Abstract: Walls, fences, and boundaries focus what divides and separates one group of people from another. We think that stronger, better, and more robust fences will keep peace and harmony, but they don’t and they can’t. Peace is only achieved in the person of Jesus Christ, who came and destroyed all these things that we use to prop up and try to secure ourselves. Peace is only achieved when hostility and hatred are themselves killed. The Christians’ focus is not to be on what divides and separates, not on maintaining separations the world considers necessary, but on Christ who is the only thing that can bring true and lasting peace. The Church that Christ is building does not have walls, because there is no group to be kept out. Christians have been given the message of the gospel of peace and reconciliation, to be peacemakers, by keeping walls and fences that Christ destroyed, destroyed.
Lectionary: Year B, Proper 11
Sermon Text: Ephesians 2:11-22
Theme: Don’t build or mend walls and fences that Christ Jesus has destroyed.
Listen to sermon (23 minutes)
I preceded the sermon with the following, related readings: Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 3:9b-11, 16-17; Colossians 1:20.
I also used in this sermon the poem, Mending Wall, by Robert Frost that contains the proverbial phrase, “Good fences make good neighbors.” What may be surprising is that the poem communicates a message that is quite the opposite from the popular use and understanding of this phrase.
This evening I looked again at the bulletin cover that was chosen, and was astonished that the cover text read “He is our peace” which is how Ephesians 2:14 begins and was the central text in my mind while preparing this sermon. I was so concentrated on the service that I didn’t really see the cover this morning.
Photo: Copyright: vicsa / 123RF Stock Photo
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