Jesus: The Peace Between Us July 23, 2006
2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Ephesians 2:11-22
Once upon a time there was a very old castle on the English coast that had not been occupied for awhile. Vandals had been coming in and destroying the place. So the owner hired a contractor to build a rock wall around the castle. The fee was decided upon and the contractor began building the wall. It was only a short time when he began having trouble finding enough rocks for the wall. So he called the owner and complained about the rock scarcity. The owner replied sharply to the contractor, “I don’t care where you get the rocks. I just want to get that wall built.” After a few weeks, the owner came to take a look at found a beautiful high wall built. He was so impressed with the fine work. It was really a perfect wall for the castle! But then he went through the wall and was shocked to find that there was no castle! The contractor explained, “There were all these wonderful rocks in that run-down old castle, so I used them.”[1]
When we build walls we never know how high the price will be. So often walls are built because of prejudice-prejudging people and situations. We think we are protecting ourselves in some way and what may happen instead is that we prevent ourselves from letting the grace of God come to us through the people we are shutting out. Instead of protecting ourselves from some cherished values, we may instead find out that we have ended up tearing down things of value from within ourselves.
Jesus and Paul were born into a society in the Middle East where the people were separated in many ways. The largest division was between the Jews and the Gentiles; the Jews were the chosen people of God, the ones to whom God had made the many promises of freedom and land, leadership throughout the generations as with David and the promise that his descendants would rule for all time. The rest of the people, including our ancestors , were considered Gentiles. The Jews were the “in crowd” and the Gentiles were the “other”, us and them. In the temple in Jerusalem there were actual walls separating the Gentiles from the Jews, the males from the females, the priests from the lay people, and holy things from common things. There was tremendous prejudice especially between the Jews and the Gentiles. There were all kinds of laws to keep them separate. Jews were forbidden to enter Gentile homes. If a Jew married a Gentile, the Jew was more than disowned; it was like a death, even had a funeral service. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says that these walls of hostility have been broken down through Christ Jesus. The fact that Gentiles were included in Christianity in Jesus day is referred to by some as the greatest miracle of the New Testament. Jesus is the peace between us, between the Jews and the Gentiles in those times, and today, between all sorts and conditions of people. Jesus’ ministry was and is a ministry of reconciliation where he creates one new humanity in place of two. Paul tells the Christians in Galatia that there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, the East and the West. In our Ephesians’ passage he says that Christians are no longer strangers and aliens to each other but that we are all one in Christ Jesus. It is Jesus through whom we are joined together and will grow into a holy temple in the Lord, says Paul. Jesus is the cornerstone of this dwelling place for God. In a world that constantly divides people into us and them the Christian message is that there is no them, only us, all of us right here in the same family, members of the same body with Christ as our head. Jesus has taken away the walls, the hostility of division and called us to be one in peace.
A sermon by Don Harbuck pointed out that all these walls are really just one wall and I would like to share some of his words, “The wall is everywhere. All of us know about it…. Its menacing power moves the length and breadth of human existence. What wall is it? It is the wall that separates and fragments and isolates. It is the wall that keeps people apart. It makes them suspicious and distrustful of each other. It kills fellowship and breeds prejudice and spreads gossip and sets loose the dogs of war. It takes many forms but it always remains the same wall wherever we encounter it.”[2] He goes on to describe some of the different forms: sometimes it’s a velvet covered wall separating the affluent and wealthy from people who do not have and may never have wealth. Sometimes it’s a sheepskin wall which raises hostility between the educated and the uneducated. I’m sure we could all go on with different walls. When I was growing up in New England in the 50’s the greatest wall was between whites and blacks. When I moved to So. California in the 60’s, the great prejudice was Anglos against Mexicans; after 9/11 the religious wall of hate against Muslims has grown higher and higher. We are good at building both tangible and intangible walls. You older folks remember the Iron Curtain, the symbolic boundaries that divided Europe from the end of WW II to the end of the Cold War. Then of course most everyone here remembers the Berlin Wall that separated Easter Germany from Western Germany and was finally torn down in 1989. Many walls are unnamed but still are very powerful.
Paul reminds us that the way of Jesus is not to build walls or place barriers in the way of people being close together. He says that Jesus “came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.” If we are going to follow Jesus, it seems to me that it is up to us as Christians to continue the work of breaking down walls whenever we see them and to be careful that we do not build or maintain the walls ourselves. This means examining our hearts and our lives to find any invisible but very real barriers that we can so easily erect between ourselves and others. You are use to my lists by now but listen to a couple of new possibilities of those we may put on the other side of the wall: those with piercings through many body parts, those who drive souped-up cars, those that are unattractively groomed and dressed, maybe those that are beer drinking, cigar smoking wrestling fans. I don’t know. You can fill in your own prejudices, your own groups of people that you feel uncomfortable with and don’t even try to get to know. Just think of the racial, economic, and social barriers that are in our daily lives that determine whom we see, touch and share with or not. These walls direct our footsteps; think of how we classify each other in church: summer people, old timers, newcomers; think about how we relate or not to those people in our work, the janitors, the bosses, and so forth. Do we relate to the trash collector the same as the delivery person, the same as the grocery store cashier, the same as the bank teller? How is any of this “oneness” possible? Are we just fooling ourselves?
In our Hebrew scripture we heard the story of David deciding he wanted to make a permanent house for God, who as the God of a transient people had been carried about on carts and other various means of transportation as God’s people went from place to place. David is so thankful for all the blessings that God has given him that he wants to do something really nice for God—make him not just any house but one built from the finest cedars. What a surprise when Nathan, the prophet, told David that God did not want a house; in fact God wanted to build a house for David. Building God a house was David’s agenda, not God’s agenda. Do we try to out think God? Do we make decisions for God which are really things that we want or believe, not what God wants or believes? How much time do we spend listening to God, trying to discern God’s will for us and for God’s world? No matter how high and lofty our goals may be, remember that God’s plans may be different and that we always need to keep listening—through prayer, through reading Scripture, through worshiping with others. Paul tells us that the household of God is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. As we join together as one, the holy temple of the Lord is built; we “also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (v.21-2) This is not a house of the finest cedars that David intended to built. This house is us all joined together in the body of Christ. This is the new people that Christ Jesus himself built as he proclaims peace to those both near and far off.
I will end this sermon with another illustration. This one comes from one of America’s great preachers, Fred Craddock. He tells about revisiting his Southern hometown every Christmas and always going to see his friend Buck. Buck owned a cafe on the main street of the town, and he always gave Craddock a cup of coffee and a piece of chess pie. One Christmas when Craddock went in to get his coffee and pie, Buck said, "Come on, let's go get a cup of coffee." "What's the matter?" asked Craddock, "isn't this a restaurant?" "I don't know; sometimes I wonder," Buck fired back.Later, sitting across from Craddock, Buck asked, "Did you see the curtain?" "Yes, Buck, I saw the curtain; I always see the curtain." The curtain was in Buck's cafe, separating the front half of the cafe from the back half. White folks came in the front of the cafe from the main street, but black folks came in from an alley behind the cafe. The curtain was there to separate, to separate white people from black people.
Buck looked up and said, "Fred, the curtain has got to come down." "Good," Craddock responded, "Pull her down!" "That's easy enough for you to say," said Buck. "You come in once a year and tell me how to run my business." "Then leave it up," Craddock countered. In personal agony, Buck said, "Fred, I take that curtain down, and I lose my customers; I leave that curtain up, and I lose my soul!"
Buck was right, of course. Some curtains have to come down. Walls have to be destroyed because if we leave them up we will lose our souls, no matter how many church customers we gain![3] Remember that you and I are God’s temple! What an amazing realization! Jesus has reconciled us into one body and we are the dwelling place of God! Amen and Amen.
[1] Joel Gregory, quoted by Mickey Anders in a sermon online.
[2] “The Wall,” unpublished sermon found online.
[3] Retold by Walter Shurden, “When the walls come tumbling down”, in Baptist History and Heritage, Spring 2005
Once upon a time there was a very old castle on the English coast that had not been occupied for awhile. Vandals had been coming in and destroying the place. So the owner hired a contractor to build a rock wall around the castle. The fee was decided upon and the contractor began building the wall. It was only a short time when he began having trouble finding enough rocks for the wall. So he called the owner and complained about the rock scarcity. The owner replied sharply to the contractor, “I don’t care where you get the rocks. I just want to get that wall built.” After a few weeks, the owner came to take a look at found a beautiful high wall built. He was so impressed with the fine work. It was really a perfect wall for the castle! But then he went through the wall and was shocked to find that there was no castle! The contractor explained, “There were all these wonderful rocks in that run-down old castle, so I used them.”[1]
When we build walls we never know how high the price will be. So often walls are built because of prejudice-prejudging people and situations. We think we are protecting ourselves in some way and what may happen instead is that we prevent ourselves from letting the grace of God come to us through the people we are shutting out. Instead of protecting ourselves from some cherished values, we may instead find out that we have ended up tearing down things of value from within ourselves.
Jesus and Paul were born into a society in the Middle East where the people were separated in many ways. The largest division was between the Jews and the Gentiles; the Jews were the chosen people of God, the ones to whom God had made the many promises of freedom and land, leadership throughout the generations as with David and the promise that his descendants would rule for all time. The rest of the people, including our ancestors , were considered Gentiles. The Jews were the “in crowd” and the Gentiles were the “other”, us and them. In the temple in Jerusalem there were actual walls separating the Gentiles from the Jews, the males from the females, the priests from the lay people, and holy things from common things. There was tremendous prejudice especially between the Jews and the Gentiles. There were all kinds of laws to keep them separate. Jews were forbidden to enter Gentile homes. If a Jew married a Gentile, the Jew was more than disowned; it was like a death, even had a funeral service. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says that these walls of hostility have been broken down through Christ Jesus. The fact that Gentiles were included in Christianity in Jesus day is referred to by some as the greatest miracle of the New Testament. Jesus is the peace between us, between the Jews and the Gentiles in those times, and today, between all sorts and conditions of people. Jesus’ ministry was and is a ministry of reconciliation where he creates one new humanity in place of two. Paul tells the Christians in Galatia that there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, the East and the West. In our Ephesians’ passage he says that Christians are no longer strangers and aliens to each other but that we are all one in Christ Jesus. It is Jesus through whom we are joined together and will grow into a holy temple in the Lord, says Paul. Jesus is the cornerstone of this dwelling place for God. In a world that constantly divides people into us and them the Christian message is that there is no them, only us, all of us right here in the same family, members of the same body with Christ as our head. Jesus has taken away the walls, the hostility of division and called us to be one in peace.
A sermon by Don Harbuck pointed out that all these walls are really just one wall and I would like to share some of his words, “The wall is everywhere. All of us know about it…. Its menacing power moves the length and breadth of human existence. What wall is it? It is the wall that separates and fragments and isolates. It is the wall that keeps people apart. It makes them suspicious and distrustful of each other. It kills fellowship and breeds prejudice and spreads gossip and sets loose the dogs of war. It takes many forms but it always remains the same wall wherever we encounter it.”[2] He goes on to describe some of the different forms: sometimes it’s a velvet covered wall separating the affluent and wealthy from people who do not have and may never have wealth. Sometimes it’s a sheepskin wall which raises hostility between the educated and the uneducated. I’m sure we could all go on with different walls. When I was growing up in New England in the 50’s the greatest wall was between whites and blacks. When I moved to So. California in the 60’s, the great prejudice was Anglos against Mexicans; after 9/11 the religious wall of hate against Muslims has grown higher and higher. We are good at building both tangible and intangible walls. You older folks remember the Iron Curtain, the symbolic boundaries that divided Europe from the end of WW II to the end of the Cold War. Then of course most everyone here remembers the Berlin Wall that separated Easter Germany from Western Germany and was finally torn down in 1989. Many walls are unnamed but still are very powerful.
Paul reminds us that the way of Jesus is not to build walls or place barriers in the way of people being close together. He says that Jesus “came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.” If we are going to follow Jesus, it seems to me that it is up to us as Christians to continue the work of breaking down walls whenever we see them and to be careful that we do not build or maintain the walls ourselves. This means examining our hearts and our lives to find any invisible but very real barriers that we can so easily erect between ourselves and others. You are use to my lists by now but listen to a couple of new possibilities of those we may put on the other side of the wall: those with piercings through many body parts, those who drive souped-up cars, those that are unattractively groomed and dressed, maybe those that are beer drinking, cigar smoking wrestling fans. I don’t know. You can fill in your own prejudices, your own groups of people that you feel uncomfortable with and don’t even try to get to know. Just think of the racial, economic, and social barriers that are in our daily lives that determine whom we see, touch and share with or not. These walls direct our footsteps; think of how we classify each other in church: summer people, old timers, newcomers; think about how we relate or not to those people in our work, the janitors, the bosses, and so forth. Do we relate to the trash collector the same as the delivery person, the same as the grocery store cashier, the same as the bank teller? How is any of this “oneness” possible? Are we just fooling ourselves?
In our Hebrew scripture we heard the story of David deciding he wanted to make a permanent house for God, who as the God of a transient people had been carried about on carts and other various means of transportation as God’s people went from place to place. David is so thankful for all the blessings that God has given him that he wants to do something really nice for God—make him not just any house but one built from the finest cedars. What a surprise when Nathan, the prophet, told David that God did not want a house; in fact God wanted to build a house for David. Building God a house was David’s agenda, not God’s agenda. Do we try to out think God? Do we make decisions for God which are really things that we want or believe, not what God wants or believes? How much time do we spend listening to God, trying to discern God’s will for us and for God’s world? No matter how high and lofty our goals may be, remember that God’s plans may be different and that we always need to keep listening—through prayer, through reading Scripture, through worshiping with others. Paul tells us that the household of God is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. As we join together as one, the holy temple of the Lord is built; we “also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (v.21-2) This is not a house of the finest cedars that David intended to built. This house is us all joined together in the body of Christ. This is the new people that Christ Jesus himself built as he proclaims peace to those both near and far off.
I will end this sermon with another illustration. This one comes from one of America’s great preachers, Fred Craddock. He tells about revisiting his Southern hometown every Christmas and always going to see his friend Buck. Buck owned a cafe on the main street of the town, and he always gave Craddock a cup of coffee and a piece of chess pie. One Christmas when Craddock went in to get his coffee and pie, Buck said, "Come on, let's go get a cup of coffee." "What's the matter?" asked Craddock, "isn't this a restaurant?" "I don't know; sometimes I wonder," Buck fired back.Later, sitting across from Craddock, Buck asked, "Did you see the curtain?" "Yes, Buck, I saw the curtain; I always see the curtain." The curtain was in Buck's cafe, separating the front half of the cafe from the back half. White folks came in the front of the cafe from the main street, but black folks came in from an alley behind the cafe. The curtain was there to separate, to separate white people from black people.
Buck looked up and said, "Fred, the curtain has got to come down." "Good," Craddock responded, "Pull her down!" "That's easy enough for you to say," said Buck. "You come in once a year and tell me how to run my business." "Then leave it up," Craddock countered. In personal agony, Buck said, "Fred, I take that curtain down, and I lose my customers; I leave that curtain up, and I lose my soul!"
Buck was right, of course. Some curtains have to come down. Walls have to be destroyed because if we leave them up we will lose our souls, no matter how many church customers we gain![3] Remember that you and I are God’s temple! What an amazing realization! Jesus has reconciled us into one body and we are the dwelling place of God! Amen and Amen.
[1] Joel Gregory, quoted by Mickey Anders in a sermon online.
[2] “The Wall,” unpublished sermon found online.
[3] Retold by Walter Shurden, “When the walls come tumbling down”, in Baptist History and Heritage, Spring 2005
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 1:18 PM
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