Tear Down your walls

Ephesians 2: 11-22
Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus and it was intended to be passed around to multiple congregations of believers throughout Asia Minor around 60 AD.  My how times have not changed!  It always amazes me how the teachings in the Bible from so long ago still speak to the challenges of today.
 During the time Paul wrote this letter the church in general was struggling with an Us vs. Them mentality.  The Jewish Christians felt that they were better than the Gentile Christians because of their heritage.  The Jewish Christians believed that because they were part of the original “chosen people of God” they were more important and closer to God.  The Jewish people of the time believed that the sole purpose of the Gentiles was to be fuel for the fires of Hell and that God only loved the Israelites. (Barclay, 1976)
The hatred for the Gentiles was so strong that if a Jew married a Gentile they would actually perform a funeral for the Jew. (Barclay, 1976) Wow!  That is a pretty strong sentiment. The Jewish temple even had a physical wall to ensure the Gentiles did not enter the holy places of worship. Doing so was even punishable by death!(Barclay, 1976)  Hopefully we don’t have the same contempt for our neighbors today but it’s amazing to realize that we still build walls, physical and metaphorical, to keep people out of our lives, out of our churches, and out of our country. 
 Paul addresses this division in this letter to the Ephesians by reminding them and us that through Christ they are all equal and that Christ came to bring unity and salvation to all people.  Yes, the ancestors of Jacob had been chosen by God but they had failed miserably at keeping his commandments.  The Gentile believers through Christ now had just as much right to be children of God as the Jewish.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had torn down the barriers between the two to form a new Kingdom and to bring peace. 
  As you  know, after World War II, Germany was divided East and West.  The west was organized as a capitalist society much like the American, English and French countries chartered with helping it rebuild.  The East however was organized as a communist society like the country chartered with helping it rebuild- the Soviet Union.  12 years or so after the war ended the East Germans were frustrated by the differences between the economics in the East and West and decided to construct a wall.  It began as a barbed wire fence but over the next 14 years it grew into a well-fortified 12 feet high and 28 mile long wall. (New World Encyclopedia)  The Berlin wall was constructed like many of the personal walls we build in our own lives- out of fear.  East Germany was afraid of the immigration issues, labor inequalities and economic and political freedom of the West.  The Berlin Wall remained for 28 years.  What had once been one Nation, one people, one government was divided as a result of the sin, and hate championed by Nazi Germany. 
 We still use physical walls today to divide.  A couple very controversial fences lie between the US and Mexico as well as the walls and fences that separate Israel from Palestine and North Korea from South Korea.  I won’t pretend to know the political policies and personal fears that create these walls. Sometimes fences make good neighbors- sometimes they don’t.  
One of the walls we build may seem a little more innocent.  We hear all the time that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.  We use church walls to divide us by worship style, politics, race, socioeconomic class; the list goes on and on.
 Sometimes our barriers are not physical. It is a lot less obvious and a lot grayer.  Without even thinking we use words like “us” and “them” and ”those people.”  These words may seem harmless enough when they are used carelessly and without thought.  And they often seem harmless when we use them about someone else-especially when we’re in the majority.    We use words like Those Democrats or Those Republicans, Those rednecks or those hippies.- those whomever fit the situation.
 The simple use of us and them puts up an invisible wall.  Maybe this is part of human nature- each of us trying desperately to find something to be proud of.  We make sweeping generalizations or caricatures of an entire group of people. Stereotypes that are often false are often an attempt to make ourselves feel better about our own short comings. 
 Living and growing up in rural North Carolina I know that not everyone who lives in North Carolina look and act like the cartoon “Snuffy Smith”.  We don’t all live in Mayberry and act like the “Dukes of Hazard”-but this is a stereotype I have heard from others especially when I was their first introduction to someone from North Carolina.  On particular example was my freshman year in college- I met several people from the New England area.  After getting to know them I would hear things like- “I really thought you people acted that way. I thought people from the south were just as stupid as the TV made them out to be.” But still, we do it anyway.  We use stereotypes and prejudgments to put others down and to make ourselves feel better-even when we don’t like it when people who don’t know us do it to us. 
 The Jewish Christians were doing this too.  They had a form of spiritual pride that had been cultivated since Moses lead the Israelites through the wilderness.    They looked down on the gentile believers because they didn’t have the same beliefs, history and religious practices.  We still do this today. We often use tradition as a wall to divide us.  Sure, we will be hospitable as long as they don’t try to change things, or as long as they are willing to do it our way.  Jesus challenges us to not ignore our past but to build new traditions (NIV- Life Application Bible).  You see,  Jesus came to change the future not negate the past.  The past is what made us who we are but the past is not where God wants us to be. 
 Just because it is human nature to put others down in order to lift ourselves up doesn’t mean it is right.  It is also human nature to sin.  This may be a reason for our behaviors but not an excuse to continue them.   Christ challenges us to look toward a future of unity and equality with Him. 
Has the church today become an exclusive club for members only?  Do we require people to pay their dues, dress a certain way and be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer and Apostle’s Creed by heart before they are accepted?  How do we make the Gentiles of our time, the outsiders, feel welcomed in our churches?  How do we make them feel unwelcome?  Do we make them feel uncomfortable by assuming they know our sayings, traditions, songs, when to sit, when to stand, when to say what?
When is the last time we welcomed someone into our life, or into the church that was different than ourselves?  When is the last time we really took the time and opportunity to get to know someone who was homeless, a different race, different nationality, different sexual orientation, mentally or physically handicapped or different religion? Not just have pity on them or elevate ourselves in order to help them but really get to know them and let them get to know us? 
It is easy for us to stand on the outside and do mission work and offer handouts to others less fortunate but it is much harder to make ourselves vulnerable and allow them to get to know us. 
Each year The United Methodist Women have a suggested reading list that spans both- fiction and non-fiction and a variety of topics including Missions, Community, Social Action, Spiritual Growth and leadership.  One of the books on last year’s list was a true story titled “Same kind of different as me.”  This story is written by a black man who had escaped the cruel world of slavery and share cropping in Louisiana only to find himself homeless and a wealthy white art dealer from the upper echelon of Texas.    This book walks you through the unlikely friendship of these two very different people and how important it is for both of them to see the other not through the eyes of stereotypes but  as a brother in Christ- loving each other, sharing with each other and helping each other through the difficult times in life.  It is an honest, prejudice recognizing and wall shattering story.  And it shows how much richer life can be when we take the time to share it with others.  (Hall, 2006)
Maybe I am preaching to the choir- maybe I am working on a false assumption and there are no stereotypes here or maybe some of you are thinking “oh she’s not talking to me but this is great!  So and so really needs to hear this”.  I know I have sat in the pew from time to time and thought the same thing.   I am going to go out on a limb though and say that I am probably talking to everyone in this room on some level- I’m even preaching to myself.  We all have our fears, prejudices and bias.  It is one of those things that we all need to be aware of and  work on with God’s help. 
Several cultures throughout Asia use a greeting in which they place their hands together- fingers pointing towards heaven, bow to each other and repeat the word “Namaste” Although there are many translations for this gesture Most people translate this to mean “I bow to the god in you” and in turn “you bow to the god in me”  
We as Christians can learn a lot from this simple greeting.  If we can recognize from the outset that each person we meet is a child of God maybe we would learn to love each other as a brother and sister in Christ.  Start on the common ground of the love and peace of Christ.  This just may result in a change of behavior towards our fellow man- even those very different than us.  Maybe this simple change in perspective would bring about the peace that is in Jesus Christ- even when it is someone we don’t like so much. 
Like President Ronald Ragan is famously quoted   “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!”  Christ is calling each of us to tear down the walls that divide us- the fear, distrust, and anxiety we feel when we attempt to judge others through our own eyes of prejudice instead of the eyes of Christ.   Put aside your fears and trust in God.