“I Love Them too. Deal with It” – God
Working on this Sunday’s sermon on Ephesians 2:11-22. I used to read those words about the dividing wall and the strangers to the promise language as thought that God was the one who had set up the rules and boundaries. With that idea, then Jesus came to remove God’s barriers to salvation and grace.
Today, I saw a whole new perspective.
To Paul, the boundaries, the walls, and the hostilities are the creation of us humans. We call each other the circumcised and the uncircumcised. We set up the ordinances that determine who we see is In and who is Out. The divisions are ours and since people think what we say is the right way, then our ideas of who has hope and who are hopeless are received and accepted by those we tell.
The walls are ours. The Iron Curtains, the Border Patrols, Us, and Them are things we create.
Christ came to break through our own ideas of who are strangers. And our kind are never strangers.
In Ephesians 2:16, God’s strategy is to reconcile us all to God then challenge us to respond. “Deal with it,” God says.
Reminded me of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10. The Holy Spirit did the same setup. God already had Peter’s attention. God made an independent connection with Cornelius (one of the Stranger Gentiles). Then needed to show Peter what Grace had done.
The dream of the unclean food and then the outbreak of the Holy Spirit amongst the Gentiles, God says, “I’ve chosen them, they are mine. Deal with it.”
So, who do we as the gatekeepers of the gospel see as outside the circle of God’s love? And does God really have that limited of a circle of Grace?
Not according to my reading of Scripture. How is God asking us to have our walls and boundaries ripped down by Christ?
The answer is not easy to accept. God doesn’t force us to accept each other. But where is God breaking out in power and then stands there looking at us saying, “I love them, too. Deal with it”
