Why Bloomsbury?

Sermon preached at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church 
1/11/15 11.00am

You can listen to this sermon here https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/sunday-morning-1-november-2015#t=38:40

Ephesians 4.1-16  I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,  ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,  ³ making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,  ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.  ⁷ But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift. 

⁸ Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people."  ⁹ (When it says, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  ¹⁰ He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 

¹¹ The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,  ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  ¹³ until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 

¹⁴ We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  ¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,  ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Exodus 19:20-25  When the LORD descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the LORD summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.  ²¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go down and warn the people not to break through to the LORD to look; otherwise many of them will perish.  ²² Even the priests who approach the LORD must consecrate themselves or the LORD will break out against them."  ²³ Moses said to the LORD, "The people are not permitted to come up to Mount Sinai; for you yourself warned us, saying, 'Set limits around the mountain and keep it holy.'"  ²⁴ The LORD said to him, "Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you; but do not let either the priests or the people break through to come up to the LORD; otherwise he will break out against them."  ²⁵ So Moses went down to the people and told them.

Revelation 21.1-6a  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  ² And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;  ⁴ he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."  ⁵ And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."  ⁶ Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Do you ever wonder what the point of church is?

            I mean church in general,

            not specifically the congregation that meets at 235 Shaftesbury Avenue.

Although, of course, for those of us here this morning,

            our general commitment to the church universal

                        takes specific shape in the here-and-now

            in terms of our commitment to be here, in this place, on this day.

But whether we normally attend church here, or somewhere else,

            whether we attend regularly or irregularly,

doesn’t really answer my question of what the point is of attending church?

            Why are we here?

One of the questions I’ve been asking a few people recently

            is why they come to Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church?

And, as you might expect, I’ve received a wide variety of replies.

I thought it might be interesting if I shared some of these this morning,

            all suitably anonymized of course, to protect the innocent;

            although it’s quite likely that some of us here will recognize our own opinions.

It turns out that one of the main reasons people attend Bloomsbury

            is because of our liberal, open, inclusive theology.

Certainly this is one of the things that drew me to want to come

            and be part of this church.

We have a long and proud history of being a church where awkward questions

            are not merely allowed, but are actively welcomed.

We are a church which rejects the easy answer, the superficial certainty,

            in favour or exploring with integrity the complex nuances

            of what it means to be human before God.

So we are liberal, open, and inclusive, and always have been.

We are also politically and socially aware.

            It’s well known that William Brock, the Victorian founding Minister of Bloomsbury,

                        remarked that the best tools for the preacher

                        are the Bible and the Times newspaper,

            and we still seek to bring the issues of the world around us

                        before God in a way that transforms both us and the world.

Which brings me to the next reason people gave for coming to Bloomsbury:

            our culture of service to the world.

We may not be the kind of church

                        where people put their hands in the air for Jesus,

            but we certainly are the kind of church

                        where people get their hands dirty for Jesus.

From the night shelter to the Tuesday lunch club,

            to the Sunday homeless lunch, to the evening service,

            to Open Doors where we welcome and care

                        for anyone who comes in through the door,

            to our Communities ministry,

            to the Soup Kitchen that will be starting next year,

            to the campaigning for the living wage,

                        the cancellation of third world debt,

                        and for the inclusion of those excluded elsewhere

                                    because of their ethnicity, gender, or sexuality.

I could go on and on and on,

            about our hands-on engagement

            with the social and political issues of our city and our world.

Maybe this is why you come to Bloomsbury,

            because you want to be part of this kind of church?

Or maybe you come for the worship?

            Certainly, this was a factor for me,

                        when Liz and I used to come and sit anonymously at the back

                                    whenever we were in London,

                        never dreaming that one day we would come to call this place home…

            Well, the worship and the preaching, perhaps.

In those days, the minister was a man called Brian,

                        who is in my view one of the best preachers we have in the Baptist family.

            Although, to my eternal disappointment,

                        I never heard Howard Williams preach.

                        So I may need to reserve my judgment.

Anyway, Brian had been my College Principal,

            and I attended his preaching class.

So I’d like to say that he taught me all I know;

            but I’m not sure it would be fair to saddle him

            with that level of responsibility.

But, nonetheless, the combination of reverent worship and thoughtful preaching

            certainly keeps many of us coming back.

We have some wonderful musicians, and a fine pipe organ,

            and a willingness to sing the great hymns of the faith

            alongside the best of the more contemporary worship material.

We have, thankfully, avoided the ‘worship wars’

            which have blighted so many other congregations,

            and it is my hope that the music we use and the words we sing

                        will continue to offer a reverent and engaging path

                        to the presence of the Living God;

            who is reaching out to us in love,

                        to draw from us psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs of praise.

We will continue to learn new material,

            just as we will continue to sing the old favourites.

                        After all, it was all new once!

However, and I’m going to sound a slight note of warning here,

            nothing lasts forever,

            and certainly not the cultural forms of our worship services.

And whilst evolution rather than revolution is the order of the day,

            nonetheless, change is here to stay.

And if the main reason we come to church is the worship,

            we will need to learn grace and patience

            with those who worship differently to us.

I wonder, are we any closer to puzzling out what the point of church is?

Well, here’s another thing:

            some of us keep coming here because it’s where our friends are.

For some of us, Bloomsbury is like our family,

            and we love the community, we love the fellowship,

and even when we disagree and fall out,

            we do so knowing that there is a bond of love

            that ties us to one another at a deep and unfathomable level.

It’s like we couldn’t leave if we wanted to,

            any more than we could cut ourselves off from those we love.

But of course, this can have its problems too,

            and we need to make sure that the way we include others

                        in ‘our Bloomsbury family’

            is more than a warm welcome on their first day.

What I mean by this, is:

            Do we allow new people to come and belong as they are,

                        and not how we would like them to be?

            As with all churches, we need to guard against cliques.

But the reality for many of us is that it is the friendship and fellowship we meet here

            that keeps us coming.

Is this the point of church?

Of maybe you come here because of our location.

            In London terms, we are at the centre of the wheel,

                        with all the spokes leading to our local tube station.

The strategic and symbolic location of Bloomsbury is no accident,

            and it is only set to increase with the local development

            associated with projects such as Crossrail and Crossrail 2.

This church was built here, in this spot,

            as the outworking of a vision for a Baptist church

            for the centre of the city.

In a world where most Baptist congregations are rural or suburban,

            we remain something of an anomaly,

and so our distinctive ministry to the city,

            whether it be that corner of it on our own doorstep

                        or to the wider city where we live and work,

            is something unique and to be treasured.

Where else would we get the diversity of congregation that we get here in Bloomsbury?

            I’m sometimes asked to describe the make-up of our congregation,

                        and my response is usually that if you were to go into the street

                                    and grab the first seventy people who wandered by,

                        you’d have a fair representation.

Of course, the thing about Bloomsbury

            is that no-one ever comes here twice by accident.

Once, yes.

            It’s quite possible to be wandering by at 10.55 on a Sunday

                        and to decide to pop in.

            It may even be that we have some here this morning who fit just that category.

But you won’t be back next week by accident.

            If you come back, it’s because something about this unique expression of church

                        has drawn you back.

Of course, most of the people who visit us for the first time

            haven’t done so by accident either.

Most of the new people, week by week, when I ask them,

            say that they checked out our website,

            or our Facebook page or Twitter feed, before coming.

And so we do need to take very seriously

            he ways in which we represent and communicate who we are.

We will be a lifeline for those seeking

            a liberal, open, inclusive,

                        servant-hearted, politically-aware, socially-engaged,

            reverent, thoughtful, creative,

                        friendly, city-centre church.

And, by the same token,

            knowing who we are and what we stand for

            will allow those who need something else from their church to go elsewhere,

            rather than staying here and making themselves and others unhappy.

The thing is, there’s lots of churches out there.

            We stand as just one among many.

And the others, the conservative evangelical Baptists, the Anglicans,

            the Catholics, the Methodists,

                        the Swiss, the French, the American,

                                    the United Reformed, the Quaker,

                                                and –I-could-go-on-and-on;

            all these others – they aren’t our competitors.

                        They are our friends.

                        They are our wider family.

                        They are our cousins, uncles, aunts,

                                    great-uncles, and second-cousins-once-removed.

There is more than one right way to be a church,

            just as there’s more than one right way to be a family.

We wouldn’t dismiss our friend’s family as invalid,

            because they have different traditions or beliefs

                        about how to celebrate birthdays and Christmas,

and we should dismiss our friends in other churches

            on the basis of their differences to us.

And so, at last, and I should think some of you were wondering when I’d get to it,

            we find ourselves at the letter to the Ephesians.

And we find ourselves back at the question

            of what the point of church is?

Here, in Ephesians, the author implores his readers:

            ‘I beg you, lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.’

And here he takes us right to the heart of the issue of what it is to be a church.

            We are here, because we have been called to be here.

And we are called to behave with humility, gentleness, and patience.

            We are called to bear with one another in love.

Our behaviour towards one another, and to all those we encounter,

            is to be that of mature Christian disciples.

In all of our dealings, whether with friends or strangers,

            we are to live out the love of Christ that has called us to one another.

The writer goes on:

            ‘Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’

But, we might well reply,

            ‘How are we to do this?

            What does this look like in practice?

                        How do we live this out?

                        How do we know what behaviour is acceptable, and what is not?

Simply saying ‘love one another’, and ‘live in peace’, is all very well,

            but how is that going to work in the real world?

Well, if we are asking these sorts of questions, we aren’t the first.

            The question of how high ideals work out in reality

                        has plagued religious philosophers for millennia.

It’s the question that the Israelites put to Moses

            when he led them from Egyptian slavery to freedom:

‘Being free is great’, they said, ‘in theory.

            ‘But, in practice, how do we actually live it out?’

So Moses went up the mountain at Sinai to ask God,

            and he came down from the mountain with two stone tablets

            on which were carved the ten commandments.

‘You want to know how to live in freedom?’ said God,

            ‘then try these on for size. There’s only ten,

                        ‘so it shouldn’t be that hard to remember them and put them into practice.’

And so the Israelites tried to live by the ten commandments.

            But they soon discovered that ten wasn’t enough.

And as with all those who seek to live by rules,

            fairly soon a situation emerged

            that wasn’t covered by the ten original commandments,

and so another was needed, and then another, and then another,

            and before very long you have the whole Deuteronomic and Levitical law codes

            spelling out exactly who could do what with whom,

                        when, where, and what they could and couldn’t wear or eat whilst doing it.

But then even that wasn’t enough,

            and the Jewish legal and scribal tradition arose

            to help flesh out the many, many laws with many, many more.

And then, into this, came Jesus,

            stripping away the layers to get back to the key question:

            What is all this really for?

How are we to live as humans before God and in relation to one another?

And so we come to those strange few verses

            from the middle of our reading in Ephesians,

            where the author quotes from Psalm 68.18.

⁸ Therefore it is said,

            "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;

                        he gave gifts to his people." 

⁹ (When it says, "He ascended,"

            what does it mean but that he had also descended

                        into the lower parts of the earth? 

¹⁰ He who descended is the same one who ascended

            far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 

Here, we have a picture of Jesus as the new Moses:

            going up on high at his ascension,

                        just as Moses ascended Mount Sinai in the desert.

But what Jesus returns with is not tablets of stone

            and a New Revised Standard Law Code.

Rather, Jesus, ever the unconventionalist, returns from on high bearing gifts.

            Almost certainly what’s in view here

                        is the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,

                        when the Spirit fell from above onto the gathered disciples,

                                    bringing them spiritual gifts.

The one who ascends is Jesus the new Moses,

            and he descends back to his people

                        in all the corners of the earth

                        by the power of his Spirit,

            bringing gifts for them,

                        to teach them how to live as his people and as his disciples.

The rather radical implication of this

            is that the gifts of the Spirit have replaced and supplanted the law of Moses

                        and all that was built on it.

Even the ten commandments themselves

            cease to be binding for those who receive the Spirit of Christ,

            because the Christ-given guide to moral and ethical behaviour

                        is no longer words carved on tablets of stone,

                        but the living word of Jesus

                                    carved in their hearts and minds and souls by the Spirit of Christ

                                    who comes bringing gifts.

I always get a bit worried when I hear people speaking of the Bible

            as if it is a guidebook to Christian living,

            a kind of Christian version of the Jewish law.

That’s not it at all – the scriptures bear testimony to Christ,

            who comes to us by his Spirit, bringing gifts for faithful living.

Elsewhere in the New Testament are various lists of gifts that the Spirit brings,

            and some of those lists have led to no small amount of disagreement

                        between the followers of Jesus.

Which is a travesty and a tragedy really,

            because Ephesians makes it clear

            that the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit

                        is to enable the followers of Christ to live Christ-like lives,

                        in unity and peace, and in maturity of faith and knowledge.

The fact that this so often doesn’t happen

            is taken as an indication of immaturity on the part of believers,

and in verses 14-16, the writer of Ephesians effectively tells his readers

            to grow up, stop being babies,

            and to act their age not their shoe size!

I paraphrase, you understand, but not much!

But the point is clear.

            Just as a child must grow to become an adult,

                        leaving childish temper tantrums and juvenile behaviour behind,

            so those who are born again by the Spirit of Christ

                                    must grow into peace and stability

                        if they are to learn to live by the law of the Spirit that brings life,

                        rather than forever hankering back

                                    after the law of stone that leads to death.

And so we get to Ephesians’ own list of the gifts of the Spirit,

            and what we meet is a list of ministry gifts:

                        Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

Some have sought to make this a proscriptive description of orders of ministry,

            but that is surely to miss the point.

What we have here are gifts given to some

            for the building up of the many.

As with all the spiritual gifts, they are corporate in intent, not personal.

            These are gifts given for the growth into maturity

                        of the whole body of Christ,

            which is nourished as it shares the holy food of bread and wine,

                        and shepherded into maturity and unity

                        by the gifts that come from above.

This, then, is the point of the church.

It is that ‘all of us come to the unity of faith,

            and of the knowledge of the son of God,

                        to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

This, ultimately, is why we are here.

So, as Ephesians says:

            ‘I beg you to lead a life

            worthy of the calling to which you have been called.’

A Dismaland Sermon

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

11 October 2015 11.00am

You can listen to this sermon here: 
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/sunday-morning-service-11-october-2015#t=26:06

Ephesians 2.11-22   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--  ¹² 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.  ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  ¹⁴ For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.  ¹⁵ He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace,  ¹⁶ and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.  ¹⁷ So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near;  ¹⁸ for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.  ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,  ²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  ²¹ In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;  ²² in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Deuteronomy 24.17-22  You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge.  ¹⁸ Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.  ¹⁹ When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all your undertakings.  ²⁰ When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.  ²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.  ²² Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.

One day last month, Liz and I set our alarm clock for 4.30 in the morning,

            so that we would be up and ready to leave the house by 5.30,

            so that we would be out of London

                        and on the M4 before the rush hour started.

We were on our way to the seaside!

            Weston Super Mare, to be precise.

We’d managed to secure our tickets, for the grand price of a fiver each,

            to go to Dismaland, Banksy’s dystopian funfair.

I don’t know if anyone else here this morning managed to go?

            I thought it was brilliant,

                        in the sense that it was highly creative, original,

                        and profoundly disturbing.

If you don’t know what it was, let me explain…

            It was the intentional antithesis of Disneyland.

From the deliberately surly and provocative staff,

            parodying the smiles of Disney’s Mickey-mouse-eared greeters,

To the Disney castle reimagined as a burned out wreck,

            with a distorted Little Mermaid sitting in the shopping-trolley strewn lake.

All the elements of the Disney fairy-tale were subverted or satirised,

            In ways that shocked, provoked, and challenged.

So, for example, the happy ending of Cinderella,

            where Cinders and Charming ride off in their horsedrawn pumpkin coach

                        to live happily ever after,

became a sculpture of a fatal accident,

            snapped by hordes of paparazzi,

            as one tragic fairy-tale princess morphed into another

                        and the happy ending disintegrated before a watching world.

All the installations were created or commissioned by Banksy,

            the infamous and hugely talented graffiti artist from Bristol.

And whilst I’m aware that graffiti can be a divisive subject,

            and I certainly don’t think that all graffiti is art.

I do think Paul Simon was onto something his song ‘The Sound of Silence’

            when he claimed that

            ‘the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls’.

There was, it seemed to me,

            something profoundly prophetic about Dismaland,

            as there is about so much of Banksy’s work.

And one of the images that has stayed with me most over the last month,

            has been the radio controlled boating lake at Dismaland.

You know the kind of thing, don’t you?

            Where you put a coin in,

            and you get to steer the boats around the lake?

Well, here’s the one at Dismaland:

You can choose which boat you want to pilot,

            and your choice is between the police boat,

            or the boat weighed down by refugees.

The backdrop to the boating lake is a sculpture of the Seven Sisters,

            that iconically beautiful piece of British coastline.

But in the Dismaland boating lake,

            the white cliffs are guarded by a watch-tower,

            just in case any refugees should make it past the police boat.

The water around the boats was littered with floating corpses

            of those who had fallen overboard.

And we were invited to play with the boats.

A more powerful metaphor for the way the West is responding

            to the current Syrian refugee crisis

            I would be hard pressed to imagine.

It was made all the more poignant because we were seeing this installation

            only a few days after the tragic images had hit our news screens

            of a young Syrian child lying dead on a Turkish beach.

And it struck me at Dismaland,

            as it strikes me whenever I allow myself to open my eyes and look hard enough,

that the world is not what the world should be.

Children die;

            people leave their homes, and risk their lives

                        in a desperate hope for an uncertain future;

            happy endings don’t always happen;

                        princesses die along with the poorest of the poor;

            and a world where everyone smiles and wears Micky Mouse ears

                        is a lie we are sold,

            and it’s a lie which we buy,

                        because it’s so much more bearable

                        than the truth that is staring us in the face.

We live in a world divided,

            a world at war with itself,

and we are, each of us, complicit,

            whether directly or indirectly,

            in the systems that create slavery, oppression, and destruction.

We may not be taking the wheel

            and piloting the police boat or the refugee raft ourselves,

we may not be staffing the control tower

            that keeps out the so-called undesirables from our towns and cities.

But those who do, are doing so on our behalf, and in our name,

            whether we like it or not.

And so we come to our passage from Ephesians this morning,

            as we continue our series looking at this letter.

In this text from the first century,

            we find the author addressing, in uncompromising terms,

                        some surprisingly contemporary issues.

He offers a response to a world marred by violence, racism,

            segregation, ethnic tension,

            fear, division, and hatred.

As I read it through again now,

            just listen to the words and phrases that leap out…

Ephesians 2.11-22   

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-- 

¹² 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. 

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus

            you who once were far off

            have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

¹⁴ For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one

            and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 

¹⁵ He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances,

            that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two,

                        thus making peace, 

            ¹⁶ and might reconcile both groups to God

                        in one body through the cross,

            thus putting to death that hostility through it. 

¹⁷ So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off

            and peace to those who were near; 

¹⁸ for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 

¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,

            but you are citizens with the saints

                        and also members of the household of God, 

            ²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

                        with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 

²¹ In him the whole structure is joined together

            and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 

²² in whom you also are built together spiritually

            into a dwelling place for God.

Did you spot them?

Aliens, strangers,

            people who are far off,

            people with no hope,

            hostility, division,

A dividing wall, that is broken down,

            reconciliation, peace, bringing people near,

            common citizenship, commonwealth,

            a new, unified, humanity.

In Ephesians, it all begins with ethnic tension.

            It all begins with the division between Gentile and Jew.

And the author reminds his Gentile Christian readers,

            that they themselves were once disadvantaged aliens,

            that they were themselves once ‘far away’.

In language which echoes that of our other reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy,

            the key point for the writer of Ephesians

            is a recognition that no-one has the moral high ground.

The starting point for all of us,

            is that we are alienated from God.

In Deuteronomy, the command to the Israelites

            to care for the poor and the vulnerable,

            and to welcome foreigners to their land

was rooted in their own previous experience of slavery in Egypt:

The Israelites are told:

            “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt

                        and the LORD your God redeemed you from there;

                        therefore I command you to do this.”

And so it is in Ephesians,

            where the author starts with his readers’ own experience of alienation,

            as the basis for his instruction about inclusion and reconciliation.

For the Gentile Ephesians,

            the division they faced was focused around the act of circumcision.

The Jews practiced this, whereas the Gentiles didn’t,

            and in the Jewish faith, only circumcised Jews

                        had full access to what Ephesians describes

                        as the ‘commonwealth of Israel’.

Incidentally, the use of this term ‘commonwealth’ here is quite deliberate,

            and it takes us the letter firmly into the world of the economic and the political.

The division between Jew and Gentile was no theological nicety,

            no simple matter of ‘inner faithful conviction’.

Religion in those days was neither personal nor private,

            it was public and politic.

And so the division between those who claimed a special relationship with God,

            those who demonstrated this by their dress code, ritual practices, and ethnic identity,

and those who were shut off from that special relationship,

            was a division that was played out in the public sphere.

If you walked the streets of the Mediterranean,

            you didn’t need to lift a man’s tunic to know whether he was a Jew or a Gentile,

            because the hidden mark of the covenant was written large in his dress and behavior.

Well, the divisions in our society may not be primarily between Jew and Gentile,

            although you don’t have to rewind very far in European history for this to be the case.

But we too have a divided society,

            where issues around dress code, ritual practice, and ethnic identity,

            mark one people group from another in public, economic, and political ways.

We live in London, one of the most culturally diverse cities on the planet,

                        and yet we still have our ghettoes,

            we still have areas of ethnically demarcated social deprivation,

                        we still have people divided one from another by language and culture,

            we still fear the stranger, and seek safety in segregation.

We’re not so different from the situation imagined by Ephesians,

            and so where the letter goes next is of as much relevance to us

            as it was to those in first century Turkey who first received it.

Ephesians, you see, is offering an alternative way of looking at the world.

            It is seeking to undermine the narrative of ‘them and us’ at the most basic level,

                        by asserting that no-one, absolutely no-one, can claim the moral high ground,

                        because all of us start off as those who are, ourselves, alienated.

And the thing is, once the narrative of ‘them and us’ is undermined,

            once we accept that in Christ, there is only one humanity,

            we inevitably find ourselves at the cutting edge of the call to reconciliation.

Because we are all one in Christ Jesus,

            we become those called to live into being

            a reality of peace between human beings.

And wherever there exists a division between people,

            we are called to break down that dividing wall.

And this is such a powerful image, isn’t it?

I have here my own piece of Berlin Wall,

            which I’ve brought out before, and surely will do so again.

But of course, the year the Berlin wall came down,

            was the year that the Mexico-USA wall was started.

And just a couple of weeks ago, here at Bloomsbury,

            we heard from Sami and Ben about the situation of violent tension

                        between Israel and Palestine

                        which is so vividly symbolized by their wall.

And so we’re back to Banksy again,

            and his efforts to highlight the injustice and futility of the division

            that such walls create in the name of security.

Here is a piece of graffiti that he painted on the wall near Bethlehem,

            and again, it’s very moving, and it’s very powerful.

The call is clear: it is for those of us who, with the Ephesians,

            have learned that we are all one in Christ Jesus

to live out in our lives the conviction

            that Jesus Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between peoples.

We are called to play our part in speaking and living into being

            an alternative narrative to the one which is dominant in our world

            where ‘might is right’ and ‘the other is my enemy’.

And this may mean going to Palestine to stand alongside those who are under threat,

            as some here have done,

or it may mean taking a stand in the workplace against the incipient racism

            that lurks beneath so many of our relationships,

or it may mean getting involved in welcoming refugees

            and putting pressure on the powers that be to do more in our name,

or it may mean taking action on an issue like housing,

            where the rich get richer and the poor get pushed out,

or it may mean taking a stand on another issue of inclusion,

            such as economic status, social class, gender or sexuality.

In all of these cases, and so many more,

            we are each called to play our part in speaking and living into being

            an alternative narrative to the one which is dominant in our world.

And the narrative of God that we see in Ephesians,

            is one where God at work in the world

                        by his Spirit and through his people,

                        who are the body of Christ on earth,

            to draw near those who are currently far off.

The narrative of God is one where those who are in slavery to oppression

            are drawn into a new life of freedom and liberty.

And this is true whether that is slavery to sin,

            or oppression under the law,

whether it is slavery to ideologies of dominance,

            or oppression in ancient Egypt, first century Paganism, or twenty first century Syria.

The thing is, if our own belonging is to have meaning,

            it must extend to others.

If Christ brings peace and reconciliation between us and God,

            then we must be active in, praying for, and living out

            that kingdom of peace on earth, as it is in heaven.

If the wall that divides us from God has been broken down,

            there is simply no justification for our supporting the systems

            that continue to divide one people group from another.

And yet, the logic of division is so compelling, isn’t it?

‘Without the wall, the terrorists would bomb innocent homes.’

‘Without the wall, we’d be overrun by immigrants,’

‘Without the border controls, our society would collapse…’

And so we become complicit in a system that uses violence

            to exclude the undesirable,

            and to fix the problems that it has itself created.

It seems that we live in a world

            which seeks to use a blunt instrument to try and break something,

            and then to use that same blunt instrument to try and hammer it together again.

And all that we end up with is a broken world.

We use violence to break down anyone who is a threat to our own power and stability.

            We sell arms to insurgents, and we sell arms to oppressive regimes,

                        and then we sell arms to those who are fighting insurgents,

                        and to those who are fighting oppressive regimes,

            in the quiet hope that if we can keep them all fighting each other,

                        we can continue to turn a profit and keep safe behind our own border controls,

                        without them noticing who the real enemy is.

And then, when they do notice who’s been pulling the strings all these years,

            and they turn on us,

we look at these broken places and realise that they are now a threat to us,

            because it’s got out of our control,

and so we bomb them in the name of national security.

The irony is not lost on me that when a politician observes that violence begets violence,

            in a spiral of tragedy upon tragedy,

and suggests that the rule of law has become subservient to the rule of retribution,

            and that maybe there is another, more peaceable way,

            they are called a threat to national security.

The irony is not lost on me that those who have most,

            are those who most want to keep away those who have less.

The irony is not lost on me that the narratives our society lives by

            are created by and propagated by a collusion between power and might,

            that is always acting in its own self-interest.

And in the midst of this we have the collaboration and collusion of the media,

            who fill in our world the place occupied in the first century

                        by the cult of emperor worship,

            as they furnish us with propaganda to make us feel our actions are justified,

right up until the moment when they decide that more profit can be made

            in selling pictures of a dead child on a Turkish beach.

It may be unduly cynical of me to suggest

            that the reason the picture of Aylan Kurdi got so much media attention in the west

            was because he looked like one of our own children,

                        with his little red T-shirt, his fashionable cropped shorts,

                        and his trendy cute trainers.

But there have been plenty of other pictures available of dead Syrian refugee children

            who they didn’t make the front pages,

            because they didn’t look like one of ours.

And so we’re back to the division of humanity,

            we’re back to ‘us and them’

            we’re back to a narrative that says ‘we matter, and you don’t’.

And it is in this context that the community of Christ’s followers

            are called to live into reality

                        the truth that only the power of nonviolent love

                                    can undo the love of power

                                    in a world of domination.

We are called to take our public stand against the systems of oppression,

            whether they be military, economic, or political.

We are called to speak out against narratives of racism, nationalism, and segregation,

            to welcome the alien, to care for the refugee,

                        to include the excluded,

            to make peace with those who seek war,

                        to break down the walls that divide,

            to welcome all as fellow citizens.

And it starts with us, here today,

            as we learn together what it is to include with no exclusions,

because we are all one in Christ Jesus,

            and he has made us to be the new humanity.