WALL BUSTER!

 “For (Christ) 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.”  -Eph 2:14

 At our home in the mountains we love watching the ground squirrels and chipmunks.  They have become very friendly, and we think of them as our friends and tiny forest children.  We feed them seeds, corn and water and they come, as many as 12-15 at time.  They are hilarious to watch as they scurry around filling their cheeks until they appear ready to burst, and then running off to store their stash, immediately returning to repeat the process all over again.  Their activity never ceases, all day long, morning ‘til evening.  Instinctively they are foraging animals and they never stop, never take a break.  We stand back in utter amazement at the intensity of their activity, which at times even gets comical as they chase and wrestle each other, competing for the same kernels of corn and seeds.

 I suppose there are times when God steps back and observes the activity of his children, the human race.  And what does God often see but a whole lot of frantic activity – not of foraging seeds, but the building of walls.  And God, too, must be amazed, but not necessarily amused.  Human beings are wall builders and we have built some magnificent walls including: the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall, Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, the Wall of the Forbidden City, the Kremlin Wall, the West Bank Wall, the Walls of Jericho, and the Walls of Troy.  There are other kinds of walls: the “Green Monster” of Fenway Park in Boston; the Walls of Alcatraz;: the Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; the Vietnam Memorial Wall, or Wall Street named after a defensive wall built by the British in the 1600’s that was eventually removed and a street so named built in its place.  And we cannot forget the millions of common-place every day walls that are characteristic of our communities: walls around our subdivisions and fences around our yards.

 Human beings are wall-builders.  Are walls bad?  Well, no, not necessarily!  In the kind of broken and sinful world we live in, walls become necessary, don’t they?  Especially walls of security built to keep us safe and secure.  Does that mean God blesses all of our magnificent wall-building?  I don’t think so! 

 Of course the worst kind of walls, the ones God would be most concerned about, are the ones that cannot be seen, but are as real and formidable as any stone, brick or concrete wall on this earth.  Actually many of the visible walls that we see around us are merely outward expressions of the invisible inward walls of our hearts.

 Paul mentions a very specific wall in the epistle scripture for this morning.  In some ways this is the mother of all walls, and it’s a wall that manifests itself in every community, and to one degree or another at one time or another, in every human relationship - the wall of hostility.  The wall to which Paul specifically refers in this passage is the wall between Jew and Gentile of his time in history.  But of course, that particular wall of hostility continues to renew itself to this very moment in history, and we now wonder if that ancient wall of hostility might grow into an even greater global hostility – out of control with potential destruction beyond our imaginations.

 Walls of hostility are the instrument of the evil one.  It is the device the evil one uses to fragment and disintegrate the human race, and most of the time we play right into his hands, buy reinforcing those walls any way we can.  We invest an enormous amount of time, energy and resources fortifying our walls of hostility. 

 Walls of hostility have a very definite blueprint of construction.

 First, walls of hostility are all built on the foundation of sin.  Sin means “missing the mark;” succumbing to the propensity of evil that exists in every one of us; going it alone, without God; or going with God in such a way that we recreate God in our image; make God look like us and think like us.

 O course resting on the foundation are stones and bricks of many different shapes and sizes.

 There are bricks of inflated pride; the attitude of stubborn arrogance and self-righteousness; the attitude that I am right and the other is wrong.    Years ago I visited a couple in their home. They had expressed interest in joining the church.  During the course of conversation I sensed and tension and uneasiness. Suddenly the woman turned to her husband and said, “I’m going to tell him the truth. I’m going to tell him about our family.” She went on: “This is killing me! It’s eating me up! For five years my husband and my son have not spoken to each other although they have lived in this same small house.”

I turned to the man and asked him what started the estrangement in the first place. Amazingly he admitted that he really couldn’t remember, but he said firmly, “I’m a proud man of my word. I vowed that I would never speak to that boy again… and I’m going to keep my word!”

 There are bricks of prejudice, which means to pre-judge… to judge without all the facts… to judge without really knowing the other person… to dehumanize… and it is hurtful, dangerous, and destructive. Any time we “look down” at people who are different from us… any time we label, stereotype, ridicule, make jokes about other people, or reject people different from us… then we are laying the bricks of dividing walls of hostility.

 There are bricks of revenge which often trigger an endless and escalating cycle of “tit for tat’ and an eye for an eye.  Revenge requires hanging on to hostility and with-holding forgiveness, and a stubborn unwillingness to break the cycle of hostility persists. 

 But as vigorously as human beings are in the business of building walls of hostility, God is even more so in the business of busting them down. 

 I heard a story about a young man who was an All-American football player in college? He went on to play professional football and then came back to his alma mater as an assistant coach. One of his main responsibilities in his new job would be to recruit players.  Before he made his first recruiting trip, he went in to visit with the head coach, the same coach for whom he had played when he was in college some years before.

The head coach was a crusty old veteran. He had held that position as head coach for many years, was widely known and highly respected all across the country. The new young coach said to him, “Coach, I’m about to head out on my first recruiting trip, but before I go I want to be sure that we are on the same page. Tell me, Coach, what kind of player do you want me to recruit?” The crusty old head coach leaned back in his chair. He looked the young coach straight in the eyes and said: “Son, I’ve been at this job a long time and over the years I have noticed that there are several different kinds of players. For example,” he said, “you will find some players who get knocked down and they stay down. That’s not the kind we want!”  He went on, “You will find some players who get knocked down and they will get right back up and get knocked down again and then they stay down. That’s not the kind we want!”

And then the old coach said, “But you will also find some other players who get knocked down and knocked down and knocked down, and every time they get knocked down, they get right back up! That’s not the kind we want.” At this point, the young coach was totally perplexed and said, “I don’t understand coach.  What kind of player do we want?”  The coach said,  “We want the kind that are doing all that knocking down!!”

 When it comes to our walls of hostility that’s the kind of God we get.  God is in the wall busting business, but God doesn’t do it with 500 lb. bombs and nuclear weapons.  God does it by becoming involved, and even going so far as to making himself totally vulnerable to our propensity for violence.  God does it with the blood of his own son and his cross.  

 Take a moment and reflect upon the walls of hostility that surround your life and affect your relationships and your outlook on life.  I have heard it said that for a process of healing and reconciliation to begin someone has to be big enough to make the first move.  Well, someone has.  God has made the first move in Jesus Christ.  And God’s move in Jesus Christ only makes our potential response now possible. 

 God has made the first move in Jesus Christ.  When we take the bread and wine of his body and blood into our hands this morning, they are profound and powerful symbols of God’s first move in Jesus Christ toward reconciliation of all things that are broken and estranged.  So what are we going to do?  What move are we going to make in response?  Will you dismiss the cross and the power revealed there as trivial or irrelevant?   Will you hang stubbornly on to the bricks of pride, prejudice and revenge, or are we going to begin to trust that God knows what God is doing, and that in Jesus Christ and the blood of his cross that there is more than enough power and love to break down our most formidable walls of hostility.