Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
May 22, 2013
One Christ, one Spirit, one
People
St.
Paul, writing to the members of the Church in Ephesus in Asia Minor, made the
case that the resurrection of Christ cancels out and abolishes all divisions and
factions among the earth’s people, at least among those who are “in
Christ.” Writing to a contentious congregation
that had been divided between devout law-observant Jews, and intentionally
non-Jewish gentiles, between many groups that considered they had the way of
righteousness and that the others were hopelessly alienated from God’s
intentions, Paul said that just as Christ’s victory over death removes sin,
failure, and guilt, it also removes faction, sect, and clique. He writes (my paraphrase):
“You were dead through the trespasses and failures in which you once lived, following those about you in the way they go, marching after the ruler who appears powerful but is just so much empty air, that spirit now still at work among those who stubbornly resist God. All of us once lived as part of them, driven by the urges of our self that resists God, at the mercy of its desires and senses, and as a result we naturally were damaged goods, like all the rest of them. But God, rich in mercy, out of great love for us even when we were dead through our lack of respect of boundaries, brought us to life again along with Christ—it’s God’s grace that rescues you—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, all in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show his immeasurably rich grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus…“But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away from each other have been brought together 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, any hostility between us … 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 to the Father through one Spirit. So then none of you are any longer strangers and aliens, but rather you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (Eph. 2:1-20).
Where
God’s Spirit dwells, there is love, and there is peace. There may not be a monotone unison, but
there is harmony, on occasion perhaps seasoned with dissonance.
Grace
and Peace,
Fr.
Tony+
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