come in! and sometimes that will work and often it wont.
Saturday Open Church coffee, I think, is an exception to this rule, perhaps because there is a steam of people going in and out and perhaps because of that others feel its okay to put their head round the door.
Its not easy to walk into a space that you’re not familiar with. I think you lot are good at welcoming others.
I think we could do with working on getting to know each other better. When I needed help with the photobook working out what your names are – only ¾ of you are in it – quite a few of you didn’t know who others are.
So my challenge to you is to find someone and say Look you probably told me ages ago, but who are you and what’s going on in your life and what brings you here each week?
I once had an upset parishioner – she was upset with me because I had not invited her to the Harvest Service. I said to her – you are on the Church Electoral Roll, you get the email news sheet and the magazine, you are part of the family, you don’t get an invite. I expect you to be inviting others who are not part of the family. She liked that answer. Oh I hadn’t thought of me as being part of the family!
Yes you are part of the family. You are part of the family because of Jesus.
I would like to say that you are part of the family because you have signed up to get the emailed news sheet, or you are on the Church Electoral Roll, you are baptised, you are on a rota giving time to serve your church, you are giving financially regularly through the Parish Giving Scheme, that is what I would like to say – but St Paul would say ‘There’s nothing wrong with any of that But that is Not what makes you, Not WHO makes you part of the family.’
It is Jesus that makes you part of the family.
St Paul in Ephesians is addressing the problem of Them and Us. Them being the people who are not proper followers of Christ, Us being the ones who are proper followers of Jesus. Them and Us. There’s clearly some rude words being used here. They are politely translated as the Uncircumcised and the Circumcised. And frankly even that’s still not very polite.
I suspect that there has been some Name-Calling going on, some labelling of Thems and Us’s. Its not helpful.
Paul wants to remind us of what Jesus Christ has done for you in his death on the cross.
It starts off with you realising that as you accept Jesus as your messiah, saviour, Lord, that Jesus gave you a peace. A deep peace. An Inner Peace
that reconciles you with your maker, your redeemer, your judge.
You, through Jesus, have this inner peace. And in this peace we find that we have Access to God.
!We have Access to God, the Father and to the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross.
I was trying to explain this idea of access to some primary school children and said You have easy access to your teacher. She is with you throughout the day. You do not have access to her when you go home. You can have access to the Headteacher but for that to happen you need to ask and schedule an appointment. But with God. You do not need to see if God has a space in His diary – we have access to God
My son Sam used to be particularly good at just coming into my study, regardless of whether I’m in a meeting and just saying – Any chance you could drive me somewhere tomorrow?! Or something like that. I’m glad he does it because I get to use him as a sermon illustration.
You and I we have that sort of access, that sort of peace, that comes from being in Jesus Christ.
You have Access to God.
I was recently talking about one of you to another one of you, and he said – Oh yes that person, he, is a brick – a brick – meaning: solid reliable, a friend in need. It’s a wonderful old bit of slang – You’re a brick.
St Paul says This Peace,
not only does it bring you into the presence of God, through Jesus,
not only does it give you Access to God,
but also you now have a purpose, rubbing along with others as a Brick, as part of this wonderful Temple.
This New Temple – you are a brick in this new temple that together works for the Glory of God,
Here together we find God at work by His Holy Spirit.
In being a Brick in this new temple – that means you have a function and a purpose. It means you’re not alone, it means you’re part of the family. So stick around and together we will endeavour to be there for each other, –
and like bricks in a building : support and encourage each other through this troublous life, we will help to hold each other close to God, close to the source of our peace.
When Paul calls you a Brick what he means is you are not an outsider, you are not a consumer, but you are family, part of the community and the call – so that together we can grow in love and number and service.
Jesus on the cross has brought us near to God through His blood shed on the cross – that has given us Access and it has made us a Brick so we are being built up as a community, as a Holy Temple in the Lord.
Okay if you’re paying attention – point one Access, point 2 Brick, point 3 is Community, or Church family. Point three is Not … Circumcision.
ABC Access Brick Community.
The thing with the previous Old Temple is that it had its walls and walls are great for keeping things safe, and keeping people out. So in the Old Temple in Jerusalem, that Jesus and St Paul would have walked around, they would have seen these wonderful magnificent buildings and because they were Jews and male Jews, they would have been allowed past some of the walls but even they would not have been allowed into the priest-only areas. So there was a variety of Access.
St Paul tells us that what Jesus was also doing on the Cross was he was breaking down the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.
The Walls were making enemies of those who are In or Out, the Thems and the Us’s – but in Jesus Christ – that’s all done away with.
John Stott tells us that the Ceremonial laws from Leviticus, they’re all washed away. So if you were a Jew who had become a follower of Jesus, Paul is saying you can now eat bacon. You’re also allowed to not eat bacon. But what you can’t say is that Eating Bacon is only done by people who half-heartedly follow Jesus. And you can’t say: Not eating bacon – that’s what a real proper follower of Jesus would do. No. St Paul says Jesus’ death has done away with all of that.
We do not have tiers of superior or lesser Christians. We all one in Jesus Christ.
So the Ceremonial law and the sacrificial system that wall, that’s all done away with by the blood of Jesus. You can no longer use them as a method of salvation.
Likewise says Stott, the Moral Law – It is only in the death of Jesus that we find that our moral standing before God is righteous – because of Jesus.
When we stand in front of God, it is not because of our obedience to the Levitical moral code that makes us look good. It is by the blood of Jesus that we are made right with God.
It is Jesus who gives us Access to God,
it is Jesus who makes us into a Brick,
it is Jesus who builds us into a Community, and He has done that through His blood, breaking down the walls of hostility between the Us’s and the Thems.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, in a heated moment Paul explains that in Christ there is no Jew no Gentile, no slave no free no male no female for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
And you can see that in the early Churches – we see women leading the Church being part of the apostolic team, being deacons, along side female slaves who are also deacons. Its an astonishingly radical community.
Alas over the centuries aspects of this have been lost. And Hurrah over other centuries other aspects of this have been recovered!
Today we remember what Jesus has done for us on the Cross – He has given us Peace – a Peace so that we have Access, because it is through Jesus that we have Access to the Father by the Holy Spirit.
And we have another layer of Peace because God has given us a purpose, to be a Brick, not a consumer but a support, building God’s Holy Temple, – so keep learning each others names, encouraging each other in our daily walk of faith.
For you are, we are Bricks building God’s Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
ABC We have Access, You are a Brick, and We are One family, one Community in Christ because of Jesus, and because Jesus is all you need. Amen.
photo is of me on the South side of Temple Mount in Jerusalem. These are big bricks!