Creekside Church Sermon of July 27, 2003 "And the Walls Came Tumblin' Down" Ephesians 3:14-21	Rev. David Bibbee
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Driving down a highway, the comedian Steven Wright saw a sign that read, "Rest Stop 25 Miles." He thought to himself, "Man.... that's really big." Speaking of things built on a colossal scale, there is only one man-made structure that is visible from space; a bonafide engineering marvel in its dimensions, architectural style, and the periods of history over which it was built.

Travel to China would be unthinkable without seeing the Great Wall. What the Statue of Liberty is to America, the Great Wall is to China, only more so. It does not stand for an ideal, but the evolution of China's culture. The wall is 4,500 miles long, and was originally three walls that were linked over period of three dynasties. It took as long to construct as it took to compile the books of the Bible-- over 1,000 years! The wall was built for protection against invading foreign armies. The irony is that the collapse of Chinese culture was not due to invaders who breached the wall's defenses, but the collapse of the social order "inside."

In the Bible it seems that walls aren't popular. Apparently, God doesn't have much use for them. God instructed Joshua and his out-numbered, out-armed army to march in silence around the walls of Jericho once a day for six days. On day seven they blew their trumpets and hollered their heads off. What followed gave us the song we learned as children about the walls of Jericho that came "a tumblin' down." Jesus predicted that the Temple and great wall around the perimeter of Jerusalem would one day be turned into rubble. In 70 AD. , it came a tumblin' down at the hands of the Roman army.

The poet Robert Frost wrote: "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out." Walls separate and segregate. Whether wood, brick and mortar, or the invisible variety, their purpose is to keep people in or out.

The Bible is a referendum against walls. The world Jesus was born into was a giant "wall-mart" that divided Jew from Gentile, the righteous from sinners, the chosen from the pagans, men from women, the prosperous from the poor, clean from unclean. This is why Jesus distanced himself from the Pharisees. He didn't respect the boundaries they had crafted. "You say I should stay on our side of the wall? What wall? I don't see a wall. Do you see a wall? I don't have time to discuss this right now. I'm running late for my Wednesday night prostitutes and tax collectors Bible study. If you'll excuse me I'll just walk on through your wall."

In Ephesians, Paul stretches "language to the limit" to describe the incredible what God had done in Jesus. He became the bridge spanning the gulf that kept people apart and the promises of God off limits. A miracle called the church was born, and in the church, distinctions no longer distinguished people. Jews and Gentiles became Christians.

Eugene Peterson delightfully translates this miracle that Paul describes: "It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel... Now because of Christ, you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything... The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. HE TORE DOWN THE WALL WE USED TO KEEP EACH OTHER AT A DISTANCE. He repealed the law code-- Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

I don't know if you ever considered it, but I can't think of a reason we should be together. Think of all our differences, then ask why on earth should we have anything to do with each other. Some of you are Republicans. Not me! Some of you would love to sing nothing but old hymns, and others can't for the life of them figure out why. "We're supposed to sing a "new song" unto the Lord." Some say, "Let's hurry up and get some land and put up a building." Others have said, "Let's buy a vacant church or an office building." Some of you respond to the "rational" aspects of the faith. For others it is a matter of the heart. One group says, "You're stuck in your head!" The cerebral souls say, "You're too emotional!"

We understand the inspiration of the Bible in different ways. Though we claim a common identity as members of the Church of the Brethren, some chose to be conscientious objectors and others served in the military. We don't eyeball the issues facing the church in the same way. Some of you didn't come from a Brethren background. You aren't connected to any recognizable Brethren names. You didn't go to Manchester College. But we let you in anyway.

Why should we be together, different as we are? It is not shared values or ideals, or being an ethical-improvement society, or belonging to discussion groups, nor is it the appreciation of good music and singing, or is it associating with a group of nice people, nice though we are. Why are we together? It's the love of Jesus at work through the Holy Spirit, Period.

In Jesus' day there was no gulf as deep and wide as that between Jews and Gentiles. Then the walls crumbled. Jews and Gentiles stepped across the line they were told never to cross. What bridged the gulf, and what attracted converts by the thousands to this family? Keith Miller called it "the scent of love."

In verse one of today's lesson, Paul is on his knees. The killer of Christians whose old self was killed off, marvels at what God had done in turning enemies into family. He told the Ephesians:

And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb its depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

God can do anything, you know-- far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (3:17-21)

Last week there was a remarkable story on NBC's program, "Dateline." A fifty-one year old man got a phone call that changed his life. He was told by an investigator that he had been adopted. The evidence was solid. He always thought that his parents were his "biological" parents. There was no reason to think otherwise. They provided a loving home, but never shared the secret. He was one of thirteen brothers and sisters who had been give up because their impoverished parents couldn't care for them.

This revelation, however, was just the beginning of an incredible story. Mike had a best friend for twenty-five years. They were always there for one another through the highs and lows of their lives. They were best men in each other's weddings. They did everything together. Things about them were so similar their friends called them, "the brothers," and for a good reason-- a check of the birth records revealed that they were, in fact, brothers. The next startling discovery was that the woman he had dated for a year in college and had considered marrying was, you guessed it, his sister! Prior to this revelation, his sister had found her two youngest brothers, and when Mike met them-- what a coincidence! One brother had been his weight-lifting partner for the past fifteen years, and the other brother he had known as an acquaintance for twenty years! They were family but didn't know it.

What an experience to learn of a family you never knew you had. What a remarkable series of events, yet it is nothing compared to the bonds formed between those who claim the name Christian. As a church we are not as diverse as we could or should be. Even so, there is no power besides Jesus' love that is capable of bringing different people together like us and making of us a family. There is no power bedsides Jesus' love that can knock down the walls so we can reach out to others.

While serving the Crest Manor congregation, a young family began attending regularly. They joined a Sunday school class and appeared to fit right in. Greg wasn't timid about joining the discussions. His comments were on target, and he added a new dimension to the dynamic of the class. Then, for no apparent reason, Greg stopped coming. After a three week absence class members tied to contact him, but there was no response. When I visited the family, I asked about their sudden absence. His wife said, "The kids and I love the church. You'll have to ask Greg why we aren't coming."

So I asked. "Its the Sunday school class," he said. "What about the class?" I asked. "Everyone is educated. I don't fit in. I only went to high school. I'm just a truck driver. When I found out there were teachers, accountants, five doctors and a Notre Dame professor in the class, I knew it wasn't for me."

Greg lived behind a wall of inferiority. No one put him there. He put himself there. He thought he had nothing in common with the others, and didn't believe the class members really meant it when they wrote notes telling him they wanted him to be a part of their community.

Some of you may remember the Sunday school song you sang as children about the dimensions of Jesus' love: "Its so high, you can't get over it; so low you can't get under it..." With the adults you sang, "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," which says, "For the love of God is broader than the measure of our minds.

On this we are all in agreement, right? I have to wonder, though. It's easy to say we pay Sunday homage to God's grace and nod our heads listening to those soaring words of Paul: "May you have power to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge."

"Knock those walls on down, Jesus," we say, and then go right on building more of them. God has sensitized us to some of the barriers which stand in the way of our becoming a more inclusive church. In many churches, the first wall a visitor encounters is inside the front door in the form of a tepid welcome, or no welcome at all. We've made it hard not to be noticed and welcomed, and have taken steps to make worship accessible to people unfamiliar with our service. We take incarnating the hospitality of Jesus seriously.

But we have more to learn and more love to share. Visiting our church, would the man who has been a failure at everything he has tried feel like a person of worth and know he is a child of God, or would we reinforce what he has felt all along, that he is a screw-up? Would the recently divorced single mom experience us as a supportive family and draw from us strength and hope to go on, or would she feel judged? Asking these questions and testing our ministry by the appeal of our text is so important.

I don't want to sound like a sour-puss, but I can't help myself when pastors and members of churches tell horror stories about divisions in their congregations. Christians fighting like pit bulls over petty grievances they have savored for years. Churches divided over disagreements about chancel arrangements. Churches that separate the wheat from the chaff, dividing people between saved and unsaved, all the while neglecting that Jesus said only God is in a position to pass judgment upon souls. Whatever reason for the walls, such behavior is a slap in the face of the Savior whose desire for the church is to be rooted in his love.

Last Sunday I quoted St. Paul admonition, "Be in the world but not of it." As far as walls are concerned, I think we're in it and of it. People in our churches are mirroring the popular attitudes of society more than the mind of Christ. Back in 1958, Wallace Hamilton said, "The Bible is the story of the conflict between those who would limit and monopolize God, and those who would liberate Him.... One of the most incredible contradictions possible to conceive is to think of the God of the universe off in some holy corner of our planet with a flag in His hand, limiting his love in one land, and lavishing it upon another."

Forty-five years later, we resemble that statement. A great wall is being built around our land with God inside waving an American flag. Goodness and righteousness are on our side. "If you are not with us, you are against us," is the word from Washington. But God doesn't wave an American flag or any flag. We would be better off displaying more crosses than flags. "God bless America!" is everywhere. Lord knows we need blessed, but not in the way we think. The Pharisees knew God was on their side of the wall. When they prayed, "God bless us," it was a limited blessing. Jews only. No Gentiles. I saw a bumper sticker much nearer the Bible's message. "God Bless the World: No Exceptions!"

A church without walls-- wouldn't that be something? I know this is the name of the church on Indiana Avenue, but its what all Christian churches should be.... a church where people experience God blessing everyone-- no exceptions.

There was a Zen Master who was teaching one of his students how to thrust his hand through a block of wood. "You must not concentrate on the wood," he said. "You must concentrate on the space beyond the wood, the space where you want your hand to be. If you concentrate on the wood, it will stop you every time. But if you concentrate on the space beyond, you will go right through it."

It sounds like appropriate instruction to me. Don't concentrate on the walls, but on the holy space on the other side where Jesus wants our lives and church to be. "He has torn down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance," Let's yield our wills to him over and over, that the scent of love will draw people to him. Let us pray:

God's peaceful man of Galilee, love's triumph we shall follow thee to crumble every bound'ry wall, build highways to the hearts of all. Love's triumph we shall follow thee, God's peaceful man of Galilee. Amen.

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