mending walls

November 7, 2007

Ephesians 2:14-18

“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made us both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, 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. So he 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.”

I was in the tenth grade when I fell in love with Robert Frost’s poetry and specifically a piece known as “Mending Wall.” You can find the full script of this poem at http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html. The poem talks about the fact that we are so intentional in our living about building walls between each other. We pour our energies in to working together to be sure that our lives can be lived separately. Our mantra becomes “good fences make good neighbors.” But in the grand scheme of things the fences lead to our tolerating each other rather than really loving each other.

This section of the Ephesians scripture invites us to remember the temple structure of the Hebrew Bible times. There were several courts that led up to the inner sanctum of the temple. At least one of those courts was separated by a fence of sorts and on that fence was written the following, “No man of another race is to enter within the fence and enclosure around the temple.” This was a reminder that non-Jews must keep their distance from the sacred space of Israel.

The Ephesians writer may well have been referring to that very fence as he exhorts the people that the dividing wall is gone, thanks to Jesus Christ! Scholars have many other suppositions as to the reference being related to other walls both literal and figurative but the point remains the same as that of the poem. Since Jesus came, the ballgame is different--Jews and Gentiles need not be separated any longer. They can share in relationship with each other and with God. This is known as a double reconciliation. As we are drawn to God we are also drawn to each other. It is love/unity that binds us.

I am struck as I read this passage that as the Ephesians author is writing he is exhorting a community that has known one way of being for a very long time. The listeners are having to push themselves to step outside of the ways they have always lived in order to embrace a new culture of people in the Gentiles.

As the church universal, we now live in an age where life outside of the church is very different. The current generations are no longer the great supporters of the institution. The internet has changed the way that we communicate and in many ways our technology has made us both more accessible and more distant. In our efforts to maintain church as we have known it, we begin to profess to the world around us, that “good fences make good neighbors” whether it is intentional or not. The Jews had to realize that in order to spread their message they had to change how they operated to see the Gentiles as lovers of God as well and to embrace them for who they were even though they were different. In very similar ways we as the church, if we are to survive, will have to change how we go about sharing our message of God. We have to package the message differently. We have to release the mantra that good fences make good neighbors. We actually have to move beyond our fences (in whatever forms they may appear) into the lives of others who may not look like us or live like us. But in order to do that we have to be honest with ourselves about the message that we are communicating and how we are communicating it and then we have to be willing to risk changing our mantra and our ways to professing a new poetic mantra-- “something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” The days ahead of us are offering new opportunities for walls to be broken down, for lives to be changed and for unity to reign. May we jump gleefully at the offerings of our future! Amen!