I want to speak to you about walls this morning. Can you think of any famous walls? How about the wall that is so large it can be seen from space? That’s the Great Wall of China. It’s actually a series of walls built, rebuilt, and maintained between 685 BC and 1644 AD. With all of its branches, the Great Wall stretches for 8,850 kilometers, twice the distance between Vancouver and Ottawa!
Another famous, but much shorter wall is the Berlin Wall. It started out as a barbwire fence in 1961, but eventually morphed into a concrete wall patrolled by soldiers. Its purpose was to stop East Berliners from escaping to the West. About 100 people died trying to get past that wall in its 28 years of existence.
There’s another infamous wall that you may never have heard of. It was called the Soreg. This wall surrounded the temple of Jesus’ day and its purpose was to keep out anyone who was not Jewish. Imagine building a wall around our church and saying that only Canadians, or only people from St. Albert, or only those with an annual income over $50,000 may enter. I would hope you would run me out of this church if I ever suggested building such a wall! And yet could it be that we put up invisible walls like that all the time? Could our prejudices hinder us from interacting with others in a loving, Christ-like manner? Have walls of bitterness, for example, cut off family ties, and hurt relationships within this congregation? It’s not just the Great Wall of China that can be seen from the heavens, so can these walls we’ve put up. Today the Holy Spirit wants to help us tear down those walls. He’ll do that by giving us a God’s-eye view of others as we continue our study of the New Testament book of Ephesians.
There seemed to have been an invisible wall between the Jewish and non-Jewish, or Gentile believers in Ephesus. This was not so surprising because for centuries the Jewish people had been conditioned to think that as God’s chosen people, they were better than everyone else. The Jews were indeed God’s chosen people, but they had not been chosen because they were better than everyone else. Last week we heard Paul declare that at one time everyone, including the Jews, was dead in sin and objects of God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:3). But God did choose to reveal his grace early and often to the Jewish people. And through them that message was to go out to the world. If a mother asks one of her children to announce to the other kids that it’s time to eat, that child better not just sit down at the table, fork and knife in hand while his siblings are clueless of the dinner invitation.
But sadly, over the years, the Jews had begun to act like such a self-centred child. They didn’t think the Gentiles were worth inviting to the banquet of God’s salvation. That’s because they misunderstood the purpose of the various laws that God had given to his Old Testament people, like how they were not supposed to intermarry with people of other nations. God forbad that intermarriage because he knew how quickly the Israelites would adopt the pagan religions of their brides and grooms! Paul spoke about those pagan religions when he said to the Gentiles, “…remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
What Paul writes is important for us to grasp because there are many today who insist that one religion is just as good as the next. You even will hear some who call themselves Christians say that the Jews and Muslims worship the same God as Christians do. But that’s not what Paul taught here in Ephesians. He says that if you are without Christ, then you are without God, and you are without the hope of salvation. Paul explains why that is when he wrote: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace” (Ephesians 2:13, 14a).
There was once an invisible wall of sin between God and people. Think of how sin interrupted the perfect relationship Adam and Eve once enjoyed with God. They used walk and talk with him. But after they sinned they hid from him. Ironically it should have been God who hid from Adam and Eve—like you would hide from your dog if it has become rabid. At least God should have folded his arms in disgust and in righteous judgment. Instead what did he do? He went looking for his wayward children with open arms. He then opened his arms wide again in the person of his Son, Jesus. Just picture that scene on Mt. Calvary. When the Roman soldiers grabbed hold of Jesus to nail him to the cross, Jesus could have frowned, folded his arms, and said something like: “Make my day!” Instead he opened his arms to them, willingly letting himself be crucified. Why? Because it was only through the shedding of his sinless blood, that the wall of sin which existed between God and us could be dissolved, like water eating away at a paper wall a child has built into his sandcastle. No other religion offers such a savior.
Jesus’ death on the cross has not only brought peace between a righteous God and sinners, it’s meant to make peace between sinners themselves, both Jewish and Gentile. Paul put it like this: “…he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16).
When Paul said that Jesus came to destroy the “dividing wall of hostility” he may have had in mind the Soreg, that wall that surrounded the temple. There was to be no such wall around Christian churches—visible or invisible. The gentile Christians had as much right and freedom to approach God as did the Jewish Christians. They were both full citizens and members of God’s household through faith in Jesus.
What are the walls we’ve thrown up here in our own congregation and in our own lives? What prejudices do you struggle with? Oh, don’t say you’re not prejudice. We’re always pre-judging others. For example we might think that the teenager who wears the hoodie with his baseball cap slightly sideways is a lazy lowlife with an attitude. Or we suppose that those who don’t speak English perfectly aren’t as smart as we are, never mind they probably speak three other languages! And those who aren’t as well dressed, or as slim and trim, we pity. I don’t know what your prejudices are, but I know that you have them just as I have my own! That’s why we want to listen to Paul because through him the Holy Spirit is telling us to take a God’s-eye view of others. They are loved by God as much as we are. And so we will want to reach out to them in love. That of course means making visitors feel welcome here, and not just in a cursory way so that we say hi, and then walk away feeling good because we took a few seconds to engage them. Instead we’ll show a genuine interest in their lives to figure out how we can serve and encourage them. And if sin has thrown up walls in family relationships, we’ll search our hearts first to see whether or not we are withholding forgiveness, or whether or not we have stubbornly refused to repent of something we have said or done.
In countries like the States and South Africa that have especially struggled with race relations, “separate but equal” was for a time a guiding principle. In other words while African Americans weren’t welcome to use “whites only” washrooms, they were supposed to be given washrooms that were just as nice. “Separate but equal” has no biblical support, for Paul went on to say in our text: “In [Jesus] the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21, 22). The Gentile and Jewish believers in Ephesus weren’t supposed to keep a respectful distance from each other—the Jews worshipping at 8 am and the Gentiles at 10 am. The cross had brought them together like a big magnet attracting bits and pieces of scrap metal from all over the junk yard. Those believers were now not ugly scrap metal, but living stones that God was using to build one temple in which the Holy Spirit would live.
And God is doing the same thing here. But keep in mind how the Apostle Peter picks up this theme and says that we are not bricks but stones—each one different from the other. We’re not going to look the same or act the same. We won’t like the same music or have the same sense of humor. We can let these differences drive a wedge between us, but we won’t when we remember what we have in common: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Or as Paul wrote: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19, 20).
What a comfort those words ought to be for all of us because you don’t have to be a recent immigrant to feel out of place. You might feel out of place because you’re single, or because you’re twelve, or because you’re not as steady on your feet as you once were. But with Jesus as your Savior you’re never out of place. Your part of his family, and therefore part of the temple in which the Holy Spirit lives.
They say that good fences make good neighbors. Thank God he doesn’t agree! If he did, then sin would have forever separated us from his love and therefore from a life of joy and peace. But Jesus has torn down that wall. We’ve not only been reunited with God, we’ve also been reunited with fellow sinners. By God’s grace we will stop looking at others as outsiders, or as people to tolerate. We won’t take such a stance when we take a God’s-eye view of them. For they are people loved by God and washed in the blood of Jesus. May God help us treat each other as fellow citizens of heaven. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
The Soreg is one wall we hear bout in today’s sermon. Where was that wall and what was its purpose?
What kind of invisible walls seemed to exist in the Ephesian congregation?
Paul says that those without Christ are without hope. How can that be when there are so many “God-fearing” people in other religions?
How can we be certain that God has opened his arms to us sinners?
What kind of prejudices do you struggle with? How does our text help you overcome them?
Even in Christian congregations there are often divisions. How will it help to remember that we are all stones (not bricks) in God’s holy temple?
