What is the peace of Christ? Let’s see what we might learn from Ephesians. As always, I have prepared this interpretation of scripture in conversation with contemporary persons and with those who have gone before. I am most grateful for the communion of the saints, and I look forward to the contributions each one of you will make to the ongoing dialogue.

I detect three subdivisions that will help us navigate through this ancient text. In the first section, verses 11-12, this author, so influenced by Paul and by Colossians in particular, describes the problematic situation of crisis in which we humans find ourselves. The second part, verses 13-16, describes what God has already done to overcome and repair our plight. Finally, the third segment, verses 17-22, describes what we are called to be and do as led by the divine Spirit.

Our condition. The author clearly states that the contemporary predicament we find ourselves in is the work of our own hands. We have gotten ourselves into this mess, but without God’s gracious actions we will never get out. We are reminded of our tendency to coin insulting ways of describing those who are different. For we view others according to the flesh; we judge by outward appearances and worldly standards, failing to perceive the true inner beauty of each person made in God’s image. Ephesians mentions two concrete verbal slurs. Some Jews of that time commonly referred to non-Jews, or Gentiles, as the uncircumcised, a physical reference that would foster feelings of disgust. The word “atheist” is also mentioned here. We know that the Jews were accused of this sacrilege by Romans who resented their unwillingness to honor the imperial deities. Perhaps our author is implying here that some Jews have committed the same sin against others who do not follow their religion. Even very devout people can become “atheists” when they substitute their idolatrous projection of what they think God ought to be for the true nature of the Holy One.

In any event, our ethnocentrism has separated us from one another and from God. Ethnocentrism assumes the superiority of one’s own culture and even affirms that others will have access to the divine only through that special human tradition. Time and again large parts of humanity find themselves marginalized, excluded from the commonwealth and the promise of a good life, with no sense of belonging, no hope, and feeling that we must face the world alone, far from divine help.

What God has done. Ephesians, like most of the Bible, portrays God as a tremendously kind and generous being. God never intended for us to be divided along ethnic, racial, cultural, or any other lines. And so God acted in and through Jesus of Nazareth, who is proclaimed as the one divinely anointed, the Christ. He is our peace. Our writer sees the crucifixion of Jesus as the turning point for all of human history. Here he or she is clearly influenced by Colossians 1:19-22, which poetically depicts the cosmic significance of the cross as the reunion of heaven and earth. Ephesians does not disagree, but prefers to speak of Christ’s death in more human terms. We must try to forget later interpretations of this event, which too often focused on a vengeful God whose justice demanded the exaction of a price for sin. That conception is foreign to Ephesians. How then did this author understand the at-onement?

First, we find repeated use of the spatial metaphor of distance and nearness. We shouldn’t take this literally, as referring to physical extension. People living in the same house can be far apart, and each of us may find ourselves separated from God who is ever present in, with and through all of creation. Jesus is the renewed, repaired connection between God and all of us. Calvin writes: “This is a beautiful title of Christ: the peace between God and humans” (150). Somehow the cross overcomes and abolishes the alienation between each of us and our Creator, and in so doing crosses out the divisions between different types of persons. Ephesians clearly implies that we cannot enjoy communion with God when we continue to distance ourselves from any class of fellow humans.

The cross, then, is the chief symbol of reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace making as initiated and effected by God’s own self. Jesus’ crucifixion killed hostility! This is a marvelous divine act, a scandal by worldly standards, something beyond adequate comprehension, an expression of the awesome holy mystery. Our writer uses several subsidiary metaphors to evoke wonder and gratitude (at parts he or she may be quoting an ancient hymn). She or he refers to Christ’s blood as the uniting element. This may be a reference to rites described in the Hebrew Bible. However, I would also like to point to the use of language of the body in this passage. When these two words are put together, I sense that Christ’s blood, symbolically received in the Lord’s Supper, is the common life force, if you will, connecting and sustaining all the diverse components that make up the living organism of the world church. Calvin again: “The Son of God, by assuming a nature common to all, has consecrated in His own Body a perfect unity” (151).

What has the cross destroyed? Ephesians mentions several interrelated images. A dividing wall has been smashed. What is this partition? Other texts from the time of Ephesians clearly suggest that reference is being made to the way that the Hebrew laws separated or set apart the people of Israel. As we have seen, this author believes that the result has been to create enmity between diverse peoples. The cross overcomes this alienation and hostility by abolishing “the law of commandments contained in ordinances” (Calvin’s translation). Here Ephesians radicalizes Paul, who relativized the law but did not completely abrogate it. The vision of this later author, however, is that the duty to follow Jesus should not be understood in legal terms at all.

Given the tragic history of Christian treatment of our Jewish neighbors, we must exercise great care in our application of this dimension of the teachings of Ephesians. First, we very often misunderstand what Torah means to the people of Israel. Many excellent Jewish scholars would contend that the creation of hostility is a perversion of Torah observance, not its essential intent. Second, we should learn from Ephesians to put our own house in order, not to throw stones at others. Today the worst divisive legalists are fellow Christians! While we may learn from this passage to appreciate the unique nature of our own Christian faith, using Ephesians to create further antagonisms entirely contradicts the sense of this passage as a whole. For the point made so forcefully in verse 16, for instance, is that God’s act calls us to recognize our common humanity. God’s loving intent is that we all be one humanity.

I am most grateful to my colleague Jerry Nieft for pointing out to me how important the use of the word “new” (Greek kainon) is when the author asks us to think of humanity as a single person. The Greek word employed here does not imply discontinuity, but rather renewal and restoration of that which already is. And so we see that none of us are asked to shed our cultural skins, our historical selves, our own languages, our unique healthy traditions. Unity is not the same as uniformity! We must simply stop making our particularity more important than our commonality. We seek not unison or cacophony but harmony.

Our call to mission. Having spoken of God’s act in Jesus the Christ, the focus of the passage now shifts to the work of the Holy Spirit. In so doing the author seamlessly transitions to a discussion of how we should respond to the gracious divine initiative. First, he or she points to the importance of proclamation. The Spirit continues the teaching of Jesus, and we become preachers of peace! I detect a clear indication of the priority of the Word. We must first receive the good news and be called to gather.

And then follows a favorite image in this text, an amazing reversal of worldly standards and a strikingly apt description of what the Spirit is and does. The author talks about access. In the late first century, nearly everyone familiar with the word would have detected a clear reference to contact with power, and preferably with the emperor himself. You needed special connections to get near the seat of authority, and only a few ever forged them. Access was a matter of competition. If you got it, it probably meant that I didn’t. But God, a far higher authority than any emperor, is not like that at all and doesn’t play that game. By showering the Spirit on everyone, each and every person now has unlimited access! And this server never goes down. The bandwidth is so wide that if you connect first there’s still plenty of room for me to plug in too. No zero sum game here!

The sheer poetry of this writing gets richer still. For where does one get access to a powerful person? Well, usually in a building, right, where the seat of power is? So what is the edifice where we have an audience with God? It’s us! We are! You! Me! I am God’s dwelling for you, and you for me! I never get over the amazing confidence in human capacity found in the scriptural witness. It just takes my breath away. God chose us, with all our frailty, as the holy place to encounter the divine presence. I don’t think we’ll ever outdo Ephesians in attempting to describe what spiritual formation is all about.

I’m already in awe of the creative ability of this verbal artist, and she or he has yet one more incredible shift to wow us. Verse 19 begins with civic imagery—strangers and foreigners, citizens. And then it immediately morphs into a very different discourse, about saints, or people set apart by God, and members of a household of family cared for by none other than the loving divine being’s self. The language of the polis is ultimately inadequate to describe the very special intimate care that God desires to share with each and every human being. What better language shall we find to describe our call to create community? We belong to each other like brothers and sisters and parents. We must establish and maintain deep relationships that contrast with the superficiality and utility marking the dealings of the present age.

Mention of the foundation laid by apostles and prophets reminds me of my favorite quote by Joseph Smith, Jr. At Far West in 1838 he was asked if he was a prophet. He replied: “Yes, and every other [person] who has the testimony of Jesus. ‘For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’—Rev. 19.10.” In the New Testament as a whole it is clear that the apostle, meaning the one sent, is a witness of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection in particular. I am grateful for the leadership of the Presidency and the Council of Twelve as they help us to realize our collective destiny as a prophetic and an apostolic people.

People like that always point to the chief stone, Jesus Christ himself. Now the metaphorical soup is further thickened by architectural imagery. Accustomed to our most common building practices today, we think of Jesus as that corner stone on the bottom of the structure that keeps the walls together and the whole from sinking. The writer of Ephesians almost certainly had something else in mind. The Greek language suggests that Jesus is the capstone. I am rather deficient in my knowledge of architecture, but as I understand it, this piece is placed at the top of an arch. It keeps the curved walls from caving in and is essential to majestic, soaring construction. It brings all the diverse pieces functionally and aesthetically together to create a durable and beautiful whole. And so the ideal of harmony is presented in a different idiom. Any good edifice will avoid monotony and build in pieces resulting in pleasing contrasts. But the design, in this case Jesus himself, has to hold it all together. Clashing architectural styles are quite displeasing to most observers!

The passage ends by reminding us that the edifice that we are together is never an end in itself. As a people our mission is to be God’s temple. God must dwell in us so that the whole world may be blessed. It is the Spirit dwelling in us, all of us together, that consecrates us as a community that becomes “holy ground.” Paul had described our individual bodies as temples, but here our author prefers to think of temple in a corporate sense. Those of us embedded in the western culture of individualism find it almost impossible to make sense of such notions. Here our sisters and brothers from other cultures offer vital assistance. The language of Ephesians consists of poetry of transformation. We must become one global people of temple, and the light of Christ brought to us by the Spirit must shine forth in every local congregation.

I can’t do better than Calvin’s concluding summary (153-4). He wrote that the “evangelical peace” proclaimed by Ephesians “desires the sight of God as something lovely rather than fearful.” The Spirit provides access to that vision, and Jesus opens and is the door. And that door is somewhat like a, well Dutch door, with more than one panel fitted to provide entrance to diverse peoples. The good news we proclaim, the Gospel that renews us, maintains that “God is open” to everyone to reveal the loving care of the good, nay the very best, householder. May we respond in gratitude, doing our part to keep the doors wide open to all of God’s children. Amen.