For Christ Is Our Peace

 

Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Pentecost 9 Lectionary 16 July 21, 2024

Epiphany Lutheran Church Richmond, Virginia

Ah! Peace and quiet! When I say that, you know just what I mean, don’t you?

Where is your place for peace and quiet? My family spent this past week at the beach. For many, sitting and looking out at the ocean is the ultimate in peace and quiet. For many, others, peace and quiet means being in the woods! (For me, in particular, it’s when I emerge from my tent into the early morning, and I’m the first one up. Boiling water, making coffee, sipping, sitting and listening to the sounds of nature.)

Is “peace and quiet” the same as sabbath time? It can be, if it’s a practice with intention: consciously receiving the awareness of God’s blessing of this day, the gift of this day of life. And, to continue the theme of sabbath that we’ve been emphasizing all summer, during Pastor Phillip’s sabbatical, this can happen on a typical day at home, right? Maybe your place for sabbath peace and quiet is while you’re sitting in a particular chair in a particular corner of a room, with your Bible and other devotional reading on the table beside. Is your time for the peace of sabbath early in the morning, before anyone else is up? Or at night, when you’re the only one still awake? Does peace and quiet descend when everybody else leaves – to go to school, or to work, and you’re left at home, alone?

It could be that it’s easiest for you to receive sabbath time when you’re in community. I hope you receive sabbath during our Sunday morning gatherings. Each month, I meet with a small group of other spiritual directors, at Richmond Hill, in the Church Hill neighborhood. We gather and begin with at least five minutes of silence. Being with those others – breathing, praying, listening for God in our prayer – allows me to receive the consciousness of God’s presence.

Don’t we need those times of peace?

Jesus and his apostles surely did. We see that in this morning’s story from Mark. Jesus had sent those apostles out among the villages, two by two. He had sent them out with the kingdom power to heal, and to call people to turn towards the good news of Jesus who, in what he is saying and what he is doing, is showing who God is and what God desires. Do you remember what we read this morning? The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

“No leisure even to eat!” Wow. Have you been that busy? It might be that you’re that busy on a typical day! Peace, quiet, rest; sabbath rest. How necessary it is to receive that gift of time, to recharge, to be refreshed by God the Holy Spirit, so that we can return to the work that God calls us to do.

That’s the point of sabbath. It’s not time for mindless escape! Sabbath is a gift from God, for re-centering; for receiving new energy for the word God gives us to do. This morning’s verses from Ephesians lead us into particular work we are called to do, in our time, as followers of Jesus the Christ.

The author of the letter to the churches in Ephesus writes, “for [Christ] is our peace.” And we understand, from these verses, that peace means a deeper partnership with God whose desire is to “[break] down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Think of this: “Peace be with you” is what we need to say, in particular, to those from whom we are divided!

In this, could we followers of Jesus be any more counter-cultural? In our culture, so many are devoting so much energy to building and maintaining the dividing walls between us! The solution to those fleeing from death and danger to our southern border is to build a literal dividing wall, out of the hostility between us. Life-long Republicans find themselves on the wrong side of a dividing wall if they question the direction of the party since 2016. They are judged to be not pure enough, to be RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). And, of course, “progressives” excel at enforcing purity. On a podcast, I heard a progressive woman say, “We’re losing leaders because people are making mistakes and now there’s no room for making mistakes” – and so they’re being canceled.¹ They’re cast out on the other side of a dividing wall of purity of thought.

If Christ is our peace; and if Jesus the Christ reveals, through what he said and what he did, what God is like and what God desires; and if God desires that God’s children imitate Jesus who has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us; then, hoo boy! Because imitating Christ means entering into the hostility to bring the peace of Christ!

* * *

The writer of the letter to the churches in Ephesus is specifically addressing the dividing wall of hostility that Christ broke down between Jews (who were holy) and Gentiles (people like us! -- who were unholy). Here are some of the verses: So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’ – a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands – remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

This is relationship language! A “commonwealth” is a community of people who are caring for each other, caring for the common wealth! And “covenant” names a deep, committed relationship that can’t be broken. The writer of Ephesians is saying that we who are not Jews were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” we were “strangers to the covenants of promise.” But Christ, though his flesh and blood, on the cross, has broken down the dividing wall, to put to death that hostility!

For Christ is our peace.

What if we do more than simply talk about this?

What if we followers of Jesus could move in the world with the imagination to begin breaking down the dividing wall of hostility between MAGA Republicans and “Progressive” Democrats; the dividing wall of hostility between those on either side of the abortion dilemma; the dividing wall of hostility between those at a stand-off over immigration; the dividing wall of hostility between Christian Nationalists and we followers of Jesus who understand Jesus’ words and actions to mean something much more inclusive of all of God’s children, of every nation?

This is dangerous stuff, isn’t it?

Can we followers of Jesus receive from the Holy Spirit the imagination to wade into the polarities, seeing each other as created by God, which makes us all children of God? Can we be guided by Jesus’ words and actions of radical inclusion, that reveal who God is and what God desires?

Christ is our peace, declares the writer of Ephesians, which means that what we do and say is rooted in the love of Christ, and the humility that comes with knowing that we are lost without the forgiveness of Christ. April Lawson writes, “We need a community and a framework that remind us over and over that the line between good and evil runs down every human heart – including our own.”² Luther, of course, said exactly the same thing more than five centuries earlier, when he wrote that you and I are each, simultaneously, “saint and sinner.” When we recognize our sinfulness and our need for repentance – which we confess in the first words we speak in worship – we rejoice in the forgiveness and the reconciliation and the peace that God has accomplished through Christ’s death and resurrection. And it becomes obvious that no group of God’s children has any standing to erect dividing walls of hostility to separate themselves from any other group of God’s children. In fact, we have to answer to God when we judge and exclude!

Hans Tiefel writes, “Christians have no choice but to relate and present their reflections and judgments to one another and to God.

“Humans are created by God out of God’s love. Human response and responsibility lie in returning to God’s love as well as to share that love with one another….It is the experience of God’s love and presence in their own lives that converts and convinces humans….[E]xperiencing God’s love is life-transforming.

“The effect of this assurance is to be healed, restored, reconciled, enabled to begin anew.”³

Does this means that we will become buddy-buddy with those on the other side? Of course not! But it is a sign of our sinfulness when our opinions divide us from one another in a way that is irreconcilable – and we have no choice but to present our reflections and judgments to God.

It is also unrealistic to think we can convince another person to change his or her opinion. Any results are up to the movement of God the Holy Spirit. But this is so incredibly important: followers of Jesus must not begin with political opinions and then try to fit Jesus into that. Followers of Jesus must begin with what Jesus actually said and what Jesus actually did – because that reveals what God is like and what God desires. The Jesus who offered welcome without exception – even and especially to those who were considered unclean. The Jesus who offered invitation and compassion and forgiveness without exception – even and especially to those who did not “deserve” it. We who are now the body of Christ in the world (we say it every week during the dismissal!) – we know what to do, to imitate Jesus the Christ!

None of this is easy, when there are so many dividing walls of hostility that we and those we disagree with have built. Breaking down those dividing walls of hostility is only possible with the power of God’s love, and compassion, and forgiveness, which Jesus has brought into our lives.

And so we pray “Your kingdom come.”

And we act for that kingdom, with courage that God the Holy Spirit gives to us.

And we are grounded in the words from Ephesians: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace;…

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine

1adrienne maree brown interview with Krista Tippett. https://onbeing.org/programs/adrienne-maree-brown-on-radical-imagination-and-moving-towards-life/

2April Lawson, “Why We Cancel,” in Comment: Public Theology for the Common Good, Vol. 42, No. 1, Spring 2024

3Hans O.Tiefel, Christian Ethics Introduced (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2024), pages 125, 130, 131.