Breaking Down The Walls

(This sermon was preached in 1997 and needs updated examples)

There was once a subway car, almost empty, except for a Chinese man and a Jewish man, who sat in their seats, silently, holding their newspapers high as they read. Suddenly the Jewish man stood up, rolled up his newspaper, walked over and whacked the Chinese man over the head.

"Hey! Cut it out! What did you do that for?" said the Chinese man, putting his arm up to defend himself against any further blows. The Jewish man sat down, and said, "That was for Pearl Harbor."

The Chinese man said, "It was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor. I'm Chinese. We didn't have anything to do with it."

But the Jewish man said, "Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, . . . . It's all the same."

They glared at each other for a moment, then they went back to reading their newspapers and all was quiet.

But then, suddenly the Chinese man stood up, rolled up his newspaper, whacked the Jewish man over the head, and said, "And that's for the Titanic."

The Jewish man said, "The Titanic? It was an iceberg that sank the Titanic. I didn't have anything to do with that!" But the Chinese man answered, "Iceberg, Rosenberg, Goldberg, . . . It's all the same."

There is a very human tendency in every nation and every age to lose sight of the individuality of people who are different from us, to take the lazy way and lump them all together. Its a tendency that is all too easily learned. But it can lead to terrible injustice.

For example, the New Testament deals a great deal with relations between Jewish people and the Gentiles. The Jews used the word Gentile to mean everyone who wasn't Jewish. That probably includes all of us.

God blessed the nation of Israel with a wonderful history of demonstrations of what God was like and all the teaching of the Old Testament. And God did it as a demonstration project so that all the world could see what was really on God's heart and join in and be part of God's family.

But something went wrong. Many of the Jews developed a sense of privilege. They figured that the blessings were only for them, that the Gentiles were inferior, that God didn't care so much about the Gentiles, that the privileges were for Jews only. So they felt they could sit back and enjoy the blessings and it didn't matter what happened to the Gentiles.

But God called a man, we call him the Apostle Paul, a Jew, to make it very clear that God's invitation was to all nations, that Jews and Gentiles were called to be citizens side by side in the kingdom of God. Paul refused to accept this idea of Jewish privilege. All the blessings of God were for the Gentiles, too. Jesus had died to end the separation. Paul dedicated his life to breaking down the barriers and bringing the Gentiles into the church. And we, who are Gentiles, owe Paul a great debt for his faithfulness to God's call.

Our sermon text for this morning is Ephesians 2:11-22. In it Paul lays out very clearly his understanding of what was on God's heart. If you want to have it open in front of you, its on page 192 of the New Testament section of your pew Bible.

"So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision" a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he 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. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God."