Shalom Mennonite Church
Sunday, September 25, 2011
“Destroying the Barrier, the Dividing Wall of Hostility”
Text: Ephesians 2:11-21
There are many kinds of walls, barriers, and boundaries.
Some are helpful and healthy:
the walls of a home that provide shelter,
walls of a cell that nurture life,
or the barrier of the atmosphere surrounding the Earth.
There are the boundaries created by covenants and vows
like those of a marriage,
or a confession of faith,
that provide vital channels for living and loving.
There are also many walls and barriers
we create and encounter in life
that are not so helpful and healthy:
walls built in preparation for warmaking,
walls erected in a spirit of animosity,
barriers built to keep people silent,
fortifications created in our hearts and minds
that make it difficult to have compassion for others.
These are the barriers that
the Apostle Paul describes as
the “dividing walls of hostility.”
More specifically Paul is speaking of
the hostile division that has existed
between Jew and Gentile.
Even this wall, Paul says, has been destroyed
by the love of Christ which has come not just
to a chosen people, but to all people.
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off,
and peace to those who are near,
for all have access through the One Spirit to God.
He created in himself one new humanity.
Paul grounds his argument for unity in the cross.
For Paul, it is the cross, the “blood of Christ,”
that brings together those who have been separate.
He doesn’t explain here how this is so,
just that it is so.
The cross tears down the barrier.
I imagine there were Gentile Christians
in the church of Ephesus who were left
to wonder (as we may be at times, too),
'How is it that an act of such cruelty and violence
can tear down the barriers of hostility, cruelty, and violence?
I think there is a great mystery in this,
and do not wish to use the word “mystery” as a cop out here.
I think the cross remains a deep
mystery of our faith as Christians,
one we must live with and live into.
We must struggle with how Jesus’ life ended,
and what it reveals to us about the way of love,
what it reveals to us about the barriers
of hostility we continue to create in this world,
and what it reveals to us about how we
are to meet them and even bring them down.
I am grateful that we also have stories
about Jesus’ life before the cross
that teach us what it means
for love to tear down barriers
in very concrete and tangible ways.
Before the cross loomed large
Jesus confronted barriers that
people carried within themselves,
barriers that existed between people,
and barriers that had been built
between people and God.
Jesus confronted barriers within people. . .
It is said that one day a young man approached Jesus--
an eager and quite pious young man--
and he very much wanted to know
how he could be assured of his own salvation.
How could he know for certain that
he was right with God?
Jesus said to him,
“If you want to enter into life,
keep the commandments?”
“Which ones?” the young man asked,
perhaps wanting a thorough checklist.
Jesus gives him a list, after which the young man says,
“I’ve done all that. What do I still lack?”
“It isn’t what you lack, it is what you have.
Go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor.
Then you’ll have treasure in heaven, and then come follow me.”
The story ends with the dividing wall
still standing within this young man.
We’re told he goes away grieving,
because he has many possessions.
Perhaps the wall has started to crumble.
Jesus confronted barriers between people . . .
One day the scribes and Pharisees
brought to Jesus a woman who had
been caught in adultery. We might
assume a man was caught as well
but we aren’t told what happens to him.
They are already aware that Jesus
seems a bit too "soft on crime,"
that he leans a bit too far towards
the mercy of God rather than the judgment of God,
so they decide to test him.
“The law of Moses commands we must stone this woman.
What do you say?”
As they hound him with their questions,
Jesus squats and writes in the dirt for a while.
When he stands, he says this:
“Okay then. If it must be so, let the one of you who is without sin
be the first one to cast a stone at her.”
With his simple statement
Jesus forces them to consider:
Who is worthy of passing judgement--mortal judgement?
Who are the innocent and who is guilty?
And for that moment, a piece of a great wall crumbles.
Jesus confronted barriers that people had erected between themselves and God . . .
The story is told of another occasion
on which scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus
and his disciples, this time questioning why
they did not observe ritual acts of cleansing
their hands before eating a meal.
Jesus, in response, quotes the prophet Isaiah:
These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.
You abandon the commandment of God,
to hold to your human traditions.
And elsewhere Jesus is clear what the most
fundamental commandments of God really are:
To love God with all one’s heart, soul,
mind and strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself.
These are the commandments
that do not become walls
but break walls down.
As we remember in the stories of Jesus,
and as we witness in the lives of many
who have sought to follow his example,
love is a powerful, barrier-crossing,
wall-wrecking force.
It is powerful enough to endure,
to pass through and beyond the barrier of death.
As we confront barriers of hostility
within ourselves,
between us and our neighbor,
and also those we have built
between ourselves and God,
we can trust the power of Christ’s love
to create openings where none existed before. Amen
