Walls - A Sermon Preached at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate

I'm catching up on posting sermons from the Advocate. Here's one from May 2013:

Years ago, the border between the United States and Mexico in southern California was marked by rope, a single rope strung between wooden piers. In the late ‘60s, the rope was replaced by a single strand of barbed wire. In the ‘70s, the barbed wire was replaced by a chain link fence. In 2009, the single chain link fence was replaced by two walls framing a no-mans’-land, and in the last three years, in the middle of that no-mans’-land, a new third wall rises some twenty feet into the air and stretches out into the sea. It garishly separates countries, yes, but peoples and people, too. It mars creation and stains our humanity. And lest there is any confusion: war has done this. The war on drugs built the fence, and the war on terror built the walls.

Just to be clear, this is not a sermon about immigration policy, though the subject deserves our zealous witness, and there are many in this congregation who can tutor all of us on the issues involved. This is not that sermon. This is not a sermon to remind us that every day we go without reasonable immigration policy another person will die of exposure trying to cross the southern border to be rejoined with family or to begin a new life —- nor is this is a sermon about the hubris of the vigilantes who patrol the border seeking to kill those trying to cross over. This is not a sermon about the economic divide that the border represents, about the masses living in poverty on the south side of the border with so much prosperity in view but always just beyond reach. This is not that sermon.

This is a sermon about walls, about the walls, literal and metaphorical, that divide us from one another. This is a sermon about the way that we are taught to keep each other at arm’s length and the ways that we barricade our lives from one another. This is a sermon acknowledging that there are times when the rope that divides us becomes barbed wire and barbed wire becomes a fence and a fence becomes a wall and one wall becomes three.  Lest there be any confusion: sin does that. Sin builds fences; sin builds walls. Sin builds impermeable borders when all that was needed were good boundaries. This is a sermon about walls, about isolation, about retrenchment and retreat. And this is a sermon about God’s very different dream for us.

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The seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel is largely made up of a prayer of Jesus just hours before his arrest, trial and death. Some scholars call it part of the “Farewell Discourses,” but that’s a little unfair because it really isn’t a speech to his first disciples so much as it is a prayer on their behalf – and our behalf. This is pure intercession. For us to read it today is a bit like eavesdropping. It is like listening to the heartbeat of the Messiah. This is Jesus speaking from the core of who he is about who he hopes we would be, about how he hopes we would be in the world and how we would carry ourselves in it. This is Jesus articulating as clearly as possible what it means for us to be His followers.

And did you hear what he prayed? In the midst of the logic game that is Jesus at prayer in John 17, there is a simple six word petition that beautifully encapsulates all the rest: I pray they will be one. Moments before his arrest, hours before his death, this is what is on the heart of Jesus – that we might be one, that we might be done with fences and walls, that we might bear a united witness to the world of the very dream of God.

In every sermon I have ever heard Bishop Michael Curry [Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina] give, sooner or later, he says something like sounds like this: “it’s not enough to be the human race; we are called to be and become the human family of God.”[1] Have you heard him say this? Well, recently, I was re-watching his sermon from General Convention last year (that’s what church geeks like me do for fun!), and I noticed that, on the website, there were all of these comments about the sermon. Most of them were affirming, but one of the comments said something like this: “This human family of God stuff is just typical namby-pamby liberal garbage. Go back, bishop, and read your Bible.” You know, I think he got that just backwards.

From beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures show us that God has a single dream for all creation —- that we might be bound together in and through our common humanity in and through the Spirit’s work that we might know each other as brothers and sisters, as beloved children of a single heavenly parent. God’s dream is of a world that knows and lives shalom, that beautiful vision of creation at peace with itself and reconciled to God.

But, from beginning to end, the Scriptures also show us how we build walls. The story of Adam and Eve reminds us how we build barriers of blame. The story of Cain and Abel reminds us how we erect walls of jealousy. The story of Jacob and Esau shows how we build walls with ambition and self-promotion, even as early as the womb. The story of Joseph and his brothers reminds us how we build walls of pride and self-indulgence and how such walls inevitably lead to violence. The story of David and Bathsheba reminds us that power and possession damn others and barricade us. The story of Jonah teaches us that our own prejudice and self-importance builds borders that are hard to cross. In our passage from Acts, we are reminded that greed builds a wall and denies others their humanity.

From beginning to end, the two things seem caught in intractable conflict: God’s dream for all of us to be one and our seemingly endless ability to segregate and separate ourselves from each other. It is no wonder then that Jesus prays that the Church might be different. Jesus prays that we will get it right, that we might be one. And at our best, we are. At our best, we are a sign … we are a symbol … we are a foretaste of the coming unity of all humanity. We are meant to prefigure God’s dream of shalom. At our best, we are united beyond whatever walls we might know outside of this place. When we walk through those doors, Jesus’ prayer is answered when we find ourselves entering a place where each woman is a sister to us and each man is a brother to us, where we find a unity that is deep and rich and full.

A pastor of a church in Colorado every week starts her sermons with these words:[2]
Partnered, divorced or single here, it’s one family that mingles here.
Conservative or liberal here, we all give a little here.
Big or small here, there’s room for us all here.
Doubt or believe here, we all can receive here.
LGBTQ or straight here, there’s no hate here
Poor or rich here, find your niche here.
Woman or man here, everyone can here.
Whatever your race here, for all of us grace here.
In imitation of the ridiculous love God has
for each of us and all of us,
we choose to live in love.
Every week that she says this, she takes a sledgehammer to the walls that divide the rest of the week. She proclaims that the church is a different kind of place.

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Eight hours a week, at the wall that divides the United States and Mexico, border agents open no mans’ land, and loved ones on both sides of the border pour through the two outer walls and gather next to the giant wall. Through the crisscrossed rebar, families can glimpse each other, exchange a few words, and touch fingers. You cannot pass anything through the wall without being detained for questioning. And every week, right as we gather here for our 5 o’clock liturgy, a pastor comes to the US side of the wall, and a pastor comes to the Mexican side of the wall, and together, they lead a bilingual worship service. They sing, they read Scripture and testify. And when all the testifying has happened, they pray the Great Thanksgiving. And they take a broken loaf and share it on each side of the wall.

I pray they will be one, says Jesus. And for a few moments, we are, and a wall comes down. Amen.