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The Catholic Telegraph
July 21, 2000One of the most sensitive issues in the early Church was the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews saw themselves as a people apart, chosen by God to be His special people. This choice, this specialness, was symbolized by practices such as circumcision, dietary laws, restrictions regarding marriage and other forms of social interaction. The Gentiles were seen, by their very nature, as outsiders, rejects, strangers, aliens to God, rightly separated from inclusion in God’s people.
Now came Jesus, a Jew yet receptive to Gentiles. As His followers reflected on what He has taught them, both before and after His death and resurrection, it became clear that Gentiles were dear to God, too, and that whatever Jesus came to bring to Jews was available to Gentiles as well.
This still left the question of whether, in order to share the salvation that Christ offered to both Gentiles and Jews, the Gentiles had to take on the observance of the Jewish law. Many early Christian leaders seem to have thought so. It took a while to clarify the basic insight that, in Christ, the obligatory nature of the Jewish law had been done away with and so it was no longer necessary for people to observe the Jewish law in order to be pleasing to God. This clarification involved a long and difficult struggle which is described in some detail in The Acts of the Apostles and lies in the background of many of the Pauline letters.
The letter to the Ephesians deals with the unity of the Church and, in the reading for this Sunday, addresses the basic Jewish-Gentile question.
Our passage speaks of those who were far off (Gentiles, to whom the letter is addressed) and those who were near to God (the Jews). Those previously far off have now been brought near by the saving death of Christ. The divisions that had existed between Jews and Gentiles have now been done away with, thanks to the abolition of the demands of the Jewish law. The two corporate entities that had existed in hostility to one another were now united into one person with Christ. (Earlier in Ephesians Paul had spoken of the Church as Christ’s body.) Jews and Gentiles have been brought together by Christ’s death into a state of peace: peace with each other and peace with God. (Note that, in biblical language, "peace" generally signifies the fullness of all that is good. It is a synonym for "salvation.") This unity and peace that Christ effected by His death allows all of us together to approach our heavenly Father united in one Holy Spirit.
The tension between Jews and Gentiles in the Church may seem like a distant and irrelevant historical question to us now. It may have been an important issue during the earliest times of the Church, but that struggle is over. However, although that particular issue may have been solved, there are still tensions and struggles in the Church. The peace that Christ established does not seem to be flourishing in its fullness.
Christianity is divided into various churches. Sometimes these church communities have expressed hostility toward one another for hundreds of years. We are now beginning to examine the reason for these hostilities and to move toward resolving them, but the reasons for the diversity and the paths to reunion are not always clear. We still have a long way to go.
But there are also tensions within our Roman Catholic Church, even within our own parishes sometimes. The location of the tabernacle, the removal of the communion rail, what kind of hymns we sing at Mass and whether we kneel during the Eucharistic prayer, how our parish shares its financial and personnel resources with less fortunate parts of the Church, whether the parish priest is sufficiently "liberal" or sufficiently "conservative" or tries to use inclusive language: these issues and others like them can raise "dividing walls of enmity" and divide the whole parish in the "near" and the "far off."
Issues like this are not unimportant or without implications, any more than the issue of observing the Jewish law was unimportant or without implications. But we need to see these questions and deal with them in the light of Christ’s redemption of us all, in the context of God’s gift of salvation. We all suffer from a tendency to oversimplify the religious reality in which we live. We are inclined to impoverish the richness of the mystery of Christ.
The Son of God became a human being in Jesus. He offered His life in faithfulness to His Father, and so brought the offer of salvation and peace to the whole world. He gave us the Holy Spirit to unite us all in intimacy with God. He still acts in His sacraments and gives us His teaching in the Church. That’s what our faith is all about. That’s what’s really important. That’s what binds us together into the one body which is the body of Christ.
Maybe we should thank God for the Church today and ask ourselves what we can do to bring it the peace and unity that Christ intended.
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Conversation Questions
What can I do to foster unity among the Christian churches?
How can I foster unity in my parish?
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