I was recently reading an article by the psychologist Clay Routledge in which he was discussing his new book entitled, Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of Invisible World. His book is, among other things, a sort of survey of the current religious landscape. It is filled with fascinating information like, “Young adults are less religious than older generations but are more inclined to believe in ghosts, astrology, and clairvoyance.” He uses facts like this to conclude that, “People may be looking to nontraditional beliefs in their search for meaning, but there are reasons to doubt that those are effective substitutes for religion. Religion may be a uniquely powerful meaning resource because, in addition to providing a needed space for spiritual engagement, it binds individuals to a meaning-sustaining social fabric. Many alternatives to traditional religion are products of an increasingly individualistic culture, more focused on personal interests and less on social duties. However, the more a belief system promotes interdependence, the more likely it is to enhance meaning.” In other words people still believe in something beyond themselves, but not in a way that binds them to their fellow man, rather in ways that are individualist and divisive. I bring this up today because of the discussion that Paul is having in his letter to the Ephesians. He states, “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.” Just a quick summary of what he says. There was Israel and God’s chosen people the Jews. When Christ came the exclusiveness of this relationship was open to all and now, for lack of a better term, we are all free to be God’s chosen people.
So lets go back to our current day and age where the trend of our society is to seek meaning beyond ourselves in ways that separate us one from another. If you want to put it in terms of thermodynamics Paul is claiming a sort of inverse of the second law which basically states that ordered systems tend towards disorder. Paul today is saying that in Christ a disordered systems, that is separation and alienation among individuals, moves towards order or put another way in Christ there is unity. That which had previously divided has been made one through the blood of Christ. And I think that is no small thing especially in our times where our common bonds are deteriorating. If you do not believe me let me give you just one quick example. The following comes from the statistician Nate Silver’s website. It states in looking at the last presidential election, “More than 61 percent of voters cast ballots in counties that gave either Clinton or Trump at least 60 percent of the major-party vote last November. That’s up from 50 percent of voters who lived in such counties in 2012 and 39 percent in 1992 — an accelerating trend that confirms that America’s political fabric, geographically, is tearing apart.” More people are choosing to live with their own kind to the exclusion of others.
And there are at least two ways that you can look at this deterioration with concern. The first is in a sort of cultural anthropological way acknowledging that as Lincoln pointed out in the Gettysburg Address a house divided against itself cannot stand. In other words a certain amount of cohesion is needed to have a functioning society and the less cohesion, the less functioning. As we continue to separate ourselves one from another it is hard to see how there will not be serious consequences.
The second way to lament this phenomenon for us Christians is to be saddened that so many have abandoned the unity that is found in Christ and are instead busying themselves with poor substitutes. Those who have given up the Son of God are now chasing after ghosts and quasi-religious hucksters who offer the spiritual equivalent of a fake Rolex. It only appears genuine if you don’t look to closely or try to go swimming with it. And while it can sometimes be enjoyable to look out at the world and inventory all of the people who are wrong, God’s call on our lives goes beyond this. For in many ways Christians have been just as guilty at establishing this redoubt like mentality – cordoning themselves off from the heathen. But this is not the call of unity, the call that Paul shows us today. We are called to show people the real thing. To show people the beauty of the unity that is found in Christ alone. And to do this we cannot just preach to the choir or live in Christian cul-de-sacs.
But we must also acknowledge that this is something of a hard message to convey in our day and age because most everyone carries around an unquestioned bit of postmodernism within them. Postmodernism is many things, but the one we often hear about and are asked to accept as a virtue is the very personal nature of meaning. That is we are supposed to be non-judgmental and think our version of the human condition to be any better than anyone else’s. If we do, we are seen as exclusionist, as in saying Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. But what we read from Paul today does not seem exclusionary in the least. In fact it all sounds rather inclusionary. It is the gathering of the entire human family under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The more post-modern type would claim exclusivity to such a notion because it only comes through one means, but even if we are guilty of that charge it does not make it wrong.
I want to read a bit from two of my favorite authors to explain both the current reality and the sort of vision glorious that Paul describes today. First in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, he identifies much of our present breakdown in his description of hell. This is not the hell of flames and demons poking people in the butt with pitchforks, but rather it is a sort of rainy bleak landscape. Lewis states when describing the people in hell: “The trouble is they’re so quarrelsome. As soon as anyone arrives he settles in some street. Before he’s been there twenty-four hours he quarrels with his neighbor. Before the week is over he’s quarreled so badly that he decides to move. Very likely he finds the next street empty because all the people there have quarreled with their neighbors – and moved. If so he settles in. If by any chance the street is full, he goes further. But even if he stays, it makes no odds. He’s sure to have another quarrel pretty soon and then he’ll move on again. Finally he’ll move right out to the edge of town and build a new house…That’s how the town keeps on growing.” It is a rather interesting version of hell. The main feature is not torment but is rather complete and total individualism, wherein everybody is the arbiter of his or her own truth. They quarrel because everyone believes that they are right and will not submit to anything greater than their own personal will and own personal sense of right and wrong. Now a more modern type of person might say that this is the price we pay for true freedom where we are not oppressed by silly outdated rules and mores – we are free to live in disharmony, never submitting ourselves to something greater. But let’s think about rules for a moment and turn to someone else.
The second piece that I want to briefly read comes from G.K. Chesterton’s book, “Orthodoxy.” In it he calls the submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as submitting to doctrine and discipline. He writes, “Doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But [if] the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice….when their friends return to them they [would find them] all huddled in terror in the centre of the island.” It all sounds counter intuitive to our postmodern ear. The idea that true freedom is found through submission to Jesus; True freedom being possible only within the walls of Christianity. To walk in Christ’s will and delight in his ways is where we find unity and liberation. When we don’t play within the walls of the freedom found in Christ we develop our own walls, but these walls are not inclusive but rather exclusive. They are used to keep others out rather than the parameters by which we are all united.
Our world is becoming more fractured and this is a cause for some alarm. And part of our job on this earth is to show people the beauty and the unity that is found in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ where true freedom is found; a freedom that unifies rather than divides. And this freedom is what we are called to and what we are to call others to so that we may be Christ’s own both now and forevermore.