Jesus: Our Peace

Ephesians 2:11-22

I certainly can't remember a time when differences didn't divide. In fact, this truth has come to mind in a particular way this past week-end as I have watched my beloved Chicago Cubs fall once more to the Chicago White Sox. Fans from both teams may look alike, may work or worship or live side by side, but bring up the North Siders versus the South Siders and all commonalities seem to go out the window!

Indeed, when I was in college there was a virulent rivalry between Wartburg College and Luther College. These two colleges of the church are located but 70 miles apart in Northeast Iowa. One was founded by German and the other by Norwegian immigrants. Tales had been passed down for generations about the 'terrible things' which had been done by these rivals --- whether it was temporarily absconding with the other's mascot or burning a giant emblem on the other's football field. Then I went to seminary and discovered a classmate and good friend was a Luther grad. And suddenly, all my stereotypes were destroyed.

These are small, relatively meaningless examples, I know, of 'dividing walls.' Sports team and school rivalries don't typically result in real lasting damage (although there are exceptions to this, of course.)
Not so with those dividing walls which are especially high these days for we do, in fact, seem to be divided by so very many things which matter. Oh yes, it is so that the issues being addressed in the powerful words before us now were written for a particular circumstance --- specifically, how Gentile Christians would or should be welcomed. Even so, one does not have to think too hard to come up with the many painful things which divide us today, many of which have profound bearing on who we are as Church.

For instance:

• We categorize ourselves and one another 
•  by race,
•  by gender,
•  by sexual orientation, 
•  by class,
•  by citizenship status. 
• We are deeply aware of our differences in 
• political party
• and theological position
• and church denomination. 
• And the wall seems to grow only higher as too much of the time, many of us listen only to those who already agree with us, afraid of being tainted or convinced or proven wrong, perhaps. As a result, we do not allow our positions and therefore our hopes and dreams --- indeed, our very lives, to be refined by the fires of simple conversation back and forth.

Oh yes, there is so very much that divides us that we sometimes even find ourselves hesitant to bring up the controversial, fearful that our false sense of peace will be disrupted.

And so here is where my memory has been returning in these days. I am recalling a time when difference threatened to divide, and in the end, did not.

It was twenty five years ago, but it could have been yesterday I remember it so well.

It was in that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas when plans were being firmed up for the next family gathering. My sister had come out to us just a few months before. Now in those days, at least in my family, we hardly had language for this and we were still discerning what to make of it. As I recall, I was standing with my dad in the living room of our childhood home. We had just received word that another part of the family was threatening not to come for Christmas if she was there.

Now I seldom saw my dad angry, but his eyes were flashing then as he insisted,

"No one tells one of my children she can't come home."

It still brings tears to my eyes to remember it. He who truly hardly knew how to begin to understand this and honestly was more than a little uncomfortable talking about it, sided with love and with welcome, even if it cost. I have never been prouder that he was my dad. And yes, let me say, my mother was in those words as well. He just happened to be the one speaking them that night.

There is so very much that divides us in these days. And along with many of you, I find myself at a loss as to how to begin to take bricks out of the wall which stands between us. But as I think of my dad and his instinctive response to what threatened to tear us apart, I find I am still learning. For him, love and welcome came first. These values were deeply ingrained in him and this wasn't going to change that. Indeed, I imagine that this threat to unity helped him to sort out what mattered most.

So then. How are we called to talk about this and so many other matters which threaten to divide? How might we rely on the certain truth that "Jesus is our peace" and the promise that what divides us has already been broken down in him? Is it possible that it is not my job, not your job, to remove the bricks from the wall because Jesus has already done so? Is it so that all we have to do is walk through the opening which Jesus has already created for us? Certainly, that is what these words to the  Ephesians seem to say.

And so I wonder:

• Is it enough to remember that Jesus died for all? For those like me as well as those so profoundly unlike me that it's hard to know where to start to delineate the differences?

• How does the certainty that Jesus' first response was never judgment, but welcome --- especially for those on the margins, for those outcast by the rest, inform us now?

• What difference does it make if our defining values are love and welcome?

• And is it enough to know that both the goal and the method God's people is given is always peace?

Oh, I know that the content of that peace is now and perhaps always will be debated. Even so, if some are excluded from the conversation, if some are not welcomed home, if those who we perceive to be on the other side of the 'dividing wall' are not brought near, then I don't know how we can even begin to sort out what this peace will be. And when I say 'welcomed home,' I mean in a safe way, where one's whole being is treated with integrity and kindness.

As for me, it has been twenty five years now. In that time my world view has changed a lot. I have heard stories, listened deeply to the experiences, and come to love profoundly those whose life experiences are significantly different from my own. Some of these are the dearest, most courageous, kindest people I know. I can't believe the welcome of Jesus is any less for 'them' than it is for me. But finally, not because of who they are, but because of who Jesus is. Even so, this came to me because someone I loved had the courage to say who she was. I will always be grateful.

And you know that Christmas so long ago? Everyone came. Even those who threatened they would not. For they, too were welcome.

Breaking Down the Dividing Wall...

Ephesians 2:11-22

This is an old story, but it's one I return to over and over again.

I was new in a call and still a relatively new pastor.

The congregation where I was pastor had been through a tough conflict before I arrived, but I was young enough and naive enough so that I didn't fully realize all the hard work that was before me.

I had been there about six months when I received a letter from a leader in the congregation.  In it she enumerated her complaints about my ministry.  It seemed that from her point of view in the short amount of time I had been there I had done a great deal wrong.  In fact, I believe she wrote out at least fifteen mis-steps I had made, carefully spelling them out for me one by one.

I'll not soon forget sitting in my office and opening that letter.  I can still remember the flood of emotions I experienced as I read it: anger and shame and fear all rolled into one.  I put the letter in my top desk drawer.  Then I pulled it out again.  The first few times I read it I could only react to her words.  After my fourth or fifth reading and after several days I was able to begin to comprehend it.  By about the twelfth reading I could finally admit there was some truth to what she said.

I knew almost from the start that I couldn't leave that letter unanswered.  And so finally I called the sender of the letter and asked if we could meet.  A few days later she came into my office and sat opposite me.  She pulled out her copy of her letter. I had mine open as well.

I hope I prayed with her first, but I honestly can't recall if I did.  I only remember walking through her points one by one and admitting that she was absolutely right about numbers one, two and four.  And that there may have been some truth to number three, but as for the rest, well, I couldn't agree with her there.

Something happened though as I owned my part of the responsibility for what lay broken between us.  The tension in the room dropped.  We were able to talk openly about the hurt behind her complaints and I was able to ask her forgiveness.  And while it's true that she and her husband did finally leave our congregation for another one, they did not leave angry.  And since their daughter and grandchildren remained and were active in that place, they chose to visit from time to time and our encounters were always cordial.

I've told this story dozens of times --- whenever I've been called upon to lead a workshop on congregational conflict resolution. After I told it to a gathering of intern pastors and their supervisors one of the more seasoned pastors piped up and said, "But, Janet, all she cared about on her list was 1, 2, and 4.  She was just piling on with the other 12!"

I imagine he was right, although that hadn't occurred to me before that.  Even so, it was a pivotal moment in my life as a pastor.  I learned to take responsibility and admit my mistakes when they were mine to own.  I learned how important it is to do so face to face.  And I was gifted with a real experience of 'Christ as our peace' that we hear about in our second lesson for this week-end.  For what had been broken experienced some healing that day. In ways I hardly knew to hope for when I first made that call to invite her to come in and talk to me, the wall that divided us was no more.

Now I suppose one does not have to attribute such as this to Jesus.  And yet, I am grateful to be able to say that it is among the community of God's people I have learned it best: the truth that yes, I will certainly make mistakes, but there can also be forgiveness among the saints like nowhere else.  And while, yes, I'm certain this can and does happen in other ways and places, I haven't much seen it.  Indeed, as God's people we have the opportunity to model this for a world which sees it almost nowhere else.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case.  In fact, I know that far too many of us can tell stories of  times and places where we feel a whole lot more like strangers and aliens than like members of the same household of God.  Places and people among whom walls continue to divide us in the very places where they should not.

And so it is also true I have over and over again called God's people to seize the amazing opportunity that is ours to bear witness to the 'peace that is Jesus.'  To pay attention to what it means to be about tearing down the walls of anger and hurt and fear that would divide us.  And for us, it seems, it always begins with this: standing still in the blood of Jesus: that blood that signifies and teaches us to emulate great love and profound sacrifice and enduring hope in the face of that which would break us apart.  And perhaps sometimes the next step is as simple as admitting when we're wrong.

1. When you consider what it is 'to be brought near by the blood of Christ,' what does this mean to you?  How have you experienced this?
2. Is it easier to think of examples of when we have acted more like strangers and aliens than when we have acted like members of the same household?  What in your experience makes this so?
3. How have you experienced the peace that is Jesus?  In your life?  In the life of your congregation?