So, Jesus 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. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but 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.
The title for today’s reflections comes from Ephesians 2:12-22, written by Paul or one of his followers as instructions to both Jews and Gentiles in the 50’s or 60’s AD, on how to live together as God’s people, and perhaps even like each other and cease being hostile to one another, even though they came from different backgrounds and spiritual traditions.
This letter celebrates the author’s vision for the church and how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus brought together a new and unified community. When it was written it expanded the vision of God for both Jews and Gentiles, giving to all a greater understanding of the “bigness of God and of God’s inclusive Kingdom. I believe we today can learn from this timeless writing how we, like those in Paul’s day, continue to put God in a box, limiting, not God, but ourselves. As we open our boxes and let God be God to us, God will open our hearts to see God’s universal love for “all the Children of the World.”
The more I read the Christian and Jewish Scriptures on which I have been nourished from my youth, the more I realize I am not qualified to determine “who is in and who is out” of God’s kingdom based solely on their religion or lack thereof, or their politics and whether they agree with me or not. I do believe that our allegiance to God comes before our allegiance to country, and that being first a citizen of the Kingdom of God will give us the vision necessary to be a citizen of our country of birth or choice as well as a citizen of the world.
For those of us who are Christians, the idea that “Jesus is the cornerstone of the temple onto which we are all built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God,” is an image that opens our minds and imaginations, as well as our hearts, to the possibilities of being co-creators with God in the building of the Kingdom “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” The following episode from the Gospel of Mark can give us an idea about where and how and with whom we can begin or continue this partnership with Christ.
“And the Disciples and Jesus went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. As people recognized him, they rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” (Mark 6:30-56)
My prayer for all of us today is that, like Jesus and the early disciples, wherever we go and whatever we do, that all whose lives are touched by ours will be healed.
