Yesterday's but Theos pulled the reader out of death. Today the letter names what the reader was pulled out of, and the description is social rather than moral: not sinners so much as outsiders.
What happens
"You were at that time without Christ, alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without Theos in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were 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… that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace… 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. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of Theos… in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of Theos in the Spirit."
What to notice
The list in Ephesians 2:12 is five deprivations and four of them are about membership: apēllotriōmenoi tēs politeias tou Israēl, alienated from the citizenship of Israel; xenoi tōn diathēkōn, foreigners to the covenants; atheoi en tō kosmō, without Theos in the world.Politeia is a civic word — the rights and standing of a citizen — and xenos is the legal term for a non-resident alien. The diagnosis is delivered in the vocabulary of immigration law. Then to mesotoichon tou phragmou, "the dividing wall of the partition" — and this is not a metaphor, or not only one. In the Jerusalem temple there was a low stone barrier, the soreg, separating the outer Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin warning foreigners not to pass. Two of these stones have been found — one complete, taken to Istanbul in 1871, and a fragment now in Jerusalem — and the surviving text reads: no foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and enclosure around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for the death which follows.The wall Ephesians says was broken down had a capital sentence carved on it in the reader's own language. The far/near pair is a quotation of Isaiah 57:19, and in later Jewish usage the far had become a standard term for Gentiles. And the result is not an accommodation: hina tous duo ktisē en autō eis hena kainon anthrōpon, "that he might create the two into one new human being" — ktizō being the verb for creating and kainos meaning new in kind.This is not one party joining the other, and not a compromise. It is a third thing that did not exist.Prosagōgē, access, is a court word: the introduction of a person into the presence of a king. And the building metaphor is technically precise: akrogōniaios is usually cornerstone but can mean the topmost stone that locks an arch; synarmologoumenē is a joiner's word, "being fitted together"; and auxei, "it grows," is a botanical verb applied to masonry.The building is alive and unfinished.
Psalm 85 is a psalm of return — probably post-exile, asking for the restoration to be completed — and its central verses contain the most famous personification in the Psalter.
The selected verses
Psalm 85:9, 10."I will hear what Theosproclaims; Yahweh — for he proclaims peace to his people. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him, glory dwelling in our land." Psalm 85:11–12."Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven." Psalm 85:13–14."Yahweh himself will give his benefits; our land shall yield its increase. Justice shall walk before him, and salvation, along the way of his steps."
What to notice
Psalm 85:9 gives the day its keyword: ki y'dabber shalom el-ammo, "for he speaks shalom to his people" — and Ephesians 2:17 says the same thing with a verb of announcement.Psalm 85:10 has the other one: akh qarov li-re'av yish'o, "surely his rescue is near."The far and the near are the epistle's own categories. Then Psalm 85:11, the verse people remember: chesed ve-emet nifgashu, tzedeq v'shalom nashaqu — "hesed and truth have met each other; righteousness and peace have kissed."Four abstract nouns treated as persons walking toward one another in a field.Nifgashu is the verb for two parties meeting on a road; nashaqu is a kiss of greeting between kin. And Psalm 85:12 makes the meeting vertical: emet me-eretz titzmach, v'tzedeq mi-shamayim nishqaf, "truth sprouts up out of the ground, and righteousness leans down out of heaven."Tzamach is what a plant does; shaqaf is to lean over a windowsill and look down.One comes up through the soil and the other looks out of an upstairs window, and they meet in the middle of the air. On a morning about a wall coming down, the psalm's image of reconciliation is two things arriving from opposite directions and finding nothing between them.
After the rich fool and the birds and the lilies, Luke turns to waiting. The scene is a household at night with the head of the house out at a party, which is about as domestic as an eschatological parable gets.
What happens
"Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants."
What to notice
Estōsan hymōn hai osphyes periezōsmenai, "let your loins be girded" — in a world of long robes this means hitching the hem up into the belt so you can move, and it is a quotation: Exodus 12:11, the instruction for eating the Passover.The posture Luke asks for is the posture of a people about to leave Egypt.Kai hoi lychnoi kaiomenoi, lamps burning — an oil lamp needs topping up through the night, so staying lit is not a state but a task. The scenario is precise about the worst part of the job: the master is at a wedding, and ancient weddings ran for days, so the servants cannot estimate.The whole assignment is to be the kind of household where nobody has to knock twice. And then the sentence that turns the parable inside out, introduced with the solemn amēn legō hymin: perizōsetai kai anaklinei autous kai parelthōn diakonēsei autois, "he will gird himself, and have them recline, and come and wait on them."Look at the verb.Perizōsetai, he will gird himself, is the same verb, in the same form, as the command in Luke 12:35.The servants are told to tie up their clothes for work, and the reward for doing it is that the master ties up his.Diakoneō is to wait at table — the verb Martha was doing too much of on October 6. This is the only place in the Synoptics where the returning master serves the household, and Luke 17:7–10, later in the same gospel, states the ordinary rule flatly: a master does not thank a slave for doing what he was told.Here he does more than thank him. And the watches are named for a reason: the second or the third, roughly nine to midnight and midnight to three. Not the early evening, when staying awake is easy.
How They Fit Together
A gap crossed — and in each case from the far side
The mastergirds himself and waits on the servants who were waiting for him
Three readings about a gap being crossed, and in each of them the crossing is done from the far side.
Ephesians names the gap in civic language, which is worth registering because it is not how modern religion usually speaks. The Gentile reader's problem is not described as guilt. It is apēllotriōmenoi tēs politeias — cut off from the citizenship — xenoi, foreigners, atheoi en tō kosmō, without Theos in the world.This is a description of standing, not of behaviour, and the remedy is correspondingly civic: fellow citizens and members of the household.
And in the middle of it is a wall you could have walked up to and touched. The soreg in the temple was about waist high and entirely passable; what enforced it was not its height but the notices set into it, promising death to any foreigner who crossed. Two of those stones are in museums. So when this letter says the mesotoichon has been broken down, the readers who had been to Jerusalem knew exactly which stones were meant, and knew that the inscription had their own status written on it. And Ephesians says the demolition happened en tē sarki autou, in his flesh — the barrier came down in a body.
What is built out of the rubble is not either side's building.One new human being — kainos, new in kind — created, a verb reserved for what only Theos does. Neither party is being absorbed into the other, and that is the hardest part of the passage to hold, because every actual reconciliation is under constant pressure to become an annexation.
The psalm gives the picture. Four qualities walk toward each other and meet — hesed and truth on a road, righteousness and peace exchanging a kiss of kinship — and then the meeting is redrawn vertically: truth sprouts out of the earth like a seedling, righteousness leans out of a window in heaven and looks down. Something comes up and something comes down and they arrive at the same place. It is the most physical picture of reconciliation in the Bible and it has no wall in it anywhere.
Then Luke, where the closing of the distance is domestic and slightly absurd. The servants' job is small and exhausting: hitch up your clothes, keep the lamps filled, and be near enough to the door that when he knocks it opens immediately. They cannot know when. He is at a wedding, and weddings do not run to schedule.
And the payment for that vigilance is the thing nobody in the ancient world would have written. Amēn legō hymin — and then he girds himself, with the identical verb they were given as an order, seats them at his own table, and serves.The distance closes, and it is the master who walks it.
Ephesians says the far were brought near by a body. Luke says the one who was awaited puts on the apron. Neither text asks the outsider to climb.
And the hours are worth keeping. The second and third watches — nine to midnight, midnight to three. The parable does not commend people who are up early. It commends people who are still up when there is no longer any reason to expect anything, which is the actual shape of most waiting.
A Question to Sit With
The wall had an inscription on it, and the inscription named the penalty, and it was aimed at people whose only offence was where they were born. Ephesians says it came down in a body. I do not maintain anything with a death sentence carved on it — but I do know where my own lines are, and who is on the far side of them, and how comfortable the arrangement is. If the reconciliation on offer is not one side joining the other but a third thing neither of us has been yet, what would I have to give up that I currently think of as simply true?