Robert Berra
Sermon, St.
Matthew’s, Chandler
Proper 11, Year B
Track
1
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| A photo of the barrier separating Palestine from Israel, taken by a fellow pilgrim (who I would credit if I could remember who took it!). |
Rain quietly
spattered on the windows of the bus as we made our way west from Jericho to
Bethany on our way to Bethlehem. This
was day 4 of our trip. We had left the north of Israel and our time around the
Sea of Galilee, and we were coming to spend two nights in Bethlehem and then
three nights in the Old City of Jerusalem. The politics surrounding the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict were present on our first days of the trip, but
muted. In the Galilean countryside, the
conflict seemed far away. Now, as we set
our faces to Jerusalem, we had some idea that our guides were going to take us
square into elements of the conflict.
This pilgrimage was going to be political as well as personal. As we traveled from Jericho to Jerusalem, we
left the main highway for a side trip. There is a church along the road that
commemorates the raising of Lazarus and the conversation Jesus has with Mary
and Martha about choosing the better way.[1]
Going through the urban area, I noticed
a lot of trash piled near the crowded streets.
Many of the buildings looked like they were suffering from deferred
maintenance. It looked like an
economically depressed area. After we finished our worship and tour of the
church, we pulled our rain gear over us to re-board the bus and be on our
way. As we traveled, we saw more of the
same. A lot of men standing and
talking. Grocers trying to sell their
goods at curbside markets. We then came
to what our guides wanted us to see. On
the most direct path from the church we visited to Old City Jerusalem stood a
wall of grey concrete nearly 30 ft. tall with an imposing guard tower in the
distance. As we stared at this wall
through the rain-beaded windows, and as the driver turned us around on a path
to the nearest checkpoint, our guide read this bit of scripture:
But
now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the
blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into
one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us…that
he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making
peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross,
thus putting to death that hostility through it.
It was a
calculated move on the part of our guides, and knowing that it was intentional
felt like some of us to be manipulation for dramatic effect. Perhaps it worked; I’m telling you this story
today.
We had to go back
the way we came to swing west and then south through Jerusalem to
Bethlehem. It was then that I realized
and confirmed with our guides what I suspected.
The path we had taken which would have lead from Jericho to the Old City
of Jerusalem was at one time a major thoroughfare. Now, with the wall in place, the entire
community was essentially turned into a cul-de-sac and cut out of the tourism
trade. What used to be a 10-minute walk
from Old Jerusalem to that community can now be a 3 hour drive; that is, assuming
you are allowed through the military checkpoint. As a result, few people pass through, and the
major industry of that area has shriveled, Folks are cut off from services,
such as one’s doctors, from one side of the wall to the other. That, among
other things, explains the economic depression we saw along the way. The barrier was ever-present for the rest of
our trip as we drove through both Israeli and Palestinian territory.
And lest we think
that we can claim some sort of moral superiority over either side, it is worth
noting that our nation currently has one of the largest walled borders in the
world, portions of which run through our very state. And lest we be tempted to think that we can
sit back and claim that the barrier is an overreaction, or a sign of collective
madness, let me say this. From 2000 to
2003, 76 suicide bombings occurred in Israel. That is a land space that roughly
covers a triangle from Tucson to the Grand Canyon, through Phoenix to Globe;
but all of those attacks occurred in urban centers. After the building of portions of the wall,
from 2003 to 2006, only twelve suicide bombings occurred, and the number has
gone down from there.[2]
As a father, if I were in a similar situation
and someone promised me that I could send my children out in the world
more-confident that they would not be blown up in a suicide attack, I would
face a difficult decision. While I like
to think I’d be brave enough to live boldly in a dangerous world as a sign of
my trust in God’s good purposes and ends, I may indeed be willing to trade the
human dignity of many (reducing their freedom, stopping their movement, taking
their land) if I receive a sense of security for my family. (We, sitting in
this sanctuary, have certainly benefitted from the historical taking of other
people’s land by our forebears who wanted that security and felt entitled to
take what they wanted by force.) It might be worth it to think that I’ve done
what I can so that when he’s old enough I can send Colin shopping without
wondering whether he would be blown up by a suicide bomber.
I have some very
definite ideas about the morality of these situations, but at the moment I
simply say that the decision-making process is not “crazy” or “delusional.”
Reserve those words for actual psychological diagnoses, because what we are
talking about is the human instinct of survival.
Survival is the
human instinct that drives us to build walls.
And there are so
many walls.
International
borders.
Occupied territories.
No man’s lands.
Demilitarized zones.
Gated communities.
Ghettoized neighborhoods (which in
the U.S. are the legacy of white flight and the practice of redlining).[3]
Our own notions of race, class, sex and gender identity, and religion.
Our political leanings.
Our propensity to wall ourselves from those
who have wounded us or disagree with us.
(How long is your list of those people?
My list is in the double digits, I think.)
Walls keep us
safe.
In fact, their
existence is touted as a virtue.
Benjamin Franklin once quipped “love thy neighbor, yet don’t pull down
your hedge.” The poet Robert Frost is
perhaps most credited with how we often hear this wisdom from his poem “Mending
Wall”: “good fences make good neighbors.”[4] And this is a notion that one can find
expressed in many different cultures.[5]
However, Frost’s
poem begins with this line: “Something there is that doesn't love a wall.” Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, would
agree.[6]
In Paul’s letter
to the Ephesians, Paul is writing to a church community primarily made up of
Gentiles. In so doing Paul is making the
case that God has done something radical and new in Jesus Christ. On the one hand, there are the gentiles, strangers
and aliens, far from God and unaware of God’s covenant and promises made to
Israel. On the other hand are the
children of Israel, near to God in covenant and law, but are indicted by that
very law as disobedient. “Both groups,
Gentiles and Jews, for different reasons, are estranged from God. And both groups are estranged from and live
in hostility to one another.”[7] The heart of the text is Paul’s reminder
these two distinct people, Jews and Gentiles, have become one new humanity,
writing that “Christ might create in himself one new humanity in place of the
two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body
through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.”[8] Christ brought down the dividing wall. This is the reality of God’s ministry of
reconciliation, and it would have been a shocking image. These two groups would not even deign to eat
together. And yet, “when the neighbors
in ancient Ephesus saw who was eating together in the little church, they were
shocked. And when the preacher in that
infant congregation saw those shocked faces, all that needed to be said…was
“you are witnesses to God’s kingdom come, God’s will done.””[9] No one is thrown out. No one is cast aside. Everyone is invited.
Even though Paul
is speaking specifically to the separation of Gentiles and Jews, this passage
speaks to our separations today, our situations that need reconciliation. We are not invited to reconcile ourselves to
God and consider our life’s work done; our space in paradise reserved. That is a purpose too small for God—who
desires no less than the reconciliation of all to all, so that God can be all
in all.[10] And God has given us the ministry of
reconciliation that not only brings us into a more perfect communion with God
but to make us one through Christ with those we once called enemies.[11]
But even more
audacious than the claim of a new humanity is Paul’s other claim. Are you ready for this? Because Christ is our peace, bought through
the cross, we Christians proclaim that peace has already been made. Just as death has been destroyed, just as
death is no longer the end; hostility, and war, bloodshed are not the final
destiny of humankind. Aggression and
hatred are shadows, intended to pass away.
As Paul wrote, “Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both
groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall…the hostility between
us.”[12]
It is this
abiding peace of Christ that we are called to witness to, and it is this peace
that creates the conditions for the walls to come tumbling down. It is God’s desire for this peace that
propels Christians into the world, into situations that seem hopeless. But the work is difficult.
You see, even at
their best, walls do not create peace.
They are the tools of temporary cease-fires, of truces that may end, of
stand-offs that can last years and decades, in situations both political and
personal. They are testimonies to humankind’s
inability to effect reconciliation and a just peace, and so instead we
stall. The situation still exists, but
building the walls allows us to think that we have a solution, and that our
attention is now better spent elsewhere.
And when the walls we built seem insufficient, we build bigger and
better walls. Bringing down the wall,
however, is not good enough, nor does the simple demolition of boundaries
create peace. The walls we create are
symptoms of the hostility behind them. Peace comes only when that hostility is
eliminated, and that is the work God calls us to participate in and witness in
action. This is bitter, difficult work, well worth the effort and joy that
comes with its completion.
“Something there
is that doesn't love a wall
That sends the
frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.”[13]
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.”[13]
And God commends the same to us.
----------------
May we consider
these questions:
Where is God inviting
us and equipping us to confront a hostility within ourselves or within our
world?
Where might we
rejoice to take a stone off the walls we have built?
Where might we
point with joy to crumbling walls, and testify to God’s work?
[1]
Luke 10:42.
[6]
Paul’s authorship of Ephesians is contested in modern scholarship. It is possible that a follower of Paul’s
school of thought wrote the letter. This
sermon is written assuming the tradition of Paul’s authorship while noting the
uncertainty of that authorship.
[7]
George Stroup, “Ephesians 2:11-22: Theological perspective” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol.
3, 256.
[8]
Eph 2:15-16.
[9] Edwin
Searcy, “Ephesians 2:11-22: Homiletical perspective” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3, 257.
[11] 2
Cor 5:18.
[12]
Eph 2:14.
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