"Alive Together"

Ephesians 2:1-10 - "Made Alive"

I'm thinking of the poster that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive." Early in our class, we had each of the members share their BC/AD stories. I still treasure those moments. On Sunday, we will celebrate "All Saints Sunday." Will we be celebrating those who are dead or those who are alive? The answer is that they are dead in the body, but alive to Christ in a way that we can only imagine. But they were a "dead or alive" story long before they died, and so are you.

The death way of living is described in verses 1-3. We were dead: stuck in our "transgressions and sins", following the ways of the world and the ruler of the opposing kingdom "of the air." We were disobedient, gratifying our natural cravings, and objects of God's wrath. If only the break were that clean! I still find myself caught in worldly ways and thinking, and I still give into natural sinful cravings. As a college professor used to say, "You may be dead to sin, but sin is not necessarily dead to you," That's what the whole sanctification dimension of God's grace is about. We can get saved or converted in a moment, but character transformation takes awhile (just about a lifetime!).

What about us being "objects of wrath?" Schubert Ogden, my professor in Systematic Theology at SMU gave me some help with this one. He said, "God is holy and loving. When we come to God in cooperation, we experience grace. When we resist God and live in ways contrary to his holiness and love we experience wrath. But in both grace and wrath we are encountering the holiness and love of God. Again, I must relate this to being the parents of Tyler and Reece. Tina and I don't want to be angry and carry out punishment with our kids. We don't enjoy doing it. But our boys know when they compromise their own safety or of others, wrath will come swiftly (not because "they broke the rules" but because they are endangering themselves). There is very little grace offered in that situation. They also know that wrath arrives when they speak and act counter to who they are (as Cottons) and whose they are (constantly reminding them of whose child they really are, God's child). We give a little more grace here, but the clarification of values and why we do and say what we do will occur. Then they know wrath will occur when there is disobedience or lack of respect. Our children, even as young men, need to know the importance of "followership" and "submission to authority" if they are going to be effective leaders some day. Again, we would prefer to do none of this, but our responsibility for holy and loving parenting requires it. So it is with our relationship with God. We, of course, fall very short of the standard, but we keep on learning.

Paul has set up the contrast perfectly and in verse 4 describes the AD part of our Christian experience. Notice the difference: 1) dead in transgressions and sins (BC), now alive with Christ (AD); 2) following the ways of the world (BC), now raised with Christ to do good works (AD); objects of wrath (BC), now God's workmanship, saved and being saved by grace (AD). I invite you to do a meditative reading of Ephesians 2:4-9. The imagery is so rich and the language is so vivid that reading it several times over and taking time to picture what is written will really bring this text to life. Picture your death and resurrection. Picture your transformed behavior, attitudes and speech. Ask yourself the following, "How have I been raised with Christ and how is my life have a heavenly dimension to it?" "How does my life demonstrate 'the incomparable riches of God's grace?'"

Ephesians 2:11-22: Far and Near

The resistance of the Jews to the gospel and the receptiveness of the Gentiles to it was a total surprise to the early apostles. Christianity had always been seen by them as a Jewish reform movement. This passage and the first part of chapter 3 deal with the Jew-Gentile relationship. Paul again returns to the theme of the Gentiles being included in God's Plan for the salvation of the world. The "uncircumcised" are now "circumcised of heart through Christ." We are no longer "foreigners" but rather "fellow citizens."

But what about the "wall of hostility?" My reading of history and my experience having lived in two different areas of the United States is that God may have brought down the wall, but the people have not. In El Paso, when I led inter-faith services between Christians and Jews for the National Day of Prayer, the El Paso for Jesus movement accused us of worshipping other gods, creating their own Jesus-only National Day of Prayer service, aligned with the wife of James Dobson. I would fight for their right to worship Jesus, but I was disappointed that we could not allow the wall to come down to discover common ground for action and witness. It has been my pleasure to celebrate the Seder (Jewish Passover) feast with Jewish friends and found a richness there that has transformed and deepened my understanding of holy communion. When Rabbi Leon in El Paso came to Trinity-First United Methodist Church and chanted the 121st Psalm, I was deeply blessed and I understood the feel of the Psalms in a whole new way. I was excited to be part of a Protestant-Roman Catholic-Jewish coalition that was able to get water to 7,000 homes in the colonias in far east El Paso. It is my heart's desire that everyone find faith in Jesus Christ. But I don't believe it happens by telling everyone else they are wrong and bound for hell or communicating to people, "I have something to offer you, but you have nothing to offer me." It only builds the walls of mistrust and hate higher. I am picturing Ronald Reagan saying to Michael Gorbachev, "Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall." When will we say that to our fellow Christians and possibly to ourselves about our anti-Semitism? Have a great day.