Ephesians 2: 11-22 Christ's presence in the church

I wonder what is the most beautiful church you have ever seen – and why?

Any ideas?

For me the most beautiful church I have ever seen is still in the process of being built.

The Sagrada Familia in the city of Barcelona has been being built for some 100 years or so.  It started construction in 1882 and it is anticipated that it may be complete in 2026.  It is imposing in it’s architecture having been overseen by the Spanish artist and architect Gaudi for a significant part of it’s construction.

What always impresses me when you see it and we have seen it twice some 5 years apart is the way that it uses different interpretations of gothic architecture at different parts of it’s construction. It very much feels like something which is unfinished and organic in it’s construction.

Now of course if we go back to very old churches like Dorney itself we know that the building has changed dramatically over the years since it’s original construction with different generations adding their own bits to it. But of course when we see it now we at first glance see what we think has been the same church for many hundreds of years.

Why start with describing church architecture.

Well I think this in itself is a very good analogy of what Paul is talking about when he talks about the church here in the book of Ephesians.

Now of course he is not talking about the church as a building – physical in the sense of this church building we are in today,  but he is talking about the church in the sense of the spiritual building that is created by Christians who together create a worshiping community of faith.  It may be in a physical building like we worship or may be in a house church or a community that meet in a school or leisure centre.
But Paul talks of the community of the church being like a temple where God dwells.

Verse 21:  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

This few weeks before lent we are looking at Christ’s vision for the church and we last week Janet led us in thinking of the power that was available to us as God’s people. But today we are looking at the presence of God in the church.

And I want us to continue to think of this idea of the analogy of the building but not one which stays the same but one which is growing and changing- being added too and changed to become more and more beautiful.
Something which is organic in that it never stays the same but is always being changed and developed.  And you may want to hold on to the pictures you have of beautiful churches to help you  in this analogy as we think of it in the spiritual sense of the church.

SO what does Paul teach us as we look at this passage in Ephesians.

Firstly let’s go back through the thrust of his argument before we get to the last few verses which I have already quoted.

So in verses 11-13 he tells us that we are no longer aliens and foreigners but citizens with God’s people.

This is written primarily for the Ephesians who were gentile converts to Christianity. So Paul is saying that because of Jesus we gentiles can know the reality of being fellow citizens of Israel.

We now can know the same privileges of God’s people, we are not outcasts but insiders with the same rights.

I love this analogy because I remember well the reality of being a foreigner or alien. Living in India as an 18 year old I knew very well what it felt like. I was young, female and blond and as such was well aware by the looks I got that I was different that I was like an alien in some of the more remote places I visited. It was an uncomfortable place to be as you felt completely outside of the culture and the normal things you depended upon to help you were not around.

But Paul says because of Christ we are not like this we are insiders – not outsiders we can know the reality of being part of the body of Christ- the reality of knowing the blessings of being part of God’s people and not merely residents but CITIZENS.

And then we can in verse 14-18  know peace.  Because the gentiles were living outside the law – there was hostility between Jew and Gentile.  

But we know that Christ, the Prince of Peace, becomes our peace, and speaks peace to us.   Then, in himself, he unites Gentile and Jewish believers into a single new Humanity.

Now this is where the theology gets a little complicated. This new humanity is actually Christ himself – when we know him for himself we become part of his body.

Being part of his body leads us to be in peace.

Peace in it’s deepest sense in terms of well-being as opposed to peace as merely the absence of conflict.

This peace is deep seated in the sense of us as individuals when we know Christ – but also is a hall mark of the corporate nature of being part of Christ’s body – the church.

This is something which we need to work at though – because we all know that unity or peace is one thing that we lack a huge amount of the time as Christians. This is the start today of the week of prayer for Christian unity. Just to have a week of prayer shows that how often this is a problem in the church today – and that the presence of so many different denominations in the Christian church shows in itself that this has been an issue down the centuries.

But that is not an excuse for us – we can pray for unity but we need to work for unity in our relationships, and that brings us to what is I think is at the heart of Christ’s vision for the church as seen by these verses in Ephesians.

Consequently Paul writes in verse 19- as a consequence of being a citizen of God’s kingdom, a consequence of being part of the new humanity living in peace as part of Christ’s body – Paul writes we are being built into a dwelling place where God lives.

And this is where we get to think of the vision for the church – because it is here that we see the analogy of the church as a living building coming into play.

Now firstly we need to see that being built into somewhere where Christ dwells covers us both as individuals and as a church together.

It is not just here that us being a dwelling place for Christ is written about. In the book we see it as well as the book of Corinthians. If Christ dwells in us because of what he achieved on the cross then we are individually temple like.

This is in sharp contrast to the Old Testament view of the temple as housing God – the holy of holies only being able to be accessed by the High Priest. But now God is present in each of us.

But what is clear here though is that it is not only as individuals that Christ dwells within us – but actually together we are being built into his body- an organic dwelling place for him that changes and develops over time.

The beauty of this building is that each part of it has a vital part to play, each part of it adds to the dynamic of the building and constantly creates something new within it.

And this is truly Christ’s vision for the church – is a place where he dwells – a beautiful building.

The word vision is one which is banded around Church circles a great deal. It is good to think of vision because it helps us to focus on our priorities.

With the interregnum coming the PCCs are going to have to try to articulate the vision for the benefice in order to find out the sort of person that is needed to lead the church into the next stage of its life.

So I guess the question I have is what is our vision for the church?

We do have one which has been around for a long time which is:

‘a community centred on God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, worshipping Him with our whole being, seeking to grow in our love for and knowledge of Him and enthusiastic in sharing his grace and truth with others’

But I wonder if what Paul says here about Christ’s vision for the church is something which resonates with us as his people here in Dorney, eton wick and Eton.

Because I think that Paul’s words here in the last couple of verse of our reading are really helpful:

²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

 What does it mean to be built together to become a dwelling:

Quickly I want to think of three ways we can do this – and the emphasis on this is intentionally.

Firstly we need to grow together – in the intentionality of our relationships. Last week Janet at Eton Wick asked people to turn to the person next to them and say something like – I am really pleased you are here today. We all felt a bit awkward doing it but actually she is absolutely right – it is important that we are all here for each other.

We don’t just come to worship for what we can get out of it ourselves- but we come to worship because of what we are giving to each other as well.  Working together as one body we need to get to know each other – to share with each other, to support each other.

People often say to me that you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian and whilst that is true to some way my stock reply concerns the need to come together with others to keep the flame of faith burning in some way.

But I think this passage urges us to think bigger than this. We come together because we need each other. Christianity isn’t just  about our own personal faith – but it is about the fact that together we are growing into something amazing. We need each other to create this.

The church needs you- your fellow Christians need you. And we are to be intentional in developing those relationships with each other so that we can together become the dwelling place for God.

And then we need to be intentional in our worship – The church needs to be a place where God is seen and he is seen not only in our relationships but also in our worship.

We may all like different styles of worship but yet again it is not only about what we are getting out of Church but it is about what we achieve when we are there.

By being together and worshipping with others then God dwells within our time together.

The Lord is here – we say at the eucharist – and Paul in this passage affirms this  as we know that together in our worship then Christ within us builds us into the organic building that he wants us to be.

And then thirdly we should be intentional in our witness. We together are Christ’s body and as such as represent him to the world around us.

It is our responsibility to witness to him in our relationships with each other and in worship and in how we respond to the world.

This is a huge challenge for us but one which we must take on board.

Are we a beautiful building that others see and through this building they see Christ?

So Christ’s vision for his church is the vision of a beautiful organic growing and changing building.

In order to develop this we need to be centred on him, living out our relationship with him not only on our own but with each other, intentional in how we share with each other, how we worship and how we witness.

Let us pray that this is not only Christ’s vision – but this is our own.

Well Happy New Year 2013 to you all. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to write more and to blog more. So here is my Sunday sermon for Tomorrow Epiphany.

Is Christmas over and done with for another year?

Well the tinsel and cards and trees are supposed to be down today. The presents will all be put away, the thank you letters on the way to be written and Christmas is over again for another year.

It feels that way as we come to this Sunday –we are all into the next year and already the things of Christmas have been forgotten.

But this Sunday when we celebrate the Epiphany forces us back to the new born King and to see him again.

And as we look at the wise men it makes us realise that Christ – the baby isn’t just for Christmas but for life, as the experience of the magi and the lessons they teach us make us think of our Christian journeys and our response to the new born King not only for a season but for each day of the year.

So here we are again looking at the coming of the kings- magi – wise men what ever you want to call them. Coming from the East following the star and arriving at some point after the birth in Bethlehem to see Mary and Joseph and the baby.

So what do they teach us as we start this new year together. Firstly - God makes every effort to teach those who are far away from him

First, we have to remember these wise men were likely Gentiles, and not Jews who had come seeking the king of the Jews.

The Jews thought the promised Messiah was for the Jews, not the Gentiles. In fact, all the first followers of Christ were almost exclusively Jewish.

The Christ was supposed to deliver them from their sins. He was supposed to deliver them from their oppressors, and yet the signal to the wise men was that God was calling them as Gentiles to the Christ. Second, they didn’t even share the religion of the Jews, they were Magi, which was a combination of a learned scientist with cultic astrologer.

They knew science as well as magic. They were the academians of their time,
What this tells us is that God never abandons anyone – no one is too far away from him.

If God can reach pagan Gentile astrologers, he is still working on people who we may think are too far gone. God never gives up on anyone and he uses whatever means he can to help lead them to Christ.

In this case God sent them a message using an astronomical event, a star, to signal to them that they needed to search for the child born as king of the Jews.

God used a language they understood – the language of astrology to bring them to see Christ – so God uses a star.

Sometimes we look around at society and at others around us in our communities and loose hope that individuals will ever think of God let alone come to a relationship with him – they seem so far away- there seems so little hope.

And yet we need to be people of hope as we think of the magi- God reveals himself in different ways to people, and often it is through us that he does so too.

We may be the person whose lives point to him in how we act or react to different situations- are we open this year to be used by God to be a star- pointing to Jesus?  Because God never gives us on anyone.

Secondly-God wants us to diligently seek him  By that I mean we must seek out a relationship with Christ, or God through Christ.

The danger we fall into is thinking that by knowing about Jesus is enough. The truth is we can have all the knowledge of the Bible, we can follow God’s commandments, and still miss what the Christian faith is all about, seeking Christ until we find him.

These Gentile, pagan astrologers, with only partial information about a Jewish Messiah set off on a journey of faith to find the Christ, the king of the Jews, a journey which is estimated at 500-1000 miles.

It may have taken them 3 months perhaps even longer to get to Bethlehem. That journey cost them time, money, and it cost them their precious gifts.

We know these Magi only had partial knowledge about the Bible and the Jewish Messiah because otherwise they would have known to look for the infant in Bethlehem, but they had faith, and made an effort to seek out the Christ child.

On the other hand we see the religious community in Jerusalem. The people with a firm grasp on the Bible, people who lived out the letter of the law as written in Scripture.

They did all of the ritual and followed all of the commandments. They knew about God from their Holy Scriptures. Yet, when the Wise Men show up, Herod and these religious leaders, were stunned to find out the Messiah had been born, in fact it says they were “disturbed,” or “troubled” upon hearing the news.

They had either not seen the star in the sky, or were unable to interpret its meaning. They had no clue their king had been born, and it had to take some pagan, Gentile, astrologers to tell them about the Messiah.

Did the religious community seek the Messiah earnestly – or did they just have some vague hope.

We are told to seek God – to take opportunity to find him in our lives.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).”

And when we find him, when we have a relationship with God through Christ, everything else falls into place. The magi were rewarded for their journey of faith to meet Christ.

When we come to church, when we live good lives is it because our primary focus is on seeking Christ, to search for him to try draw nearer to him? Or are we like the religious leaders in Jesus day who think that doing our religious duty is enough, following God’s commandments, being at church, maybe even knowing the Bible really well?

Then thirdly we need to offer of ourselves/worship Christ

Worship is not an option with Christ. We need to worship him. Once the wise men reached Jesus it says the first thing they did was worship, just like the shepherds who had already visited Jesus and worshipped by singing praises to God. It says of the Magi:

NIV Matthew 2:11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh

They bowed down and worshipped. One way to worship was to bow low before another. It signaled ones submission to the other as having authority over them.

How do we in our worship show that Jesus is our Lord- how do we in our daily lives show this too.

Then they worshipped in another way. They presented an offering, three gifts were presented to Jesus as a sign of worship

We worship when we give our offering of ourselves, our offering of our time our offering of our finanaces.

 We worship by offering that which is valuable to us. The gifts which the Magi brought were very valuable, they were given at great cost to themselves. The Christ deserved a gift worthy of his kingship.- Gifts of gold, frankinsence and myrhh.

Each of these gifts came at a significant cost to the bearers. Worship should cost us something.  – What are we going to give as our offering to God to Christ- this Epiphany, this year?

And then finally the Magi remind us that we need to continue to be open to God’s Spirit – The wise men obeyed God’s direction by not returning to Herod.

The journey to the Christ and their reward of faith had taught them to remain open to God’s leading.

There is never a point in our lives when we can say that we’ve arrived in the sense that we’ve got the Christian life all figured out. We need to seek him, we need to worship him, but these aren’t a one time event. We must continue to remain open to God’s leading. Scripture concludes by telling us about the Magi:

NIV Matthew 2:12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Even though the wise men had found the Christ child and had worshipped him, they weren’t done. It wasn’t, “okay I did my duty, I’m glad that is over let’s get back to regular life.”

Their seeking God didn’t end with meeting Christ. They continued to remain open to God. God gave them a message in a dream. Remember these are men whose job it was to interpret dreams, and so God spoke to them again in a way they would understand, in a dream.

They recognized this dream as a message from God and they obeyed. They didn’t go back to tell Herod, because little did they know Herod was making plans to try to kill this king of the Jews.

The point is clear for us. Just because we have sought Christ, and found him, doesn’t mean we are at the end of our journey. It is only the beginning. God wants us to be open to the leadings of his Holy Spirit. It may not be a dream, but God still speaks to us in other ways such as through Scripture, through prayer, to lead us away from danger and to stay focused on his plan.

So has your encounter with the new born King ended with the New year and the putting away of the Christmas decorations – or will it continue to challenge you through this year too.

God calls us to seek him just like the Magi – he reminds us through them that no one is too far away from him and that he speaks to us all in ways we can understand. He reminds us to offer ourselves to him in the fullest sense and to be continually open to the journey of faith and where he will lead us to this year.