By the Rev’d Andrew Coyle

Season: 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a | Ephesians 2:11-22 | Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Peace to all who are far off and peace to you who are near.

Perhaps we can say those words today as something of a prayer. There is ongoing violence in Palestine that has its roots in over a century of conflict. It is now over two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, but that invasion is part of a conflict that goes back to 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea. And last week, there was an attempt on the life of Donald Trump, which
perhaps speaks of the deep divisions and competing world views that are present in US life and politics.

Peace to all who are far off and peace to you who are near.

That is our prayer, but, in spite of the current state of the world, it is also a promise. Those words come to us from the letter to the Ephesians. And the world in which that letter was written and originally read was a world divided into two camps:

• the Jews
  • the chosen people of God
  • the ones to whom God made Godself known
  • the ones to whom all the promises of Hebrew Scripture had been
    made
•  and the Gentiles (everybody else).

In this world, the Jews were “us,” and the Gentiles, clearly, were “them.” And, as is pretty clear, we too live in a world very familiar with notions of “us” and “them”, both on a global scale and also in our everyday interactions with those who look different from us and those who think and believe differently from us.

It is also pretty clear, however, that the writer of the letter to the Ephesians, rejects any continuation, any perpetuation of those distinctions of “us” and “them”. The writer speaks, instead, of peace, of reconciliation, of the removal of that which divides us from one another. “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”. “Brought near by the blood of Christ”… “In his flesh he has made both groups into one”… The writer of the letter to the Ephesians clearly believes that the peace and reconciliation that he proclaims has something to do with flesh and blood, Jesus’ “flesh and blood,” certainly, but also our own flesh and blood.

We who gather so often in this place are probably quite familiar with phrases like the “body and blood of Christ.” After all, we say it every time we share the bread and the wine at the Eucharist. And we call what we do when we share the bread and wine Holy Communion because in that sharing we acknowledge our participation in the life of Christ. But that participation in the life of Christ is only possible because, in Christ, God participated in our lives as a human being.

So, when the writer of the letter to the Ephesians proclaims that “you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” and that “in his flesh [Christ] has made both groups into one”, he is saying that Christ’s humanity has brought us face to face with our own common humanity. What we share with Christ and in Christ and with each other is a renewed
vision and experience of our humanity. And while differences in gender, age, nationality and ethnicity are hugely significant and mean a great deal to us in terms of how we organise our lives and interactions with one another, it is in our humanity, our common humanity, that we are reconciled with God, through Christ’s humanity, not according to the specifics of our particular identities.

And this is why, in the letter to the Galatians, Paul says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. It is not that these identities or circumstances no longer exist, or that they are no longer significant or meaningful, but that they do not determine our relationship with God. We who were once far off have been brought near to God because Christ shared our blood.

So, peace to all who are far off and peace to you who are near. Words of prayer, words of promise, but also words of call. Words of call because God so loved the world that God immersed God’s self in the world in Jesus. God immersed God’s self in our humanity and touched us all with the divine presence. We are all holy people, touched by the hand of God, recreated as one new humanity.

How then are we to live as holy people, as this new humanity? Well, the writer of the letter to the Ephesians puts it this way, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. Surely as members of the household of God, people reconciled with God through our common humanity, we are to live ourselves as reconciling people, in holy communion with God and with each other, speaking peace and living peace.

Surely as members of the household of God, made one in Christ, we are to live as Christ did, with compassion and with a love that will not be compromised by violence or the threat of death. It is a big ask, to be sure. But it is also the case that we are being called to recognise and act upon the humanity that we share in order to address that which divides us. We are all children of God, all one in Christ Jesus. Recognising this makes it possible for us to more easily, more readily, access our shared humanity, as well as the empathy and compassion and hope that that recognition invites us into. Ours is the work of peace. Not the peace that smooths over our differences or seeks the easy way out, but the more costly peace that comes from reaching out, as God did to us in Jesus.

In Jesus, God entered our humanity to call us back to an awareness of who we are and to whom we belong. Our calling is to reach out also to those around us and acknowledge our shared identity as children of God, all made equally in the image of God. And in this reaching out we remind each other of our common humanity, and enable each other to inhabit this identity to which we are called by Christ.

So peace, peace to all who are far off and peace to all you who are near.