Loading...It really does seem to make things so much easier when lines are clearly drawn,
where boundaries are clearly delineated and where barriers are in place
to keep in what needs to be in and out what needs to be out.
At least, when you are talking about cattle, sheep, or dogs.
After all, you do not want them wandering all over the place.
So fences are put up and maintained. This is good.
Also, when you are thinking about your own emotional health
having good boundaries is wise
so that you do not become enmeshed with others, or
enable bad behavior.
But, boundaries and barriers always? And in every situation?
After all, one of the ways we describe a fight is to
“draw the battle lines.”
And, boundaries can be so firm as to become rigid,
thereby stunting our own growth or creativity.
Plus, barriers can keep out what actually needs to come in
and keep in what really needs to get out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many years ago, a devout and faithful man worked hard to draw lines to define peoples’ places. He argued strongly for boundaries and he worked to erect barriers to define who was in and who was out. Saul of Tarsus was well known as one of the best line-drawers, boundary-definers and barrier-builders out there.
But that all went awry one day. Saul lost his gift for making distinctions, seeing particularity, and labeling people “in” or “out”. He lost that gift because Jesus told him in an unforgettable event that
God is not interested in lines,
God crosses boundaries, and
God breaks down barriers.
So Saul – now Paul – took his prodigious energy and skill (and famous lack of tact!) and set about forming and building communities to
break all barriers
cross all boundaries and
erase all lines.
From Jerusalem to Antioch to Iconium,
to Lystre and Derbe, to Macedonia, to Thessolonica,
To Beroea, to Athens, and to Ephesus,
Paul, in his bold, fiery, and – yes – tactless way,
preached and built inclusive communities
where the only requirement to belonging was
a curiosity for and a love of God who first loved them.
Paul did not care if you ate meat or were vegetarian.
Paul did not care if you kept Levitical laws or not.
Paul did not care if the men were circumcised or not.
For most of us hearing and reading about Paul and his work one thousand, nine hundred and sixty-some years later,
one’s diet has more to do with one’s health,
Leviticus is archaic and convoluted to us,
and talk about circumcision makes us squirm.
But, for the people of 1960+- years ago,
these were lines,
these were boundaries,
these were barriers.
Paul went to synagogues, Jewish places of learning and worship. For those towns where Jews were a despised, hated, and maybe even persecuted minority, the synagogue was a refuge and a safe barrier. Paul used his Jewish credentials to get in the door and to get on the docket as one of the guest preachers.
But when he stood up and started talking about Jesus
and about God’s dream and vision for the world –
which included a most RADICAL notion of
line erasing
boundary crossing and
barrier breaking –
the Jewish folks who were most interested in keeping their sense of definition firmly in place
wanted to throw. Paul. out.
In several places they did.
They chased him with thrown stones or brandished sticks.
Or, they had him imprisoned by accusations made to Roman soldiers.
But Paul, that cheeky, bold, tactless, and stubborn man,
would not give up.
He believed so deeply that God is about tearing down and abolishing those things that separate us
that he would not – he could not – give up.
Even if he was stuck somewhere, including prison, he would write letters (or have someone write on his behalf) to the groups of curious, God-loving, and God-faithful people in many of the places he had visited in order to teach, encourage, and even correct them.
In this letter to the community at Ephesus,
•the same place where Paul had preached for three months in the synagogue and two more years in another meeting hall after he was kicked out of the synagogue;
•the same town that he could not even enter again because the leaders of the synagogue would not let him in,
Paul, or someone writing for Paul,
wrote to encourage the faithful
but also to get them to recognize that their in-fighting was wrong,
and that their line drawing and boundary forming was wrong.
This letter, writing about Christ who is at the heart of their community and every community of faith, says, “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.”
This faithful writer goes on to proclaim peace through Christ for those near and for who are all now both fully in and a part of God’s household, in God’s city; in God’s temple.
No matter what their background might have been, if they are part of the faithful community, peace through Christ is now part of their lives.
And part of our lives.
Those lines and barriers,
boundaries and walls
are gone
because of Jesus, our Christ, Messiah, and Savior.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well,
at least they are gone as far as God is concerned.
Yet we humans like to draw lines,
make those boundaries,
and build up the barriers – about food, religious laws, morality,
ethnic background, “legal” status, or whatever.
Not just then, but now.
We continue to build walls and barriers in our faith life and in our “secular” life.
Who do we allow into our lives?
To whom do we make ourselves vulnerable?
What walls have we built – figuratively or literally – even as a whole people?
Almost 30 years ago, the physical and metaphorical walls that had divided families and communities were broken when then-President Reagan said, “Tear this wall down” as he stood in front of the very real Berlin Wall.
Yet, the DMZ between North and South Korea stays up, more than 60 years later.
A wall along the Southern border of the US has been being built – and is gaining in popularity to be finished.
All over Israel and Palestine a huge, ugly concrete wall is being built and extended, dividing families and communities.
And, of course, there are the metaphorical walls built and being shored up – walls based upon ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, social status, gender, and any number of dividing factors.
For what purpose, these walls?
To protect, some would argue.
But mostly, they divide.
Despite Paul’s call for reconciliation.
Regardless of Christ’s gift of peace through his own self.
And, in spite of God’s dream and vision of a people reconciled,
and living together in God’s own family as the living temple of God.
The realists and the pragmatics amongst us may say that it will never happen, God’s dream;
that there will always be walls and divisions,
that there will always be lines, boundaries, and barriers.
But people of faith –
we visionaries, dreamers, and trusting believers
living in the hope and the joy of reconciliation.
After all, if the barrier between ourselves and God could be –
and was –
crossed by God’s own gift of incarnation and life through the cross of Christ,
then these divisions and lines between ourselves CAN be overcome.
As the beloved and claimed people of God,
we are called to work to erase lines,
cross boundaries,
and break down barriers.
We are called to destroy the walls – real and metaphorical –
that stand in the way of peace and reconciliation
so that we too may be the loving and merciful peacemakers
that God has called us to be in Christ.
Amen
