Many of us will remember Ronald Reagan’s visit to West Berlin in 1987, during which he famously declared: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” While Mr. Gorbachev didn’t tear down the wall, it wasn’t long before the people of Berlin tore it down. Two years later, as the world watched on live TV, the people of East and West Berlin mounted the Berlin Wall and began tearing it down. For once, the East German police, who routinely shot people trying to escape across the wall, didn’t step in to stop it. Before long what had been two nations for four decades was once again united. I remember sitting glued to the TV watching the report, amazed at what was happening. At least for a moment, the world tingled with hope that this was a day of new beginnings for world history. We hoped for a moment that peace would come to a divided world. Things haven’t turned out as many of us hoped, but that image of a wall of hostility falling has stayed with me.
What many of us didn’t know at the time was that the process of tearing the wall was set in motion in 1982 when Pastor Christian Führer of Leipzig in East Germany established a prayer meeting on Monday nights where his congregants prayed for peace. That took courage because the East German government frowned on religious observances of any kind. But, over the years this prayer meeting grew in size until it grew so large that in 1989 the Secret Police began to block the roads to the church. But that didn’t stop the movement because on October 9, 1989, 70,000 people gathered outside the church to pray for peace. This gathering led to protests for peace all across East Germany. Finally, on November 9, 1989, as the world watched, the wall of hostility came tumbling down. This event became a powerful symbol of what can happen when people join together in prayer and unity of purpose.
Unfortunately, we continue to erect walls of hostility that divide us from each other, making us strangers. Some of these walls are physical structures, but many are spiritual and cultural.
Our reading from Ephesians 2 this morning addresses the spiritual and cultural walls that divided early Christians from each other. You see, the Christian movement began as a movement within Judaism that quickly expanded to include Gentiles. This led to tensions between two groups who had historically kept themselves separate from each other. This separateness was symbolized by the requirement that male Jews be circumcised. In his mission to the Gentiles, Paul eliminated circumcision as a requirement for membership in the community. That created controversy, which he addressed in his Galatian letter. The issue pops up again in the Ephesian letter.
While scholars debate whether Paul wrote this letter, for convenience's sake I will call the author Paul. He first addresses the Gentile members of the community, reminding them that once upon a time they stood outside the covenant community, living without God and hope. However, that changed because of Jesus, through whose blood, God brought them into the covenant community. What Jesus did on the cross was tear down the dividing wall of hostility that made Jews and Gentiles strangers. This wall of hostility was symbolized by circumcision, but it no longer mattered whether you were circumcised or not. That’s because the common marker of the Christian faith is the cross. Therefore, people who had once been strangers no longer were strangers because God reconciled Jews and Gentiles through the cross incorporating them into the one body in Christ.
Paul used another metaphor to describe this new reality. He spoke of those who had once been strangers now forming one household. This house was built on the testimony of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone, which would serve as the dwelling place of God.
Paul uses several metaphors to describe this new reality, including the image of the Temple. Although Herod’s Temple may have already fallen, if this letter was written after Paul’s death, that Temple featured two courts. While Gentiles could enter the outer court, they couldn’t enter the inner court because a wall prevented access to the inner court which housed the Holy of Holies. Only the circumcised could enter that court. It’s that wall that Jesus tore down through the cross, opening the way for Gentiles to gain access to the Holy of Holies and the presence of God.
Paul addressed the issue of the wall because it represented the divisions existing within the church of Jesus Christ. He wanted his readers to know that Jesus had removed the dividing wall that made Jewish and Gentile Christians strangers. Now, the wall that made the two groups strangers would form one body, the body of Christ. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately, there’s bad news as well. Although Jesus took down that wall of hostility, humans are very adept at building walls of hostility. These walls can be theological, cultural, political, economic, or social. What these walls do, whether they are physical or metaphorical, is make us strangers to each other.
As we ponder the message of this passage, we hear Paul invite us to look around the church and ask who might be the strangers in our midst? But, it’s not just the church, whether a local congregation or a denomination. I would extend the question to include the larger community here in Troy and beyond to the nation itself. We can push even further and ask what kinds of walls of hostility divide the people of the earth itself. While we ask these questions, we must ask ourselves whether we have contributed to the building walls of hostility that make us strangers to each other.
In the Gospel of John, on the night before his death, Jesus prayed for the unity of his followers. He asked that they might be one even as he and the Father are one so that the world might believe that God sent Jesus into the world (Jn. 17:20-23). Unfortunately, the larger church of Jesus Christ has fragmented to such an extent that we find it difficult to bear witness to God’s love for the world. The church of Jesus Christ has divided into many separate denominations and traditions that often make us strangers to each other.
We might start with the Great Schism that divided the Eastern and Western churches in 1054 over a clause in the Nicene Creed that spoke of the procession of the Holy Spirit. One side said the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and the other side declared that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son together. While most Christians don’t pay much attention to this particular clause in the creed, it’s still a cause of division. Then there is the wall that divides Roman Catholics from Protestants, which is symbolized by access to the Eucharist. Then there are the walls that Protestants have erected around themselves. Many of these walls were erected long ago and have little meaning to us today. Nevertheless, these walls can make us strangers to each other. This is why I am committed to the partnership that brings together this congregation, with Central Woodward, Northminster, and now CCB. It’s why I accepted the call to chair the Disciples’ bilateral dialogue with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. It’s why I’m comfortable preaching at a Presbyterian Church, even though I am a Disciples of Christ minister.
There are forms of separation that involve our relationships with people of other religious traditions. This is important here in Troy because we are a very diverse community both ethnically and religiously. When I arrived in Troy I quickly got involved in the Troy-area Interfaith Group, and eventually took on leadership roles in this group other interfaith groups.
But there are other dividing walls that make us strangers to each other beyond the religious ones. These walls can be political, social, economic, cultural, ethnic, and racial. They can involve disability, gender, and sexual orientation to name a few other walls. While these walls can divide us from each other, I believe Jesus is actively working to tear them down, and that he invites us to join him in tearing down these dividing walls so that we might no longer be strangers. It takes courage to do this.
In their commentary on the letter to the Ephesians, Allen Verhey and Joseph Harvard remind us that Jesus calls us to be peacemakers. They write:
A church proclaiming and practicing peace is an evangelical church with a message that is good news to the weary world. Proclaiming the good news of peace in a war-torn world is not something the church does to find comfort. Peacemaking is hard work and can be dangerous. Nevertheless, the church is called upon to be faithful to the identity it has been given in Christ and to share the good news of a new humanity with the world. [Ephesians (Belief)]
As we consider our calling to be the church of Jesus Christ in this time and place, especially as our nation enters what will be a very divisive election season, may we embrace this call to be peacemakers, so that we might join Jesus in tearing down the walls of hostility so that we might no longer be strangers, but allow God to join us together to form the new humanity in Christ.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Acting Supply Pastor
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
July 21, 2024
Pentecost 9B
Comments