Peacemaking: Destroying The Barrier
We apologize that there is no video of this morning’s sermon.
Texts: Ephesians 2:11-22
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
January 14, 2024
Our theme is peacemaking. What a steep topic as we have all been horrified by the nightmare that is happening in Israel and Gaza. We are grieving the evil of October 7 and the subsequent retaliation upon the people of Gaza. There is so much to mourn. We mourn the brutality that Hamas has inflicted on Israel, the taking of hostages, and the ways Hamas had hurt its own people. We mourn the lives of over 20,000 Palestinians, over 9,000 of whom were children. We mourn the bombing of Christian churches.
There are so many things in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are so hard to understand. There is a lot of history. And now it’s even harder. Both sides have their stories. Both sides have committed wrongs. This sermon is not about providing any answers because there are no easy answers. I merely use this unprecedented time of violence in that area of the world as a backdrop for today’s message because it is right in front of our faces. There is nothing that will put all of this back in the box. There is no sermon that will help us understand all the terror and suffering and rage. These sermons are not meant to solve all thinking about international relation and questions of just war and defense and the such.
I will say this, amidst all the stories and information that comes out of Gaza right now, there are many, many people so traumatized, but remember there are Christians in Palestine. Given many portrayals of Palestinian people you would think they are all Muslim and all violent. That’s not the case. There are parts of that people that have done great violence. Remember there are people of the Lord Jesus Christ who are suffering, some killed. Maybe you have never known that there are churches in Israel and Palestine. I have been there. I have met them. I have worshipped with them. They are often not seen. Whatever else your news source tells you, as Christians we cannot forget them.
We pray for the peace of the holy land. And we are thankful for those – Jews and Palestinians -who are giving themselves to the hard, sacrificial, courageous work of peacemaking. Particularly in this time of extreme turmoil when trust is so hard.
Such is the work of one group called Parents Circle. This organization in Israel brings together both Israeli’s and Palestinians who have lost loved ones over the years of this conflict. At Parents Circle people sit down and talk with one another, listen to one another, share meals together, united by their grief and their conviction that violence has accomplished nothing.
A Jewish woman whose father was killed by Hamas with an axe. A Palestinian mother whose 6-month old infant died because Israeli soldiers blocked her family from getting to a hospital for that babies care. A Jewish woman whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper. A Palestinian man who was arrested at the age of 17 for possessing a weapon and served 7 years in prison, and whose 10-year old daughter was killed by the rubber bullet of an Israeli soldier outside her school. These are just some of the thousands of experiences.
This group has dedicated themselves to reconciliation, full well knowing they may never see success. Many believe that the way Israelis and Palestinians are educated and raised leads to dehumanizing the other so that the other side is seen as morally inferior. This has blocked the way to peace. As one man said, “We don’t see each other as human beings.”[1]
Right there is wisdom for so much of the division in our world and in our own nation: we don’t see each other as human beings. If you miss that you are going to have a lot of conflict in your life. Black people in this nation suffer because they were not seen as human beings. In other places where people are enslaved, beaten down, or treated poorly it is because they are not seen as human beings. How this must all grieve the heart of God.
The Apostle Paul was a devout Jew and Christian. In the letter he wrote to the Ephesians he spends a good deal of his words on God’s plan is to break down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile. This is how it was when he wrote this:
Jews and those who were not of the Jewish religion were absolutely alienated from each other. Yes, Israel is God’s chosen people who he made his own special possession. God did this through Abraham. But the call to Abraham was for all people to be blessed through him. Not just some, or one people, but all nations. Israel was to be light to the nations.[2] But Israel forgot her calling, forgot their relationship of love with the Lord, and ended up despising others.
Here is how the Bible commentator William Barclay described Jew/Gentile relations:
“The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile. The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell. God, they said, loves only Israel of all the nations that he had made…It was not even lawful to [give help to a Gentile mother in her labor] for that would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world. Until Christ came, the Gentiles were an object of contempt to the Jews. The barrier between them was absolute. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the funeral of that Jewish boy or girl was carried out. Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death.”[3]
When Paul speaks of the dividing wall of hostility literally there was a wall in the Temple of Jerusalem partitioning Jews from others. The Temple was made up of various courts. There was the Court of the Priests which was the inner most area of the Temple grounds. Then there was the Court of Israel where Jewish men could go. Around this was the Court of the Women. These were all on the same level as the Temple itself.
But then there were steps that led down to a lower place where the Court of the Gentiles was. Gentiles could look up and view the Temple but not come near it. They were cutoff by a wall which was a huge stone barricade. Signs were posted in Greek and Latin that trespassers would be executed.
Paul was actually in prison when he writes this letter to Ephesus because of a false accusation that he had taken a Gentile with him into the court of the temple that only Jews could enter.[4]
It should be noted that today, two-thousand years later, the Israeli government has built a large concrete wall around what are called the Palestinian territories to separate people and to control who is allowed to go where. It’s a big deal. I just mention it.
There was great division in Paul’s time between Gentiles and Jews. It was fueled by hatred, suspicion, and acts of violence.
One of the main stories in the New Testament is how God through Christ brings those outside of Israel into the fold of the people of God. At one time Gentiles were considered totally outside of relationship with God. They hadn’t been raised in church. Surely God didn’t love them. And because of how they were viewed by Jews they were very much on the outside.
Do you remember when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well? She says why are you a Jew speaking to me a Samaritan, a non-Jew? This was just one of many times Jesus broke down barriers to reach people with God’s love. Time and time again our Lord approached people, touched people, embraced people who were on the other side of the dividing wall of hostility. Jesus sought out Gentiles. And many times he took heat for it.
Peacemakers don’t always get applause.
Jesus came into a world where people were far away from God and one another. But Paul says, “you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” And then he says, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”
How did this happen? On the cross where Christ set aside the law and its commandments, which made everyone guilty before God. His purpose was to make peace and reconcile everyone to God. In his cross Christ put to death the hostility between people. This is why it is so contrary for Christians to be Conflictmakers. Christ didn’t give his life to be hostile toward others. The dividing wall of hostility was torn down by his cross.
It says that Christ came and preached peace. Ephesians 2 tells us that Christ is our peace, he made peace, and he preached peace. If this is what Christ is and came to do how can we his followers be otherwise?
Furthermore, Christ has brought people together into his church, his body. Paul writes that we are fellow citizens of God’s people, and members of a household. People in a household live together. And like a building, we are “being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” God wants to live in his people through the Holy Spirit.
In Christ it wasn’t just about tearing something down – namely our sin, this wall that separated us from God and one other – but Christ was about building something up, his body. Christ wasn’t just reconciling you and I to him so we could have our own little private go with him. It was reconciling all people into his people.
And by the way, if anyone needs to hear this it is the Church. We will always meet in different buildings, have different names, do things differently, but we are all of Christ. And for one church to put up walls against other Christians is just counter to the gospel. And we are still doing that. There is a lot o division in churches.
In John 17 we see Jesus praying. And what does he pray? “…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”[5]
The church is a peace institute. It is not always about good feelings but about relations. And sometimes those relations come easily and sometimes they take a lot of love and grace. Faith is not just about being alone, quiet and thinking about God. If following Jesus is divorced from the rest of life and everyday relationships then it is an immature, infantile faith. Our vertical relationship with God is expressed in horizontal relationships with other people. It does not say “He is my peace” but “He is our peace.” A church is a group of people who know this and live peace in anticipation of the day when God establishes peace in all his creation.[6]
This has to be a place, all churches have to be places, where people aren’t seen based on ethnicity, education, social status, political affiliation or any other division. We are seen in light of the grace and love of God. All of us sinners in need of God’s redeeming grace.
And by the way, one of the things about this church for which I am grateful is that people who think differently, vote differently, come from different backgrounds and cultures, and could find any number of differences comes together to worship and serve God and share in this church life. Some of you know there are places where that isn’t happening.
How we view God impacts how we view God’s mission in the world. Some Christians think peacemaking is a side bar to following Christ, but I am learning more and more that it is central to the gospel.
God is about breaking down hostility and walls between people. And, just as the Palestinian man I quoted earlier said, if we do not see see people as human beings but less than, it only leads to division, hostility, and who knows what else. Yes, we humans are complicated. We can be a mess and make a lot of mess. Peacemaking is hard. That is why we are talking about it.
The first time Nancy and I were in the Holy Land we spent a month living, studying and touring the land. We stayed in an ecumenical center just outside of Jerusalem and very near Bethlehem. We learned a great deal about the people, the beauty, the hostility, the land, and the complexities of the conflict in Israel/Palestine.
We were part of a study group of about 20 people. In the evenings after dinner it was not uncommon for people to go for a walk in the area. Up the hill from where we were staying were a number of condominiums. This was a Jewish area. So much of Israel/Palestine is segregated: housing, schools, the bus service, neighborhoods, entire cities.
One evening, two people from our group took a walk in the neighborhood of these condominiums. As they did so they noticed that they were being followed by a young Jewish man. He seemed to be looking at them very carefully. As they continued to walk he continued to pursue them, coming closer. They became increasing uncomfortable and wondered what could happen. Finally, one of them, Stanley, turned around and asked the man what he wanted.
This was on a Friday evening which is the beginning of the Sabbath for Jews. This man said it was Shabbat, the electricity in his home had gone out during the day time. Now it was getting dark but the light switches were off. Being devout Jews they knew that turning on power was forbidden for them on the Sabbath. He asked if Stanley and Maria would come to his home and turn the light switches back on.
They agreed and went with him. In his house they met his young wife and their young elementary school child. The couple was so grateful that they invited them to stay for the Shabbat meal. Stanley and Maria had just eaten dinner but they graciously agreed to stay.
As they shared this Shabbat dinner everyone visited about themselves, getting to know one another, becoming friends. They talked shared their lives. They discussed the conflict. Stanley and Maria shared that they were part of a group of Christians studying and touring in Israel and Palestine.
Now our residence was right outside of Bethlehem which is a Palestinian city. Bethlehem is surrounded by a very high concrete wall as I said. Israeli citizens are not to pass through into Bethlehem although some do. We went through the check point and back out again several times. As Americans we could freely do this. Once was to worship at the Lutheran Church in the main square of Bethlehem.
This Jewish man lived not even a half a mile from the check point. It is about the distance from our church to the Sinclair gas station on the corner on State Street. He could easily see the wall. When heard that Stanley and Maria had been to Bethlehem this is what he asked them: “What are they like?” He wanted to know what the Palestinians were like. He had no personal contact with them.
They lived in the same area, basically. But a physical barrier had also caused a human barrier. This Jewish person had no idea what a Palestinian person was like. He had no idea that they both had families, both wanted love and livelihood, both felt fear because of hostility, and both wanted the best for themselves and their families. Human beings.
And we wonder why such hostility between people. There are physical walls and there are unseen walls that can be barriers. Maybe one of the simplest and most basic ways to be peacemakers and children of our God is to talk to, listen to, and get to know another human being. Maybe someone different than us. Maybe someone who doesn’t think like us or have our lifestyle. Maybe someone who is difficult for us. But someone who is created in the image of God, and who wants to love and be loved, and for whom Christ died.
Prayer: (This is the Prayer of St. Francis of Asissi)
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
[1] From article by Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, “Meet The Champions of Nuance and Empathy We Need,” Nov. 8, 2023
[2] Isaiah 42:1-6, 49:6
[3] Found in John Stott commentary on Ephesians, pp.90-92
[4] Stott
[5] John 17:21
[6] Ephesians: The NIV Application Commentary, Klyne Snodgrass, pp.153-54