Where We Came From--July 23, 2024

Where We Came From--July 23, 2024

"So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called 'the uncircumcision' by those who are called 'the circumcision'--a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands--remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." [Ephesians 2:11-13]

The Scriptures keep calling us to remember that we know what it is like to be outsiders looking in, and that we know what it is like to have been welcomed to belong in the family, too.  Over and over again, the biblical writers do not want us to forget where we came from.  And they do that, not to keep us "down" in some second-class status, as in, "You're nobodies who come from nothing, and that's all you'll ever be!" but rather just the opposite--"You know what it is like to have been strangers and foreigners, and you know how much it means to be told there is a place for you at the table!"  That's at the core of what it means to be the people of Jesus--we are all, in some sense, misfits and mess-ups who have been told we are beloved and chosen by grace.  When we remember that, we will hold the door open for others who have been told they don't belong; when we forget it, we end up deputizing ourselves as bouncers and gatekeepers to prevent others from coming in.

In fact, that theme--of outsiders being welcomed in--is not only a central idea of the New Testament, like here in this passage from Ephesians that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, but it's actually one of the most ancient parts of Old Testament Israel's identity and storytelling.  Way back in the earliest portions of Israel's Scriptures, the Torah, the people of Israel were taught to recount that their story was one of outsiders being welcomed in, and how that made a difference in their daily lives.  Deuteronomy 26:5 instructed them to offer gifts of the harvest in thanks to God with this story: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous..." before retelling how God had brought them out from slavery into freedom.  And then throughout the Mosaic law, the people are reminded to treat foreigners, aliens, and strangers with care, because they were supposed to remember how they had been mistreated in Egypt by Pharaoh and were not supposed to do the same thing again.  "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt," Exodus 22:21 says.  And then Leviticus 19:33-34 adds, "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God."  You can't get very far in the story of ancient Israel without some reminder that the people knew what it was like to be outsiders and aliens, and that once God had given them a new identity, they were supposed to living out of that memory so they never mistreated anybody else who was out on the margins.

Flash forward to the life of the early church, and the same story emerged with new details.  The first Christians were convinced that God had done something new in Jesus and made a whole new kind of community (as we'll see a bit later in this passage, actually, a whole new humanity!) in Christ, and once again, God was gathering in "outsiders" to belong as "insiders."  Whereas the first disciples of Jesus all came from a Jewish background, God was now welcoming Gentiles (non-Jews) into this new community, exactly as Gentiles!  In other words, you didn't have to stop being Gentile (as if you could--it was, in a very real sense, something you were born into) and become Jewish in order to be Christian.  You were welcome as you were.  But as more and more Gentiles were welcomed into the church, there was a fear that they would forget that they had once been outsiders.  The concern was, much like for ancient Israel, that the new generation would forget what it was like to have been mistreated as outsiders and foreigners, and that they would end up doing the same thing all over again to somebody else.  So the writer of Ephesians here speaks directly to that group of Gentile Christians, who had formerly been labeled "outsiders," "aliens," and "strangers," and says, in effect, "Don't forget where you came from!  You know what it was like to be on the outside looking in, and you remember what it feels like to be told that you now belong.  So don't you dare do the same thing to somebody else who is longing for welcome!"

Of course, the same dynamic still plays out today in a host of different ways.  Sometimes it's the "old-guard-versus-the-new-guard" dynamic in a church, where the newer members start elbowing out the long-time members because they have forgotten what it feels like to be on the margins.  Sometimes the reverse is true, when long-time members feel threatened by new faces and don't want to share decision making.  Sometimes it has been along racial or cultural lines, where whatever the latest immigrant group in town is gets the cold shoulder from everyone else, even though they themselves had been immigrants from somewhere, too.  Sometimes in leadership it's been the "old boys' club" mentality that didn't want to let women into roles of leadership.  We invent all kinds of ways of forgetting that we know what it was like to be outsiders who have been welcomed in.  We keep needing voices like this one from Ephesians that will remind us where we came from, so that we will hold the door open for those who are waiting to be welcomed.  Christians are supposed to be people who never say, "Go back to where you came from!" but rather, "Regardless of where you've been or what you've been through, Jesus calls you to himself, and you belong."

It is, of course, humbling to realize that I'm not "in" because of my goodness, my holiness, my morality, my piety, or my nationality.  It's humbling to admit that my belonging comes as a gift even though I've been an outsider and an "alien" before in the spiritual house of God.  And it is even harder to let go of the illusion that I get to have control over who else is allowed in, or to put conditions on how they are allowed in, since the writer of Ephesians insists that God in Christ has welcomed Gentile outsiders as outsiders, without having to make people fit into some other cookie cutter mold.  But that's how belonging to the people of Jesus works--we belong, not because of our sameness, nor because other people measure up to MY expectations, but because God keeps choosing to welcome us in.  Like it or not, God takes in strays and prodigals--and of course, all too often, it's the uptight Older Brothers who think they get to keep out the riff-raff and up missing out on the party with their arms crossed in the darkness outside the banquet.

Today, how is God calling us as well to hold the door open for others, as we have had the door opened up to us already?

Lord Jesus, don't let us ever forget where we came from, or how your love welcomed us as we are to belong among your people.