Ephesians 2:19-22
When I was a young teenager, I had the chance to help crew a
yacht in an informal regatta. The boat was a 52’ ketch named So Long…fast,
fun, beautiful. After the owner, Don Atkinson, had the boat out of the bay and
in the open sea, he offered to let me steer. That and then is where I learned
some important lessons. Our heading was 240 degrees—WSW. With no landmarks, it’s
hard the keep the boat going in a straight line. With the currents, waves, and
wind pushing from various directions, it’s hard to keep the boat going in a
straight line. Focusing on the clouds on the horizon doesn’t work—they are
constantly shifting and moving as well. The only way to move in a straight line
is to keep an eye on the compass mounted by the wheel. Once I figured that out,
all I had to do was to glance down at the compass every now and then, and make
the small corrections I needed to make.
The church—the family of faith—also must make corrections
and make sure they are going in the right direction. Paul uses the metaphor of
a building in his letter to the Ephesians. On one hand, this is a bit ironic
since Christians didn’t build church buildings until after the 3rd
Century. Until then, Christianity was illegal and no town or city had a “church”
as we think of it today. The church in Paul’s writings—in all of the New Testament—is
always a reference to the gathered people of God in Christ Jesus, never a
building. But, the church—the Jesus people—in Ephesus were very familiar with
buildings. The city was growing and thriving on the eastern edge of the Roman
Empire. So, buildings were going up.
Paul references the absolutely important role that the ‘cornerstone’
plays in building a structure in the 1st Century. Three sides had to
be smooth, flat, and each side perpendicular to the other sides. One surface ensured
a level floor, a smooth foundation...and this made the roof right as well. One side provided the measure for a straight
wall—both as it stretched out and as it stretched up. The other side for the
other wall. Without a 'true' cornerstone, the building would be ‘off,’ and maybe
even unsafe.
As Paul teaches us, Jesus is our cornerstone…and our compass. As a congregation, we must come again and again to the Cornerstone and make sure we’re building a true church. We must come together and glance at the compass and make sure we’re going in the right direction. Not only does this apply to the gathered family of faith but also to us as individuals. We need to check ourselves. We need to make those small corrections to ensure we’re true to how Jesus calls us to live and minister.
Our Sunday gatherings, our worship services, are a time we
come together and set our lives—family and individual—by the cornerstone of
Jesus as we sing hymns and song of worship, as we join our hearts in prayer, as
we hear the public reading of Scripture, and we listen to the proclamation of
the Good News. All of these provide our weekly check-up…our measure by the
Cornerstone…our glance at God’s compass to ensure that we are walking together
in a straight line. Let us gather again and again and again…that we might build
in our fellowship that temple for God that Paul refers to, that we might keep this
ship going in the right direction.
Sunday, August 18,
2024
“Walking…Together in a Straight Line”
Watch/Listen: HERE
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