Something There Is That Doesn t Love a Wall Ephesians 2:11-22 One of the challenging things about preaching is that I never know where the Holy Spirit is going to take me. Oh, I know where I intend to go, but He knows better. Even though it may take some months before the message gets through to me. Like this sermon, which I planned, or thought I planned, back in July. Something there is that doesn t love a wall. That s the first line of Robert Frost s poem, Mending Wall, one of the most powerful and poignant he ever wrote. It s a poem about Frost and his neighbor who meet at the wall that separates their properties. It s a wall made of rocks, boulders even, some the size of balls, others the shape of loaves; a wall that had begun to come apart by the rough effects of the New England winter. And as Frost and his neighbor diligently return the rocks to the place where they had been, hoping that they would stay in place and not fall again once their backs are turned, he wonders why they are building the wall at all. They need walls where there are cows he says, but there are no cows in the New England countryside. Frost has apple trees on his side of the wall, but they are not likely to eat the pine cones on his neighbor s side. And he adds: Before I built a wall, I d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out. Which is when he repeats his opening line: Something there is that doesn t love a wall. I m not sure how familiar Frost was with these words Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus. But I do think that Paul would agree with Frost: something there is that doesn t love a wall. For Jesus Christ came to tear down walls. To build bridges. To find unity. To discover what it is we have in common. To open our hearts to each other, no matter how different we might be. For in God s economy, we are all one. One people. One family. One humanity. The Jews didn t see that. It was one of their laws that no Jew could assist a Gentile woman in giving birth, for that would only allow one more Gentile to enter the world. The Greeks didn t see that either. The Greek word for foreigner is barbaros from which we get the word barbarian. The Romans didn t see that either. The great Pax Romana was only beneficial to those who were citizens of Rome. All others need not apply. Sadly, much of human history is about building walls to keep others out. Every human society, even the most primitive ones, has a story of those who were kept behind a wall.
But something there is that doesn t love a wall. And not elves, as Frost, semi-humorously, suggests in his poem. But Jesus Christ. Who lived to build bridges. Who lived to create unity. Who lived to help us discover what we should be. And who died to make all of us free of the walls that make life less livable. Less viable. So let me tell you three stories. Three stories that I know the Holy Spirit used to touch my soul. I took a class in college called: Modern Jewish History. I figured it would help me understand a bit more of where Judaism went over the years and dig more deeply into our common roots. I was the only Gentile in the class, which led to some gentle ribbing from the other students, some of who were my friends. As Passover came around, our professor, Bob Weiner, included a mini-seder meal in class, using matzo and wine. Another student asked me if this was like Communion. I replied: Well, a bit. But we sure don t use Manischewitz wine! Which got a good laugh. But the story that really struck with me, still does, was told by our professor. As a young man just out of college, he had bought his first car. A Volkswagen Beetle. At one time, they were all over the roads. A man he knew who was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp saw his new car and was very upset. Don t you know the history of this car? Professor Weiner said that he did not. He found out. Ferdinand Porsche built the first beetles as an inexpensive car for the German people, and he presented the first one off the assembly line as a gift to Adolf Hitler. To Professor Weiner, his car was just a car. To this acquaintance, it represented the holocaust and the walls of the concentration camp in which he was interred. Professor Weiner sold his beetle and bought another kind of car. Now, he was not suggesting that everyone who owns a beetle should sell it. Just that symbols, while they may be just symbols, matter. They speak loudly of who we are. And what we are. And what we want to be. And the only symbol that should drive our lives is the one you see on the wall above the choir loft. The one carved into every pew in this sanctuary. And in numerous other places here surrounding us. Those I taught in the Confirmation Class know that! It s not just something there is that doesn t love a wall; it s Jesus who went to the Cross so we could be better than we are. Alice Yamane was a member of the first church in which I served. A gentle, kind, and active participant in that congregation. I remember visiting her one day and heard her life story. Being of Japanese descent, but born in the United States and a citizen of our nation, she and her family had been interred in one of the internment camps that were scattered around the western states during World War Two.
I sat and listened to her story. Sad. Shocked. I was a history major in college. One of the best classes, taught by Professor Welch, was modern American history. And the Japanese internment was never mentioned. I knew nothing about this sad chapter in our national story until I met Alice Yamane. I questioned her about this missing piece of my own education. And she told me it was all about fear. Too many Americans were afraid that if the Japanese enemy were to actually invade the west, that our Japanese citizens would join them and turn against the land where many of them were born. Fear, and fear mongering, can make people do ugly things! I asked her why German and Italian citizens were not also interred. Her sad smile told me the answer I knew but didn t want to admit. They at least were white. And while I need not mention it, but will, what we Americans did, and are doing, to the African- Americans in our midst is even worse. Our racial history is a big stain on the promise that all people are created equal. Too often we have united around what Orwell wrote in his novel Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. But back to Alice Yamane. As I sat there in her living room, absorbing what she said, I wondered how she was not hostile, angry, broken by the way her life had gone. While her answer was not simplistic, it was simple. She pointed to a cross on the wall of her living room. A cross on which Jesus forgave the very people who nailed Him to it. The Cross on which He died that we might transcend our enmities and find peace between us. The Cross on which He died that we might all be part of the family of God. It s not just something there is that doesn t love a wall. It s Jesus whose cross is the bridge we all take into the presence of God Almighty. One final story. During World War Two, a group of French soldiers brought the body of one of their comrades to be buried in a cemetery near to the battleground. It was a cemetery that surrounded a Roman Catholic Church. These soldiers approached the parish priest and asked to have their dead comrade buried there. He asked them if this man had been baptized as a Roman Catholic. They admitted that they did not know. So, the priest refused to allow him to be buried there. In Roman theology, Catholic cemeteries are consecrated ground and available only to baptized adherents of the faith. Disappointed, these soldiers took their comrade outside the cemetery and buried him themselves outside the fence. The next morning, they returned to the gravesite to make sure the grave was all right. But there was no sign of a freshly dug grave. Bewildered, they sought out the priest. He told them that he had been unable to sleep that previous night, thinking of this young soldier who gave his life for France. So he went out in the middle of the night and moved the fence that surrounded the cemetery to include this freshly dug grave. Rules and regulations and laws and such built that fence; love moved it. Rules and regulations and laws build walls; but love tears them down. This young soldier died for France. Jesus died for all humanity that we might be one; that we might not focus on what divides us but what unites us; that we might seek to love rather than to hate, or even mistrust or dislike. That we might conquer fear and doubts and instead preserve the sanctity of human life.
It s not just something there is that doesn t love a wall. It s Jesus whose Cross is a constant reminder that love must be victorious if we are to survive as a people of God, as a family of God, as children of God. As Frost reminds us in his poem, we just may be walling in more than we are walling out. Which leaves us where? Today we ordained and installed elders and deacons for the coming year. And as the months go by, especially after I retire, they will have a lot to do, along with those who remain on those boards, to build bridges and move fences and demolish any walls that might exist. But it is not just them. If you expect to rely on these men and women, as talented and capable as they are, to do all the work, there is a great deal that won t get done. It is up to ALL of you to be a part of the solution; otherwise, you are part of the problem. Every time you see a fence that is creating a separation, it is up to all of you to move it so that love will triumph. And if anyone asks you to join them in building a wall, well, be that something there is who doesn t love a wall. And well, maybe you were waiting for me to say something about this: I started writing this sermon the day after the President gave his Oval Office message about a wall (more accurately a steel fence) on our southern border. (Although my thoughts for this sermon do go back long before that speech.) Personally, and I only say this personally, because I don t pretend to have a direct line to God and His will on all matters, political or not, I think it is a mistake. I think it says something about our nation that I don t want to believe about our nation. Having said that, though, I also know that illegal immigration and border security is a real problem and it s up to our leaders to find a better way to deal with it than just building a wall. Some of you will disagree with me. And that s OK. I don t choose to use this pulpit as a forum for my own political opinions. But whether you agree with me or not, I want to challenge you to hear the words, not of Robert Frost (although he was a brilliant and moving poet), not even of Paul (although his words to the Ephesians about becoming a part of the temple of God, no matter how you got there, are among his most meaningful), but the message of Jesus our Christ who opened His arms wide - and you know where He opened His arms wide and called us all to Him, to be one people, to set aside fear and mistrust and prejudice, and go about moving fences and tearing down walls, and get started on building bridges. If we don t do that, we will be like the foolish man who built his house on sand. And when the winds and rain came, great was the fall of it. Maybe Robert Frost and his neighbor should have used those rocks in their wall to build the temple of which Paul spoke. So should we! No wind or rain will knock THAT down!
Worship January 13, 2019 Call: Litany Assurance: Litany Children s Message: A family. What is a family? Who is in your family? We are all part of one family. Memory verse: We are no longer strangers, but members of God s family. Ephesians 2:19. Prayer: O God, who brings order out of chaos, open our souls to the direction you want all of us to take. O God, who brings light where there has only been darkness, open our spirits to see before us You perfect path. O God, who brings hope in the midst of despair, open our minds to reach for what may seem impossible to us, but not to You. O God who brings unity where there has been brokenness and division, open our lives that we might reach out to our brothers and sisters, that we might work for harmony and peace with all people, and that we might live together as one family, with Your love as the central focus of all we say and do. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER
We are no longer strangers, but members of God s family. Ephesians 2:19