Introduction

When you first meet people these days, there’s often a bit of a ritual where we ask questions to see if we’re on the same page on issues that are important to us. Once, I remember meeting some Christians while I was a missionary overseas and one of the first questions they asked me was, “Do you speak in tongues?”. They were charismatic, so I took this to mean, “Are you one of us or not?” People might ask you something to figure out if you’re fans of the same hockey team. “How about those leafs this year?” Or they might ask questions that are really probing at where you stand politically. “Can you believe what’s going on with the government?”

This is all part of our natural tendency to ‘sort’ ourselves into us and them: Between those we identify with and those we see as outsiders,or in our fractured age, those we see as friends or enemies.Presently, we’re experiencing a time of greater polarization than people have experienced in several generations. Yet, the tendency to see others unlike us as a threat is a constant challenge for people of all times and places: Tribalism goes back to a time when people lived in tribes.

Jesus, however, asks those who follow him to set aside that tendency so that his people—the church—can be a community open to all people. But you can imagine that this call to be inclusive—which runs against the grain of the dominant culture—ruffles some feathers. We’re going to see an example of this in the story we’re going to look at today from Paul’s missionary Journeys. Last week we looked at Paul’s stay in Ephesus, the longest stop in his third missionary journey. This week, I want to look at what happens after that missionary journey when he returns to Jerusalem.

When he arrives there, the elders of the church are concerned that misunderstandings about Paul’s ministry among the Gentiles will stir up controversy in the church. (Controversy in the church? Imagine that!) It is reported that Paul has been telling Jewish believers to abandon their practice of Jewish religious and cultural customs. This is a mischaracterization: Paul has been saying that Gentiles are not obligated to observe the law in order to be a part of the church. This is not the same thing as commanding Jews to stop observing the law, Although Paul has attacked some Jewish practices (that are not commanded but Torah but are cultural customs) when those customs serve as roadblocks to the unity of the church (like an unwillingness for Jews to eat with Gentiles) (see Ga.2:11-21).

James—The leader of the church in Jerusalem—has an idea about how Paul can show he’s not hostile to Jews observing the law: In the church there are four men who are undergoing a purification vow. To fulfill it, they need to have their heads shaved at the temple and then offer sacrifices a week later. He asks if Paul will join them in their vow and pay for the expenses as a way of showing he isn’t opposed to the law practiced by Jews. While they wait the seven days for the sacrifice things take a dark turn:

When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia [Where Ephesus is located] saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.) 

The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 

The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Get rid of him!” (Acts 21:27-36, NIV).

I. Us and Them

A. Defining ‘Us’

Paul has been trying to show that he’s still a faithful Jew (albeit one who recognizes Jesus as Messiah) but his presence in the temple offends those who feel it is their job to enforce Jewish orthodoxy. The dispute here reflects a deep divide growing in Judaism since the time of Alexander the Great about 350 years before. Alexander and his conquering armies brought their Greek (Hellenistic) culture with them. Some Jews embraced this culture with its philosophy, architecture, and poetry. Some of these Jews were so attracted to it that they abandoned their Jewish faith and identity entirely and became just like the Greeks, even going so far as to try to reverse their circumcisions.

Many other Jews had no intention of abandoning their Jewish identity, but still had no choice about engaging with Greek culture because in the 1st Century, the majority of Jews lived outside their traditional homeland in Diaspora communities, in places like Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth and Ephesus. In the major cities where these exiles live, Greek was the common language and culture (this is why the New Testament is written in Greek).

In this context, then, what did it look like to be a faithful Jew? Who should be regarded as ‘one of us’ by other Jews. While there was never unanimity, generally three practices—ones that set Jews apart from the neighbours—became the boundary markers to show which Jews were faithful and which weren’t: They were Circumcision, Sabbath observance and Kosher diet.

Now the controversy surrounding Paul’s missionary work is less about Jesus the Messiah and more about who Jesus’ people are welcoming into the fold. Paul has been evangelizing among Gentiles. telling them they can follow God without observing the Torah, the Jewish Law. He doesn’t require Gentiles to fit into the cultural and religious boundaries that marked out faithful Jews from everyone else.

B. Welcoming ‘Them’ In

In welcoming Gentiles into communion is Paul merely caving into the demands to Greek culture? Is he a sellout? Paul explains the rationale to his approach by looking at how what Jesus did on the cross changes people’s relationship to the Jewish Law, As he writes in his letter to the Ephesians

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. 

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household (Ephesians 2:11-19, NIV).

Through Jesus’ death, those outside the law and those inside the law-abiding community can be joined together. The renewed Israelite community is not defined by the old badges of covenant membership. (Circumcision, Sabbath and Kosher diet) Rather it is defined by a relationship to Jesus through faith.

The conflict between Paul and the Jewish religious authorities comes down to identity: Who is us and who is them? To explore this, I want to examine two questions: First, How do we define who is an insider and an outsider? and second, How, then, should insiders relate to those on the outside?

II. Defining the Boundaries

A. Bounded Sets

One of the best tools to discuss this is using a mathematical concept called ‘sets’. This is really about categorizing things as in and out. When you say, “Pick a number between 1 and 10”, you’re creating a set of numbers to choose from (of which 4 is a part and 12 isn’t). This is called a bounded set, where a clear boundary marker (in this case, the number 10) separates what is inside the set from what is outside.

Bounded sets help us easily define not just groups of numbers, but also groups of people. I can create boundaries to define a group such as ‘those who hold Canadian citizenship,’ or ‘biological females,’ or ‘people who wear glasses.’ But sometimes we create sets of people who get preferential treatment: ‘my friends,’ ‘my family,’ or ‘my people.’

The Jews opposing Paul have created a set—‘God’s people—and they define it according to three main criteria: circumcision, sabbath and kosher diet. What they’re teaching is that ‘If you have all three of those (and teach others to adopt them) then you’re good. If you don’t, you’re not welcomed here.’ Because Paul champions the inclusion of people who don’t fit in the boundaries of the set, he’s seen as an enemy. It is our natural instinct to divide the world into us and them by easily defined boundaries, and this instinct often carries over into our faith.

I want to briefly reflect on what I understood about the us/them divide from the church I grew up in to be teaching. This is what I understood, from both the pulpit, but also the attitudes and behaviours of the people I interacted with. It’s not necessarily what they wanted to communicate. We was defined as evangelical, meaning we believed the Bible and that our primary duty as Christians was to tell people about Jesus. Believing the Bible meant toeing the party line on all sorts of hot-button theological and political issues. (Mostly Abortion, Gays and Evolution). Mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, were ‘them’ and they were probably all going to Hell.

When the boundaries define something with such high stakes, people are very keen to patrol them. So if someone in my church believed in evolution, or questioned whether gay people actually were were just bad people living in rebellion against God’s law, then their position among us was suspect. People spent a lot of time making sure everyone knew to stay on the right side of the boundaries. If someone refused to stay on the inside of the boundaries, they were subversive and should be ridiculed or avoided.

While the criteria we used to sort out who was an insider vs and outsider was different than the Jews’ in Paul’s day, the effect was the same. The church becomes a club for people who think the same as me. Diversity in the church is limited because people are only welcome if they’re like me.

Boundaries, though, are not the only way to define a set.

B. Centred Sets

A centred set is a set defined by a relationship to a centre. For example, we might define a group of motorists into those who are driving toward Kirkland Lake (the centre). So someone Northbound on the 11 in Barrie is included, but someone in King Kirkland driving toward Quebec is not, even though they are currently much closer to the centre.

The centred set gives us another way to think about the insider/outsider distinction in the Christian Faith. If Jesus is the centre, then those moving towards him are a part of the setand those moving away aren’t a part of the set. So it’s not about where you are right now, but instead about where you’re headed.

From Paul’s perspective, a person could be a ‘faithful’ Jews weren’t necessarily included. People like that could faithfully observe the Jewish festivals, circumcised their children, exclusively eat kosher food , and refused to lift a finger from Sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday. But If those people reject Jesus as Lord, the religious practices were meaningless.

At the same time Gentile outsiders may be included. Even if they don’t eat kosher, they weren’t circumcised or they treated Saturday the same as any other day, But they have accepted that Jesus is the Lord and are trying to live by his teaching.

In church communities today like the Jews in Jesus’ day, we might be tempted to define insiders and outsiders by boundaries: Do they go to church every Sunday? Can they recite the Lord’s prayer from memory? Do they know the order of the books of the bible? Do they avoid smoking, drinking and chewing and not go around with girls that do. But a person can tick all these boxes, and still not accept Jesus’ as Lord

Maybe they’re cool with Jesus as saviour, but when it comes to making him Lord—trying to organize your life around his teaching—they may balk. We’ve probably all known ‘church’ people run a business that treats their employees badly, or people who claim to follow Jesus, but are contemptuous of those who don’t believe what they believe, or people who say they seek God’s kingdom, while trying to cultivate self-serving power over others.

Determining who is an insider and an outsider is not always as simple as we might like it to be. As Jesus says in, Matthew 19:30, “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” It’s not always obvious who is on the right track with God from external appearances.

If the church is defined by our orientation toward Jesus rather than by obvious boundaries, how ought this to affect our behaviour? First, we need to have the humility to recognize that we don’t always know someone’s standing before God. Only God truly knows the heart, so don’t write someone off as ‘unchristian’ because they don’t look the way you expect Christians to. As an example: Going to church is a good idea. I highly recommend it, but not everyone who stays home is heading away from Jesus and not everyone who attends is heading toward him.

You might respond, Jesus says we can judge a tree by its fruit. Yes, as a general principle, people whose lives promote flourishing seem to be on the right track and people whose lives create enmity and division might not be on the right track. But this sort of judgment isn’t about condemning others, it’s about who we trust or imitate. I’d rather seek the advice of a person whose life has built up the church rather than the advice of a person who ‘stands for all the right things’ while leaving a trail of destroyed relationships behind them.

Second, it changes who we welcome. If a person becomes a Christian by following certain practices (bible reading, church attendance, frequent prayer) then our efforts at sharing faith should focus on those who seem closest (people who occasionally come to church, let’s say).

If a person becomes a Christian by orienting themselves towards Jesus, then those who are far off can just as easily turn to God. Often they are more likely to because they have a clearer picture of where they stand. Jesus warned the Pharisees that prostitutes and tax collectors—people whose behaviours placed them far outside the community of faithful Jews—were going to enter the kingdom ahead of them. If the church is defined by conformity to a standard of behaviour, those on the outside have a long way to travel before coming inside

But if the church is defined by direction of travel, everyone, no matter where they find themselves, is one turn away from Jesus. So maybe our own metaphorical prostitutes and tax collectors aren’t as far away as we might imagine. Since the insider/outsider distinction isn’t so obvious, and also because Jesus tells us to love even our enemies we need to consider how we act towards those we see on the outside.

III. Relating to Outsiders

The Jews who attacked Paul at the temple assumed he was welcoming in those who had no business being counted among God’s people. They interpreted his hospitality to outsiders as hostility towards insiders, claiming Paul preached against the Jewish people, The Jewish law and the Jewish temple. Paul didn’t preach against any of those things, but he did see that God was opening the door to those who were not descendants of Abraham, weren’t culturally Jewish, and didn’t worship at the temple. Paul refused to go along with the idea that God belonged only to Israelites like him.

Likewise, we must avoid the temptation to treat those unlike us as enemies. Our love for those outside is meant to point to who Jesus is. No matter where we are now, we all started out as sinners outside of God’s promises. God chose to love us while we were his enemies, and it is merely by responding to that love that we enter.

Everyone who is presently an outsider shares our story: God loves them. Jesus died for them. By acting lovingly towards them, we show them who God is, allowing them to respond to God. When we act contemptuously, we misrepresent God to the world. How many people reject God, because his people have misrepresented him?

So what does this look like in practice? It can mean looking for ways to build friendships with people who aren’t Christians. The Jews in Jesus’ day, fearful of a repeat of their exile experience, pursued a form of righteousness without concern for outsiders, a “righteousness” without love. “If the rest of the world never knows God, that is a price we’re willing to pay so that we’re not ever tempted into the kinds of things that might lead to a repeat of our exile.” When our primary goal is personal righteousness divorced from any obligation to love the outsider, we might reason that we should limit our exposure to the corrupting influence of unrighteous people.

Of course there are times when we need to limit connection with certain people because it does threaten to derail us. For example, if you’re a recovering alcoholic, it might be wise to not spend time with your old drinking buddies. But this is an exception not the rule.

Righteousness people don’t avoid sinners. They follow Jesus’ example of seeking out the outsider. Living holy while spending time with people who aren’t like us can be challenging but if we aren’t loving others, our morality is a shallow substitution for holiness. Holiness isn’t just about avoiding bad behaviour, it drives us to actively reach out in love. So we must build bridges to people who don’t know God’s love. This could be through common things: sports teams, karate lessons or community theatre—to name some examples—can give us a chance to spend time with people who might not know Jesus, to incarnate Jesus’ hospitable presence among people who don’t normally come to church.

We must be present and we must be different. Paul was present in Ephesus and Corinth, but Paul also lived in a distinctly Christian way while he was there, engaging with those who didn’t believe. When people get to know us outside of a church, do they see the differences that following Jesus makes in our lives, while also sensing that we don’t hold them in contempt for not being like us? If we follow Jesus’ example, imitated by Paul, people who are far away will have a chance to respond to the love of God because they will see his love in us.

Conclusion

Paul ran into trouble because he understood that God doesn’t draw dividing lines the way we do. He understands that entering the kingdom of God isn’t about where you are, but about where you’re heading. Consequently many who seemed close, were actually far away and many who seemed far away had been brought close. As a predominantly Gentile church (of course if you are Jewish, you’re more than welcome here) we are those who have been brought near. In light of this, how much more ought we to embrace the hospitality of God that welcomes others as we have been welcomed?

God doesn’t respect our boundaries. He breaks them. He loves you too much to let them get in the way. He loves them too much to let them get in the way, no matter who they are. Because Paul serves a barrier breaking God, he likewise breaks down the barriers. So as we serve this same God, let’s remember that while building walls may feel natural to us, smashing them down to love those on the outside is what God is doing, and we need to be right there by his side, doing the same.