The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Elizabeth Yale
Just reading that the Epistle reading today was from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians gives me a funny feeling now. I was in Ephesus about two months ago, and the only people there now are advertised GENUINE FAKE WATCH sellers and souvenir shop owners. No one makes their home in Ephesus; they have all moved 6 km down the road to the much more modern town of Selcuk. There isn’t actually much left at Ephesus comparative of its hey-day size. From an archeologist’s standpoint, it is very well preserved, being one of the largest and best-preserved ruins in Turkey. But, unfortunately, the size of the former town cannot be determined today because the people, the ordinary day-to-day people, did not live in stone temples or civic buildings. But Paul gives us a glimpse of the people who were living in Ephesus in the first century. They were a divided people. They were a confused people. They were a people that struggled with who they were and what they were doing. (Does that sound familiar?) But despite their struggles, there are no signs of their struggles left in Ephesus. No signs of the drama that unfolded between people on the issue of circumcision. There are no statues, no reliefs depicting this almost theological deal-breaker between Paul and some of the other disciples in Jerusalem. But the people truly did struggle with who to include in their new community. That is what the circumcision issue is really about – who is in, and who is not. The people of Ephesus and other cities were building a community for God and they were not sure what material to use. Only Jews? Those who knew the old rules and promises? Or all people, regardless of any previous religious community? Paul instructs them to include all people because Jesus has broken the dividing wall between each group. From Paul’s point of view, God wants to try something new. God is trying to build a house for himself using people of all nations. God tried before to build a house for himself, once through the Israelites, the children of Jacob and Moses. Another time, through David and Solomon, again through Jesus and the fisher people of Galilee. God continues through Paul and the Christians in Ephesus, Iconium, and Cappadocia. This seems wonderful to me, that God should have a House dedicated to him that makes his presence known in the world, but I have to wonder, why is God using humans? I mean, I don’t know how often any of you have tried to build something using only humans, but they don’t hold up well under weather, they fall over, they get tired, they complain, they’re unpredictable, and sometimes their brains just go off to the store for some fresh strawberries without notifying their own bodies. Humans are not the easiest building material to work with in the world.
But God seems to love the challenge. It’s not like God stopped after the first few tries. God’s house of promise, of peace, of healing, still stands as an ideal in the minds of humans. We work toward our goal in any way we can, but sometimes it seems so hopeless. But if you look up and to your right, at the middle stained glass windows, you can see what the people of Nativity have done in the past. They started Lehigh University. They built ships and buildings through Bethlehem Steel. They started St. Luke’s Hospital. And today, people of Nativity are still slowly building the House of God. And while I don’t think the vision of an open House of God, filled with fresh linen, fresh fruit, fresh ideas, and fresh passion for the coming future is around the corner, we each need to have a vision, because otherwise the House of God ends up like the ruin of the Temple of Trajan in Ephesus where students go to discuss the futility of man. And so I wonder, what is the vision of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity? What will the people of Nativity build next?
