Walls. Ephesians 2.11-14

Walls.   Ephesians 2.11-14

Walls.                                                                                                 Many different kinds … some for our protection, I suppose                                           Some put up by outsiders, many put up by self Walls that divide North Korea from South Korea … Israel from Palestine …               walls that divide one group from another                                                                                                                         walls that divide a father from his son                                                                 walls that divide a people from her God                                                         walls that keep us in, shut others out.                                                         Walls.

In the first century, folks were accustomed to walls – the dividing walls in the Jewish Temple – walls to keep out women, walls to keep Jews on one side, Gentiles on the other.

Walls are certainly not confined to the ancient world.  While walls can help us make sense of the world, and our immediate surroundings, they take up precious space.  It seems there is probably just enough room in the world for all the people in it, but there is no room for the fences which separate them."¹ On the one hand, technology has made the world so accessible, and in some ways seem so small, right?  Indeed modern progress has made the world a neighborhood … but God has given us the task of making it a brotherhood. “In these days of dividing walls of race and class and creed we must shake the earth anew with the message of the all-inclusive Christ, in whom there is neither bond nor free, Jew nor Greek, Scythian nor barbarian, but all are one."²   Ah yes, as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”³

Paul has been writing about God's grace - his free gift of salvation made available to us on the sole basis of faith; he now turns to the Gentile, and says, ‘Remember who you were before you were saved. You were nobodies, without hope and without God.’  And he told the Jews, ‘The dividing wall was broken down by Jesus. This hostility must come to an end because Jesus is your peace. You are now one in Christ Jesus. The old rules no longer apply.’ 

To the Gentile in the first century, to the Jew in the first century, and to you and me in the 21^st century, Paul writes:  “For Christ himself has brought peace to us… he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.” v.14

With regard to our Christian faith, there should be no wall of religion, no division ~ just unity in the person of Jesus Christ.  Notice the distinction between religion and relationship, in this story from post World War II Europe:

In France some soldiers with their sergeant brought the body of a dead comrade to a French cemetery to have him buried. The priest told them gently that he was bound to ask if their comrade had been a baptized adherent of the Roman Catholic Church. They said that they did not know. The priest said that he was very sorry but in that case he could not permit burial in his churchyard. So the soldiers took their comrade sadly and buried him just outside the fence. The next day they came back to see that the grave was all right and to their astonishment could not find it. Search as they might they could find no trace of the freshly dug soil. As they were about to leave in bewilderment the priest came up. He told them that his heart had been troubled because of his refusal to allow their dead comrade to be buried in the churchyard; so, early in the morning, he had risen from his bed and with his own hands had moved the fence to include the body of the soldier who had died for France.⁴

Nice story for sure.  But can I ask you, what kind of walls are between you and others?  Walls that you nicely conclude serve as ‘boundaries’ … a popular term today … necessary perhaps in some instances, but so unhealthy in many others.  ‘The unhealthy ones?  Definitely walls.  ‘But she hurt me deeply, you don’t understand! I shall erect a wall.’   Then she cannot hurt me like that again … or anyone else for that matter.  The wall is constructed with bricks of unforgiveness and mortar of bitterness.  Problem is, these walls stop you from growing because they close you off, dear friend.

Oh, and there is the wall that I regularly see between a man and his God … usually constructed of man’s disillusionment with religion, desire for personal autonomy (i.e. pride), complete disregard (or is it ignorance?) of a great and mighty God who not only loves completely and with abandon, but will one day judge the living and the dead.  This wall is the widest of them all and serves to choke out life, and rob us of peace … why not accept this truth of Paul’s—“Christ himself brought peace to us … he broke down the wall”?  Let in his love, and relearn love for others as well.

Christine

PastorWoman.com

1)     Father Taylor of Boston

2)    Sir Philip Gibbs in The Cross of Peace

3)    Galatians 3.28

4)    Rita Snowden