Letters to the Churches: Breaking Down Walls
Introduction
When I was in elementary school, at St Jacobs Public School, one of the extra-curricular activities that I enjoyed most was being part of the school’s concert choir. It was voluntary for students in grade 5-8. We met at lunch time to practice. And most of the time we sang in three treble parts: sopranos, second sopranos and altos. Our choir director, Mr McPhail and our accompanist, Mrs. VonMilke had high standards, so we were a pretty decent elementary school choir. We even had stylish red vests we wore over white shirts and blouses for concerts. We sang at Christmas and Spring concerts at the school, we performed at the Kiwanis Music Festival every year, and I recall we sang in local churches, including this one.
There is one song that I still remember singing in that choir. It was called Harmony. And recently I was able to find it. It’s a song by Ray Conniff. The version we had was arranged for more than just the usual three voice parts. I think it had 6 parts. And so befitting the title of that song, we learned extra parts and when it all came together it was glorious harmony! It soon became a choir favourite. We sang it often.
The time has come, let us begin. With all our voices joining in, to sing of love and brotherhood, people doing what they should to help their fellow man be free, and fill this land with harmony. (I guess we didn’t worry about inclusive language back then!). The young and old. The rich, the poor. Making sounds never heard before. And then the chorus:
Harmony! Harmony! Let’s all join in harmony.
Sing away the hurt and fear. A great new day will soon be here!
Inevitably, when we sang it well with our youthful enthusiasm, it would bring tears to Mr McPhail’s eyes. As a young chorister, that felt amazing and pretty special. I think because of that, I caught something of the power of music to move people.
Later on, when I became a teacher, and taught at Rockway, most of the kids in the school sang in one choir or another. There too, we had a Christmas and a Spring Concert, and the various choirs sang in local churches. We had a tradition at Rockway that for the finale of each concert, we would bring all the choirs up on stage together to form a Mass Choir to sing a couple of pieces all together–usually the highlight of the concert!
But before we get caught up in that idyllic image, let me paint a bit of a “behind the scenes picture” for you. We, supervising teachers, were back in the classroom wing of the school, trying to keep the students organized–locating lost instruments, coaching kids on how to tie their ties, keeping the noise down, and getting them all lined up and ready for when it was their turn to go on stage. The concerts were long (we had a variety of musical groups to showcase!), lots of kids were in more than one musical ensemble, and needed help to know where to be when. The energy levels were high, and by the end of the evening, we were all a little frazzled as we wrangled the students into line one last time. By that point in the evening their shirttails were out, and ties were loosened, and we were so ready to pass them off to their parents and send them home! Finally we would get them up on stage one last time for Mass Choir–youngest kids in the front, senior grades in the back…and the house would fall quiet, and they would sing like angels. And we would be so proud of them and forgive them for all the trouble they had caused back in the classroom wing that evening. And every time I would get choked up at the beautiful sound, the miracle of all those voices, blending together on cue. There is nothing quite so powerful as young voices lifted in song, singing in harmony.
Of course harmony can be about more than singing in a choir. It can also be a metaphor for getting along with others in our world. But is harmony just some beautiful, idealistic dream? Is it even possible to live in harmony with one another?
Context for Ephesians
Our reading from Ephesians expresses anything but harmony, at least at the beginning.
It starts out something like this….once upon a time there were two distinct groups of people. And the writer describes their separation, using language, depending on the translation like: apart, distance, excluded, far away, outsiders, strangers, aliens, hopelessly stranded, “separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion” (v. 15, The Message). In the early church context the two groups are Jews and Gentiles, meaning non-Jews, (or sometimes called Greeks).
We can imagine the misunderstandings, and stereotypes and assumptions made about the other group. Maybe even outright tension, hostility, and hatred. The opening verse seems to emphasize that kind of “us and them” or “insider and outsider” kind of language. “You were aliens to the covenant they had with God.” You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel. You did not know the covenant promises God made to them” (see Ephesians 2:12).
Breaking Down the Dividing Wall of Hostility
And then the story shifts dramatically. “But now you have been united with Christ Jesus” (v. 13). The dividing wall of hostility separating the two groups breaks down. This is one of the greatest dynamics of the early Jesus movement as it spread into the regions around the Mediterranean. Jews and Gentiles end up in the Jesus movement, some even in the same churches together. People like the apostle Paul, who had grown up Saul, a devout, educated, law abiding Jew worked tirelessly to open up the Jesus movement to Gentiles (non-Jews), but tensions and challenges were inevitable. Breaking down dividing walls means bringing two peoples together who have previously hurt and killed each other, whose identities are sharply divided, where seeds and roots of hatred have been born and fed for centuries. They disagreed about purity laws, dietary laws, how to interpret Scripture, theology, rituals and gender roles.They clashed over lifestyle and customs. We can’t imagine any sweet sounding harmony here!
Christ is Our Peace
But the writer of Ephesians doesn’t ease up. The vision gets much grander yet! Christ doesn’t just break down the dividing wall of hostility. As if that isn’t dramatic enough, Christ makes peace between the two groups, “by creating in himself one new people from the two groups” (v. 15). In the words of The Message paraphrase, the Messiah “started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody” (v. 15, The Message). “His desire was to create one new humanity from the two opposing groups, thus creating peace” (v. 15, The Voice).
This is not just side-by-side acceptance we are talking about. This is not just about two groups existing next to each other in their own siloes, each maintaining their traditions and tolerating the idiosyncrasies of the other group. This is no longer just a cross-cultural encounter for a short time. This is an inter-cultural commitment to form a new kind of community together, doing the hard work of becoming a new people together.
Christ Kills Enmity
But that’s not even all of it. The vision goes much further. In making a new people from the two groups, “Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross”, and in doing this, “puts to death our hostility toward each other” (v 16). “Kills off the hostility once and for all” (v. 16, The Voice). This is striking and potent language, and more than a little ironic, that the writer of Ephesians uses violent language to talk about ending violence. But perhaps such startling language is needed to make the point.
In bringing us back into relationship with God, in connecting us openly and freely to the source of all love, Christ kills enmity, animosity, antagonism, dissension, discord, hatred, malice and ill will. Christ puts an end to bitterness and resentment. Kills our desire for spitefulness and vengeance. There is no place for it any more. We no longer get any satisfaction from it.
The writer of Ephesians then grabs for more metaphors to describe what the coming together and creating a new people group out of the two looks like. First, it’s like those who were strangers and foreigners now become citizens. No! It goes beyond even that. It’s like we all move in together and become part of the same family! Because we are healed, held, and whole, embraced in the fulsome love of God, we are at peace, at home, at rest.
And then the language gets even more glorious! “Together, we are [God’s] house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord” (v. 20-21). And not just a temple but a “dwelling where God lives by his Spirit” (vs 22). Not only have we experienced the healing power of God’s love, but in our coming together as a new people God’s love is made known to others. In and through us God’s hospitality and welcome can be experienced by others. That is an incredible mission!
God’s Mission of Reconciliation
This glorious description of the church fits in with a much larger picture of what God is doing. If we look at the beginning of Ephesians we find a wonderfully succinct summary of what God is up to. The mystery of God’s will is this: “As a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things… in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10). The vision is that God will gather up, bring together or reconcile all things. This leaves nothing and no person beyond the reach of God’s…interest (Tom Yoder Neufeld, Believers Church Commentary: Ephesians, 64). It extends even beyond the human community. This is a cosmic, comprehensive, vision for all of creation. This is God’s identity. This is what God does. This is how God works. And we see this reconciling impulse most fully expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Christ is our peace.
There are echoes of this vision in other parts of scripture. In Romans Paul writes of the whole creation eagerly waiting, groaning, like in labour pains, waiting for adoption (see Romans 8:21-23). In Colossians Paul explores the cosmic reach of this vision. In Christ all things in heaven and on earth were created; in him all things hold together, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to God all things, (Colossians 1: 15-20; See also Acts 3:20-26).
John Paul Lederach, who has worked and taught in international peacebuilding for decades writes that “Reconciliation is the gospel” (John Paul Lederach, Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians, 125). “God’s purpose and mission is to bring all things together…to mend and to heal what has been torn apart” (Lederach, 127). “Building peace, justice, and reconciliation is not just an outgrowth, a side benefit or a sideshow interest for a few” (Lederach, 126). It is the way God has chosen to be present and to act. It is “a defining model of who and how God is in the world” (Lederach, 126).
And don’t we see this all over creation? Where there is death and loss, there is new growth and life. Where there is harm and damage, there is repairing, cleansing, renewing, and regrowing. Always there is a push toward life, and goodness, and an impulse to growth and regeneration and renewal. All of this activity is interconnected in the web of life, where what happens to one part impacts all the rest.
Lederach and others acknowledge that “These are difficult times for dreams” 132). These are difficult times for the idealism of harmony. We cannot turn a blind eye to the realities in our world, but neither can we give up on the dream of reconciliation which is already underway in the work of Christ. Through Christ, who reaches out across lines of hostility, through his very flesh and person, enemies meet and are held together.” There is movement into relationship (129).
Richard Rohr writes, “I’m convinced that beneath the ugly manifestations of our present evils–political corruption, ecological devastation, warring against one another, hating each other based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation–the greatest dis-ease facing humanity right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection. Disconnection from God, certainly, but also from ourselves (our bodies), from each other and from our world.
Our sense of this fourfold isolation is plunging us as a culture–as a species–into increasingly destructive behaviour” (Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation, 39).
Radical Relatedness
Rohr turns to the concept of the Trinity to describe the very heart of the nature of God. So he says that discovering the gift of the Trinity offers “a grounded reconnection with God, self, others, and [the] world” that we are longing for.
“The principle of one is lonely,” isolating and alienating. It can also be single minded, closed minded and monocultural, without the capacity to learn, grow or change. The principle of two is oppositional and adversarial. It moves us toward binary, either-or thinking, siloes and polarization, and leads to preference, comparison and judgment. But the principle of three is inherently moving, dynamic, energetic, reciprocal, generative, and supportive (Rohr, 42).
Rohr explains the Trinity as a dance, as a flow, as constant movement. “Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three–a circle dance of love” (27). In further exploring the mystery of Trinity, he writes, “God is absolute relatedness. I would name salvation as simply the readiness, the capacity, and the willingness to stay in relationship” (Rohr, 46). “Living in absolute relatedness. We call this love. We really were made for love” (Rohr, 47). “And God’s love will win…you can’t stop the relentless outpouring force that is the divine dance” (43).
The Gift Economy
Robin Wall Kimmerer is an Indigenous scientist, who explores the concept of the “gift economy”, in her latest book, Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. As she harvests Serviceberries alongside the birds, she observes how Serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of interconnectedness and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth–its abundance of sweet, juicy berries–to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. This reciprocity lies at the heart of the gift economy. As I wrote this sermon I sat on the front porch next to a Serviceberry in full bloom.
She contrasts the “gift economy” with our “market economy.” Economics has to do with “how we organize ourselves to sustain life and enhance its quality…how we provide for ourselves” (Kimmerer, 30). In a market economy, prosperity grows from the accumulation of goods, by isolated individuals acting purely in self-interest to maximize return on investment (Kimmerer, 44). It is based on private property and extractive capitalism. It’s about navigating the gap between supply and demand, leading to a scarcity mentality, which often leads to hoarding and overconsumption.
In gift economies, by contrast, goods and services circulate without explicit expectations of direct compensation. They are based on the collective sense of equity (Kimmerer, 33). The prosperity of the community grows from the flow of relationships. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, adn interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. In gift economies we lean toward cooperation and generosity (Kimmerer, 45). They arise from abundance (Kimmerer, 49) trust, cooperation, and the mutual well being of land and people (Kimmerer, 60). They are found in Indigenous communities around the world (Kimmerer, 35), and function best in small, close-knit communities. Kimmerer writes, “An investment in community always comes back to you in some way” (Kimmerer, 88-89) “What we really want: a sense of belonging and relationship and purpose and beauty, which can never be commoditized” (Kimmerer, 90-91).
Catching the Vision
Again, we are talking about ‘absolute relatedness’. Could we also say harmony?
I was struck by this the other day when I was out for a hike with friends. The trilliums were in full bloom, their timing impeccable to capture the early spring sunlight through the dappled canopy of budding leaves. As I stopped to admire them I reflected that they trillium is a wonderful image of this kind of dynamic, reciprocal relationship, reminiscent of the Trinity …not only in in its three petaled shape, but in its dynamic reciprocal relationship with all that is around it–the soil and the microbes in it, the trees and their leaf litter from last summer’s leaves, the sunlight, the trickle of water in the stream from the rainfall that nourished the soil.
Can we catch the vision of what this ministry of reconciliation looks like? In and through Christ, God is gathering up all things into a divine unity, which includes both Jews and Gentiles. Our commitment to follow Jesus brings us into conversation, co-existence, and community with those who were once far apart from us. This ‘two becoming something new’ calls us to be about the work of setting things right, settling, resolving, mending, remedying, restoring harmony. In this text we hear an invitation to harmony, to unity in Christ, to reconciliation including with all creation. The scope and range and sweep of this vision is breathtaking.
Let me end by asking three sets of questions that might help us explore how we can be part of this vision of reconciliation.
- Where do we feel disconnected, isolated or alienated? What walls or barriers do we experience in our lives? Who is on the other side?
- Against whom do you feel hostility and judgment arising in your own heart? Where does the bitterness, anger and dissonance come from? What are the roots of our own hostilities? How can we tend to the soil of our hearts in order to root out that bitterness?
- How can we join in Christ’s work of taking down the walls of hostility, brick by brick, stone by stone. For whom can we try cultivating compassion? How can we show openness and curiosity about who is on the other side of the wall?
We are called to ‘radical relatedness’, to ‘absolute relatedness,’ to love, where Christ is our peace and has broken down the dividing walls, has killed hostility. That is who God is. Living in God means living in relationship, living in harmony.