A Single New Humanity

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" These famous words were spoken by the American President Ronald Reagan in June 1987 during a speech given near the Berlin Wall. They were intended for the ears of the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev. At that time almost no one expected that the Berlin Wall would be torn down without a fight. Many of us believed that only World War III could tear down the Wall and that because thousands of nuclear missiles were lined up on both sides of the Wall, all of us might die in the process. You may not have heard Ronald Reagan's speech, but most of us here today will remember and those of us who don't remember may have seen images on TV when just two years later in November 1989 over a million people came together to begin to tear down the Berlin Wall.

When it was completed the Wall was 140 kilometres long, constructed from 45 000 sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 meters (12 feet) high and 1.2 meters (4 feet) wide. It was reinforced by mesh fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, and had over 116 watchtowers and 20 bunkers. But those of us who remember it know that the Berlin Wall was more than a concrete barrier. For the first twenty years of my life the Berlin Wall was probably the defining symbol of what was called the "Cold War" between East and West, between Russia and her allies and America and her allies. Because it was the symbol of a division that ran across the entire world, the fall of the Berlin Wall really was the end of the world as we knew it. But it wasn't torn down by soldiers. It was torn down by members of the public who came to the Wall with sledgehammers to chip off blocks of concrete as souvenirs. This event has taken on greater significance for me in recent years as I am now related by marriage to people who risked persecution, possibly even their lives to escape from East Germany. Former East Germans now call the fall of communism symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall "the peaceful revolution". In today's reading Paul is writing to the Ephesians about another "peaceful revolution" that changed the world as we know it more fundamentally than even the fall of the Berlin Wall.

2: Citizenship image

We have a proverb: "a picture speaks a thousand words". Paul may not have known this proverb but I suspect he would have agreed with it. Although his writings are letters they are packed full of images, of picture language, taken from the everyday life of his readers. This morning I want to draw our attention to two of those images in this reading from his letter to the Ephesians. And the question I hope to answer is: how do those images relate to the breaking down of the "dividing wall" which Paul refers to in verse 14: Christ Jesus "has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us".

It seems likely from the way Paul writes that the church in Ephesus was mostly or even entirely made up of Gentile members - non-Jews. This is a very important fact for our understanding of today's passage. It is important because the Gentiles, as Paul tells us, have, or rather they had, a citizenship problem.

I expect I would be right in saying most of us have one of these [hold up citizenship certificate] or have the right to have one. It says: "I, the Minister of State for Immigration, hereby grant this Certificate of Australian Citizenship to the above named applicant who shall be a Australian citizen on and after" the following date. Whoever has one of these certificates has the right to live in Australia, to the benefits of living in Australia, and to freely come and go from Australia. Of course anyone who is not born here first needs to meet some conditions of citizenship. When Paul talks about the problem the Gentiles had he uses the language of citizenship.

2.1 The Gentiles' radical change of relationship with God in Christ (the outsiders become insiders)

In verse 12 Paul says to the Ephesians:

v. 12: "you were... aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world"

The Gentiles had been people living without the rights of free citizens. Some of you may even know what that's like. There are people in Australia - refugees and asylum seekers - who don't have citizenship rights. This has been a controversial issue in Australia over the past few years hasn't it? There has been a lot of debate about whether the Australian government acted justly in keeping people in detention centres while deciding if they meet the conditions of citizenship, or if the American Government acted justly keeping people in Guantanamo Bay and denying them the rights of their citizenship. And what do people need to know to become Australian citizens? Should they be allowed to become citizens if they don't know Don Bradman's batting average?

Paul begins by saying that the Ephesians were "aliens and strangers" to Israel and to God. But by verse 19 this situation has been reversed:

v. 19: "you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God"

Something has happened. The Gentiles have experienced a radical change in their membership of the people of God. They were aliens and strangers... now they are citizens and members. The verses in between v. 12 and v. 19 are about how this change of citizenship has taken place and what it means, not just for the Gentiles but also for the Jews, in fact for the whole of humanity:

v. 13: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near..."

Paul makes it very clear, doesn't he, that it wasn't anything the Gentiles did which helped them to meet the conditions of citizenship in God's household. The one and only cause of the radical reversal of their relationship with God was the death of Jesus Christ on the cross:

v. 13: "in the blood of Christ"

v. 15: "in his flesh"

v. 16: "through the cross"

"Now [Paul says] because of Christ