The Two Strangers*

Therefore remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh that law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And 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 saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you are also built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I am going to focus on this passage in Ephesians and especially on the metaphor of “the two strangers”: the stranger far off, the stranger nearby, and the dividing wall of hostility that separates them. I want to think about the two strangers from the perspectives of psychiatry and religion, of the psyche and the soul. This image of the two strangers is no simple metaphor, but rather a touching depiction of a suffering we all know in our own hearts. All of us know these dividing walls that separate us from each other and from the depths within ourselves. The passage evokes images of the suffering created in