July 17, 2024

Fr. John Riccardo

Brothers and sisters, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have become near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh, abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it. He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father

Ephesians 2:13-18

I had originally written this last Saturday morning. And then Saturday afternoon happened in Butler, Pa. I would suggest this is an astoundingly timely passage for the Church in our country and for each of us personally.

Here's the simple message in this passage: by the concrete and historical act of the eternal Son of God laying down His life for the race created in His image and likeness, God makes people who once hated each other into friends. In fact, He so powerfully and really unites them that they become one person in His Son.

What happened on the cross that made this possible? On the cross Jesus Christ, King and Victor over Sin, Death and Satan, defeated the powers that hate us. These powers, fallen angels, do everything they can to tempt us to see each other as the enemy and, as a result, to devour and destroy each other. In fact, however, they are the enemy. As a result of the cross of Jesus, however, these powers have lost their grip on our race. Jesus, “having put that enmity to death”, enables those filled with His Spirit, to genuinely love each other (not merely tolerate each other).

Let’s look at the context a bit more closely to see what the Spirit is revealing. Paul is writing to non Jewish men and women who had once been hated and despised by their Jewish neighbors. Just to be perfectly clear, the animosity wasn’t one sided. The Gentiles reciprocated this suspicion and hatred and despised the Jewish people too. Before the cross of Jesus, the Gentiles had been “far off” from God. Many, many years before, God had called and chosen Abraham, and through him the Jewish people, to be the means by which He would rescue the entire human race, in fact all of creation, from the captivity into which our first parents sold us. However, the plan for this rescue mission was neither fully revealed nor understood. So intense was the hostility that inside the Temple in Jerusalem was an inscription on a wall that declared a Gentile who crossed that boundary would be responsible for his own death. This was the “dividing wall” that Jesus utterly obliterated.

Jesus’ cross, death and glorious resurrection, established peace among men. Suddenly, those who had seen each other as the enemy now saw themselves as brothers and sisters and acted as such. They laid down their lives for each other. They shared all things in common. They had one heart and one mind.

And people noticed.

The early Church was incredibly attractive in those first few centuries. Especially to people who longed for real unity, real love, real mercy. The Church’s visible unity was one of the reasons why she grew as rapidly as she did, despite hostility and persecution from the Roman Empire. The Church was made up of people who often had nothing in common, from totally different ethnic groups, rich and poor, men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. The only thing they had in common was the Man on the cross. In response to all that Jesus had done, they surrendered their lives to Him and became a family the likes of which the world had never seen.

Those in power in the Roman Empire noticed, too, and they found the Church immensely threatening. They knew that their own claim of bringing about peace in the Empire was exposed as a sham, since it had not and could not bring about peace, and the only “unity” it had forged came at the tip of a spear from the Roman Legion.

What does this have to say to us here and now? I would suggest much. We’re living in an increasingly ugly time in our country. The hatred, the vitriol, the violence, ratchets up not only every day but every hour.

What’s the solution?

It’s often rightly noticed that the key to problem solving is to define the problem. What, exactly, is “the problem” in our country? (Every country, for that matter.) The heart. The human heart is “the problem.” My heart. Your heart. Every human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Scripture reveals, “and incapable of being cured” (Jer 17:9). Politics, while immensely important, since it shapes and determines how nations are governed, cannot fix this problem. And we shouldn’t expect it to – not as disciples of Jesus.

There has to be an intervention by a Divine Physician.

The God who is Love, Who has proven His love for us by going to the cross for us and giving everything, Who has both exposed and defeated the enemy of our race, is this Physician. He is a heart surgeon. God is able to do what we cannot. He heals persons and in the process forges new communities. His power is so great that He is able to make one those who had been two.

Here’s the challenge: both us as disciples individually, and our parishes as bodies of believers, are supposed to reveal this transformation. Do I? Do we? The people in our country need something tangible to look at, or else they won’t know this is really possible.

This week, and every week, let’s pray for our nation. Let’s pray for those who govern us, that God will fill them with His wisdom and grace. Let’s pray that hearts that are currently filled with animosity will be changed. But let’s not expect politics or the media to “fix” this. Only God can. Shockingly – scandalously — He does so through us, disciples of Jesus. Given that, let’s use these days as an opportunity to ask the Lord to reveal our own hearts, to give us a sort of spiritual “MRI” of what lies inside us. Let’s ask the Divine Physician to gently expose where we have fallen prey to the real enemy stirring up enmity in us towards another. Let’s repent, beg the Lord to give us new hearts and to ask Him to use us as agents of healing, reconciliation and transformation in our day as Paul and the early Church were in theirs. And let’s look seriously at our parishes, too. Are we any different than the world at large? Do those who are not believers see in our parish family real unity, real love, real mercy?

Jesus, we need You. We utterly need You. Do what only You can in us, in our families, in our parishes, and in our land.

What Do They See When They Look At Us?

OUR MISSION

What Do They See When They Look At Us?

Do We Recognize How Important Unity Is?

We Exist For His Praise…and Yet!

OUR MISSION