Verse: Ephesians 2:11-13
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Devotion
For the sake of … expediency … I’ll go ahead and let you google circumcision if you don’t know what it is. I’ll try to take this as delicately as I can and try to cut out any unnecessary puns. So, imagine if at Citylight, we went ahead and made every man and boy sign a document saying that they were circumcised, and if they were not, they were willing to have it done by church staff (I’m not sure which support team we’d have do this, but as a member of the tech team I can verify that the only team with scissors is the children’s ministry). Normally we’d set up a metaphor here, but no – that’s it. Paul’s writing to the church in Ephesus – which was in western Turkey (south of Troy, if that helps), which is primarily populated by Greeks – which you could call gentiles, which simply means not Jewish by birth. Paul is saying, “Hey remember when to get salvation you had to give up bacon and see a guy about impromptu anesthetic free surgery? And then I, Paul, literally stopped the Jewish members of the church from continuing to enforce this?”
If you go through the book of Acts, you’ll find several situations where in establishing the church there was a rough transition process of dropping Jewish traditions – and that goes all the way back to Jesus. Jesus was told to stop his followers from plucking wheat as they walked through the fields and eating it (as one does) because it violated sabbath, and they followed that up later with “there’s no miraculous healing on the sabbath” (which there’s no way they didn’t make that one up right then). Unsurprisingly, church leaders, after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven (and here I imagine that it probably started 4-7 minutes after he ascended), had trouble not enforcing old rules out of … I guess, habit.
You know … like we do.
There is a habit, and it’s particularly strong amongst those of us that were raised in the church, to try to enforce rules that God didn’t make, or didn’t make for us. Naturally, it’s hard to bring some of them up, without getting into debates. One comes down to whether tithing (literally giving 10% and whether that’s on gross or net earnings) is a mandate by God or just a decent idea. How can curse words invented after the Bible was finished be sinful? Should we let the uncircumcised be on the pastor team? Are tattoos the penmanship of the devil? Should you wear hats in church (answers to all this and more in the curiosity club)? And that leads us into something a little more subtle – it starts to come down what a “Christian” is supposed to “look like.”
They look like “Jesus.”
Yes, that’s the ideal answer. Or that’s the goal. I think, because we don’t spend enough time figuring out what it means for each of us individually to look like Jesus, when we try to help or mentor others we want to make new people look like “us” trying to look like “Jesus.” That’s not the same thing. We were commissioned to “tell the good news.” We were warned by Jesus SO MANY TIMES not to overstep our bounds unless we are legitimately actually 100% shinily and glowingly perfect. Jesus ranged from blunt metaphor (don’t remove a splinter from someone else’s eye while you have an actual board in your) to literally holding a stone and saying to men ready to stone a woman to only throw if they are sinless. Paul follows this up later with the race analogy – keep your eyes on the prize (Jesus) and keep running. How many times have you successfully ran at full speed while looking left and right all the time without falling? I can barely walk and do that. I don’t think I’m explaining this perfectly, but I hope that you can see my point, and that we can evaluate what is essential and what is useless and ready to be cut off from what we make Christianity into.
People put obstacles in your way to drawing near to God, but now you are close to him. Don’t obstacles in other people’s way. People tried to push you away from God, but you still got closer to him. Give other people that chance.
Prayer
God, I want to look like you. I know that desire in me will be met with your help. I know that you help everyone who comes to you with that desire will receive that help from You and they do not need it from me. Help me to keep my eyes on you and not on others. And thank you that when your son died for us he set us free – free to run to you. Amen.
Author: Chris Simmons
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