He Came and Preached Peace

Ephesians 2:11-22

Pentecost 9 (Proper 11)

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen.  The sermon text for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost is the epistle reading Ephesians 2.   For too long, the ancient Chinese were attacked by their northern neighbors until they built the Great Wall of China.  It is a massive structure that stands to this day.  The wall is over four thousand miles long.  It’s tall and strong and strategically designed to let defenders move swiftly to the point of any attack.  Many tried to pass over the wall, but few succeeded.  The wall was built because of the great hostility that China had with its neighbors.  Many of us remember the Berlin Wall in Germany when it was torn down several years ago. It was a wall built to separate the eastern part of the city from the west.  It was another structure built by people due to hostility and hate. 

I bring up the subject matter of walls because Paul speaks about them in our epistle reading.  He speaks about the dividing wall of hostility. Stone or steal did not build the wall that Paul speaks about, but he is referring to the invisible walls that surround people. Walls of hostility can exist in us and around us.  These walls separate us from God, and they separate us from other people.  All of us have at times built walls to separate ourselves from those we dislike.  Those walls are often built to last a lifetime and they sometimes seem unbreakable.  But Paul tells us that Christ came to tear down all walls of hostility through His shed blood on the cross.  God’s way is not hostility, isolation, and hate.  His way is of peace, community and sacrificial love.  We are going to spend some time this morning talking about the walls of hostility around us and how the Lord Jesus Christ breaks down those walls. 

When Paul originally wrote about this dividing wall of hostility, he was referring to the hostility between Jews and Gentiles.  There were many Jews that despised the Gentiles; they considered them dogs, vile and unclean.  You may recall in the Old Testament that the prophet Jonah originally refused to preach to the Gentiles even when God called him too.  At first, Jonah chose to disobey God rather than interact with the Gentiles.  Many of the Gentiles hated the Jews.  They considered them arrogant, and they scorned their culture and their laws. During the Old Testament times, Gentile nations often attacked Israel and treated the people in a harsh and brutal way.  The gulf between Jews and Gentiles was so deep and wide that it seemed impossible ever to close it. 

Christ came and tore down the dividing wall of hostility between them and made things the way they are supposed to be.  God in Christ reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to Himself.  He overcame past hostilities with His own blood shed on the cross.  He called both to be fellow citizens of His kingdom and members of His family.  He united both into the one holy Christian Church. That’s the way that God wants things to be.  That’s the way things are supposed to be between people, united together through the blood of Christ, having one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one Spirit, and one Bible, all in one communion of saints.  The world still has many walls, we see it with all the war and strife, but in God’s kingdom all things are united through Jesus Christ. 

Christ comes to us this day in His Word because we too can have dividing walls of hostility in our own life.  Satan the world and our sinful nature work very hard to build up walls of hostility among us.  Sin builds up big, tall dividing walls that can affect our congregation, family and community.  I remember hearing this story about a pastor and a parishioner.  Years ago the church that the pastor was serving had two services on Easter Sunday, one early and one late.  After a woman sang a solo at the early service the pastor made a point to thank her for the wonderful job that she did.  Another woman sang at the second service, but the pastor forgot to thank her.  She was hurt and stopped coming to church.  It is possible that the pastor was irritated by this because it was an honest mistake.  She probably thought she did a poor job and that she was being singled out for everyone to see by the lack of thanks. 

The foundation of a wall of hostility was being built.  That sort of thing can happen in our own congregation.  There will be times when people say things that will offend us and there will be other times when we will take offense when we should not.  In both cases a wall can form around us making things uncomfortable even in the church.  Walls of hostility can certainly form in the family.  Most of us have a family member or two that we just don’t get along with.  Sometimes conflicts can last for years to the point that negative feelings for a certain person get so bad that we don’t want anything to do with them.  Walls of hostility can be deadly for a marriage. Husbands and wives can build very strong walls based upon the sins that they commit against each other. Sometimes walls can get so strong that our hearts begin to be hardened with hatred.  Hatred in our heart is a wall that separates us from God.  Satan works very hard to build these walls of hostility among us.  His divide and conquer tactics destroy friendships, families, and congregations. He tries to separate us from people, and he tries to separate us from God. 

But Christ came to tear down those walls of sin and hatred by taking our sin into His own body.  He came to bring peace to a divided people and to make things the way they ought to be.  The cross is all about God reconciling the world to Himself, removing the sin that separates people from God.  The Gospel is for all people.  It is for us, and it is for the person on the other side of the wall.  When our sin is forgiven it brings us to God.  It also brings us to one another. 

Let me finish the story about the woman who stopped going to church.  The pastor went to see her and apologized for forgetting to thank her. They talked to each other and reconciled.  Both of them understood that they had peace with God through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.  They understood that peace with God also gave them the added gift of having peace with each other.  The woman returned to the worship service on Sunday and continued to sing.  She loved God and through Christ she also loved the church.

Remember the words of Paul. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.  In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”     

In this sinful world walls of hostility still exist.  Both Jews and Gentiles continue to fight in the Middle East.  Political division still exists in our country. We still see walls of hostility in our community.  It is the way of the world.  But it is not the way of the kingdom of God.  What all people need is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Christ has forgiven all your sins.  Your relationship with God has been restored.  The wall of hostility between you and God has been removed. You now have peace with God through Jesus.  That same forgiveness tears down the wall of hostility that divide us from one another. We see it as we forgive one another as God in Christ forgives us.  Amen.