Broken Walls, Crossed Borders: a meditation on Ephesians 2:12-22

In Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall he quotes an American aphorism “Good fences make good neighbors.” In this truism, or should I say “falsism,” fences, borders, walls are believed to create good relationships. This may be true for some middle-class families living in the suburbs, who don’t want their gardens trampled on by their neighbor’s dog, but it is generally not the case with walls that divide communities, nations, and cultures.

Often walls are created out of fear of our neighbor or the need to control. The wall that runs through Israel-Palestine is one such wall. It is a wall erected not only by fear of terrorist attacks, but for re-appropriating and controlling Palestinian land for Israel’s advantage. A recent edition of National Geographic magazine, Charles Bowden in his feature article on the U.S./Mexico border wall, said:

Borders everywhere attract violence, violence prompts fences, and eventually fences can mutate into walls. Then everyone pays attention because a wall turns a legal distinction into a visual slap in the face. We seem to love walls, but are embarrassed by them because they say something unpleasant about the neighbors—and us. They flow from two sources: fear and the desire for control. Just as our houses have doors and locks, so do borders call forth garrisons, customs officials, and, now and then, big walls. They give us divided feelings because we do not like to admit we need them.

Just like many U.S. employers do not like to admit that they need immigrant workers. Not long a go a California construction company with a contract to build a 14 mile stretch of wall between San Diego and Tijuana was fined 5 million dollars for using undocumented Mexican workers to build the wall that was supposed to keep them out! How ironic! It only reflects the economic realities of the U.S. and Mexico that the wall does not solve.

Borders and walls can serve as metaphors for exploring the boundaries and landscapes of human differences, personal identities, and the clash of cultures. Gloria Anzaldua, a chicana feminist, in her book Borderlands: La Frontera uses the metaphor of the border to explore how conceptual boundaries of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and sexual orientation create limits that when transgressed cause one to be labeled as unacceptable or an outsider.

The writer of Ephesians uses the metaphor of the wall to describe the religio-cultural differences that separated Jew from Gentile. This dividing wall was symbolized by the differing views of the Jew and Gentile Christians concerning “the law with its ordinances.” The law served as a type of border between these two cultures and people groups. The law defined the borderland of Jewishness through prescribed ways of eating, drinking, socializing, working, praying, worshipping, ritualizing, and being family. Public association of Jews with Gentiles was a questionable activity. This “border document,” so to speak, created a social consciousness of who was in and who was out. Walls and borders are intended to divide people and to keep their separate identities clear.

The Gentiles, who lived on the other side of this Jewish border or law, did not recognize the border as valid for them. Because they did not observe Jewish purity laws, the Gentiles were technically labeled as “unclean.” The temple of Solomon even had literal walls constructed within it that separated Jews from Gentiles, Jewish men from Jewish women, and the priests from the Holy of Holies. Within this sacred space walls reinforced their social divisions. Sacred space, temple, church, religion reflecting the social and national walls that divide people? Surely that doesn’t happen today in our world.

Walls create hostility and violence. Charles Bowden, in his National Geographic article described walls as “attracting violence.” The writer of Ephesians describes the border wall between Jew and Gentile with the term “hostility.” There was no real peace between the two sides of the Jew/Gentile border.

“Christ is our peace,” says the writer of Ephesians. He has broken down the border wall that created hostility between the Jew and Gentile. Did Christ just break these walls down, as the text says, “through the blood of the cross?” Not just in the cross. Jesus broke these walls down when he ate with tax-collectors and sinners, when he met in a public space with a Samaritan woman, when he touched lepers, when he was willing to learn a lesson about ethnic prejudice from a Syro-Phoenician woman, when he sent his disciples across the border into Samaritan land, as he related to a Roman centurian. Jesus was a border-crosser, a boundary breaker, a social transgressor.

The law, as a social, religious, and cultural boundary-maker between the two groups, was removed in Christ. Gentiles no longer needed to become law-observing Jews to be accepted. So, in Christ there was no longer two separate groups, but one new humanity, thus making peace. When we see people from different cultures, nations, people from across social, racial, economic, and national borders as part of one humanity, there is the possibility for creating a theological foundation for peace.

Christ came and proclaimed peace to those on both sides of the border, people divided by literal walls and walls of the heart. In Christ there is a new creation without borders and boundaries. The borders make some people strangers, aliens, illegal, and non-citizens. In Christ we “are no longer strangers and aliens, but are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”

This new reality of Christ’s community, that transcends borders and boundaries, shapes a different understanding and practice around borderlands and boundaries. In Christ’s new community labels like “hostility,” “illegal” and “alien” have been replaced with words like “peace,” citizens,” “saints,” “members of the household of God,” “sisters and brother.” Words and walls that separate and divide have been torn down. Christ is our peace, who has broken down the dividing walls.

Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall, begins with the line: Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. Let me be so bold as to say, “There is someone that doesn’t love a wall.” That someone is Christ. Whether it be in Israel/Palestine, the U.S./Mexico border, or the borderlands of the heart. Christ is a wall crasher, a boundary breaker, a border crosser. Daniel Smith-Christopher goes so far as to call Christ a “good coyote,” one who helps others to cross borders. Christ is with us here…. helping us to cross borders of the land, of the mind, of the heart, and of the soul. Christ is our peace, who has broken down the dividing walls.

Them that's got shall get: a reflection on Amos 5:10-15, 21-24

In her 1939 song Billie Holiday moaned “Them that’s got shall get/ Them that’s not shall lose/So the Bible says and it still is news.” The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The saying is such a truism that it sounds like something from the Bible. In her 1939 song God Bless the Child Billie Holliday moaned the awful truth about the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

During our current economic crisis it is easy to overlook that many in our nation have been in a perpetual economic crisis. The economic disparity in the U.S. doesn't come into our consciousness until we see it's ugly face, such as during Katrina in New Orleans. We didn't understand the violence and vulnerability the rest of the world experienced until 911. We still don't seem to understand the perpetual economic crisis of the poor, even though we have begun to taste the bitter brew of a recession.

The prophet Amos bemoaned the gap between the rich and poor in eighth century Israel. Amos was acutely aware of the chain link between the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor. In similar ways to today’s poor in the so-called Third World, farmers in eighth century Israel grew “cash crops” for the rich, such as oil and wine, which did not assist them in their daily survival. Peasant landowners were losing their land to the wealthy and becoming tenant farmers, while being charged excessive rent. They did not have the money to fight against these oppressive practices in the court, which was controlled by the wealthy. In order to maintain their wealth the rich “trampled on the poor” “took bribes” and “deprived the poor of justice in the courts” (Amos 5:11-12).

The oppressive gap between the rich and the poor is not just an ancient story. As Billy Holiday sang, “So the Bible says and it still is news.” Half of the world---almost 3 billion people--- live on less than two dollars a day. The Gross Domestic Product of the poorest 48 nations, one fourth of the world’s nations, is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. In the United States 13 million or one out of every six children is poor. In the 2001 census, the proportion of persons in Canada living in poverty was 16.2%, an estimated 4,720,485 persons. In the 1995 census, 55.6% of Aboriginal people living in Canadian cities were poor.

In the midst of our economic downturn, that is beginning to impact the middle class, we must remember that in our trickle-down economics little has been trickling down to the poor for far too long.

Into the gap between wealth and poverty the voice of God cries out good news, “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream!” Economic justice will mean more than bailing out Wall Street, U.S. car manufacturers, and other big corporations getting the middle class "back on track" economically. It will mean bringing poverty, race and class into our current dialogue and action concerning the U.S. economy. Only then can there be any possibility for economic justice. The government, corporations, and the middle class care for their own interests. The church is called to care for the "least of these."So the Bible says, and it still is news, good news to the poor.

The Quest with a Question; or Adam Bombs, a poem and illustration by Leo Hartshorn

Adam questioned the origin of the universe
the stars, the planets, but it gets worse.

Adam questioned the animals, the air, and the trees.
I extinctly remember when he questioned the seas.

Adam questioned mankind and womankind too;
their bodies, their babies, nothing would he eschew.

Adam questioned conventions, customs, cultures,
political, economical, and societal structures.

Adam questioned religion, ethics, and such;
metaphysics and mystics---he thought out of touch.

Adam questioned anthropology, psychology, philosophy,
ontology, epistemology, phenomenology, eschatology.

Adam questioned Epicureanism, Stoicism, androcentrism;
then he turned to aestheticism, asceticism and solipsism.

Adam questioned all questions that entered his thoughts;
where, when, what, why, how, ifs, ands, buts, shoulds and oughts.

Adam stopped a split second....I took him for dead,
until a queer question mushroomed from his head.

Adam questioned the electron, proton and neutron....

Adam questioned atom....For God's sake! He's gone.

Pencil Drawings by Leo Hartshorn

Prepare the Way: An Advent sermon on Mark 1:1-8 preached at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church

The senses come alive during this holiday season. The smell of burning candles rising into the air. The lights of the Christmas tree shimmering in the darkness. The warmth of a crackling fire while sipping a hot cup of chocolate with small marshmallows floating on top. Ahhhhhh… and the hushed silence of snowflakes gently falling on the….PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD! MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!!

John the Baptist enters the Advent season like a bull in a china closet. Amid the jingling of bells and carolers singing “Joy to the world,” we hear a cry that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. The grating voice of the Baptist disturbs our tender thoughts of a cooing baby in a makeshift crib. His ragged message of repentance seems as out of place as a wild eyed soup box preacher interrupting a presentation of Handel’s Messiah. John the Baptist brings strange gifts to our Advent table. Instead of a golden brown turkey, we get locusts with wild honey dip. In place of a new night robe and warm cotton lined slippers, we get scratchy camel’s hair with a leather belt.

Even so, if we are going to welcome the good news from the sweet voices of angels from on high, we will need to first listen to the raspy voice of John the Baptist crying out down there in the wilderness.

Listen…listen carefully to that distant voice crying out in the wilderness. The Baptist cries out for us to prepare the way for Christ’s coming. His voice echoes through the wilderness canyons. His apocalyptic cry has political overtones. In John’s day there were other prophets, like the one known as the Egyptian and is referred to in the book of Acts, who called the people of Israel out into the wilderness. It wasn’t because these prophets thought the desert might be a good place to spread their message. They cried out in the wilderness in a type of ritual reenactment of Moses’ deliverance of the slaves from Egypt through the wilderness and Joshua’s crossing the Jordan river in conquest of the Promised Land. Wilderness and river represented places of liberation from their oppressors and the possession of their land.

This may be the background of John’s prophetic wail in the wilderness. As Israel moans under the heavy weight of Roman imperialism, John the Baptist calls her out over the wilderness and through the river, the places where Israel was once liberated from the bonds of Egypt and took the land as their own. His cry in the wilderness may have been heard as an anticipation or preparation for liberation from Roman domination as the beginning of the coming reign of God. The symbolism of the setting was probably not lost on the politicians of the day, particularly king Herod. It wouldn’t be long for Herod to end a dinner date with John’s head on a dinner plate.

Words like “politics” “oppression,” “imperialism” and “liberation” are not words we necessarily want intruding into our Advent meditations. Who wants to hear the harsh voice of the Baptist howling, “Prepare the Way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!”? We might more readily welcome his words if his announcement was akin to “O, you better watch out. You better not cry. Jesus Christ is coming to town!” You know what, when the words John quoted were first uttered, they did come as welcomed words. John was quoting the prophet Isaiah, who first spoke those words in the days of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. The imagery Isaiah uses is from the practice of clearing the pathway of a potentate or god in preparation for the ruler’s procession to the city in order to be inaugurated as the sovereign of the people.

Bumps were leveled. Potholes were filled. Rocks were removed. Weeds were pulled up. Crooked places were straightened for the ruler’s procession to his people. Isaiah uses this imagery to proclaim a word of hope to his people sitting with drooping faces and arms limp at their sides in Babylonian captivity. “Prepare the way for God, who comes to liberate you and lead you across the wilderness, where God will reign among you in your own land,” cries the prophet Isaiah. Now, that’s a welcome Advent message.

John uses Isaiah’s imagery to tell his people to prepare the pathway for the One who comes bringing salvation and liberation to the people. Prepare the way! Remove the injustices and inequities that block God’s pathway. Lift up those valleys sunken by despair and despondency. Knock down the haughty hills of pride and prejudice. Prepare the way for God, who comes bringing justice and liberation through the messiah.

I remember picking up an edition of The Marketplace, a Mennonite business magazine, and seeing on the cover a roadway full of poor, barefoot Haitians clearing stones from a dirt road. With hoes and hands they removed rocks, filled in holes, and knocked down bumps in the roadway. These roadways are the only route for bringing in food supplies, gaining access to medical facilities, and transporting products to market. The new smooth roads are a vein pumping life blood to some of the poorest people in the world. These roads are highways of hope. Mennonite business people have been about the business of preparing the way. They have helped the Haitian people fill in their valleys with fruit trees and improved springs of water. They have assisted them in smoothing out the rough places of 125 roads and 5 dilapidated bridges. The glory of the Lord has been revealed in the form of food, livelihood, and healing medicines coming down those smooth roadways. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!

This may not be the Advent message we were hoping to hear amid the consumerist clamor. It is the season to buy and consume, not to care for the poor and hungry. ‘Tis is the season to be jolly and to trample someone to death in order to be the first to get a bargain at the department store! We don’t need no sermons on liberation and caring for the poor, preacher. It’s not something we like to hear. Even my 4 year old grandson, Gavin, knows that. What we need is a more cheery message during Advent.

The other evening coming home from school Iris asked Gavin if he had a good day at school. Gavin cheerfully said, “Everyone in the world had a good day.” Iris responded, “Well, not everyone had a good day. Some people are poor and don’t have anything to eat. You would’nt want to be without anything to eat, would you? Gavin came back, “I don’t need no sermon talk!” In other words, “Don’t preach to me your pious moralisms!” ‘Tis the season to be jolly! Who wants to hear “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!” during Advent? We don’t need no sermon talk.

Many did not want to hear this kind of “sermon talk” from another Baptist of our own day---Martin Luther King, Jr. We resisted his prophetic words, because it meant changing our way of life. And it still does. Martin used the very words of Isaiah in his I have a Dream speech in at the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. (Get the symbolism of the setting?) He was not there just to create a warm, fuzzy Kum-Ba-Yah moment with blacks and whites holding hands and singing in harmony. His speech was both a sharpened prophetic vision of the reign of God and a concrete political and spiritual call for an end to white racism, discrimination, and segregation.
Like the prophets Isaiah and John, Martin stood in the wilderness of racial inequality and proclaimed:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
Every hill and mountain shall be made low,
The rough places shall be made plain,
And the crooked places shall be made straight
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed
and all flesh will see it together.
I have a dream…

And for the messenger, like John the Baptist Martin would end up with his head on a platter, so to speak. Prepare a way for the Lord! Make his paths straight! Do we really want to hear this harsh message during Advent? Do we want to listen to some cranky old voice denouncing racism after we have heard the joyful cheers around the world as Barack Obama, an African-American, was elected to the highest office in our land? Is the old sad song of antiracism what we want to hear when white racism seems to many people to be an anachronism, a thing of the past? Aren’t we now a post-racial nation?

Do we really need an open letter from Jim Schrag going out to Mennonite Church USA congregations during this Advent season about racism? Isn’t it just another “sermon talk,” pious platitudes amid the joyful sounds of “peace on earth, good will to all’? Doesn’t it sound too political? Doesn’t it just leave a sour taste in the church’s mouth? Isn’t Jim just “preaching to the choir”? Listen to this voice crying out in the wilderness of Mennonite Church USA:

Whether you voted or not in the recent election, or who you voted for, is not the issue about which I am writing. The issue is that the election of an African-American brings hope to our nation with its past record of discrimination and racism. At the same time it brings danger to our president-elect in threats of harm based on the color of his skin. People of color throughout our nation, some who may be our fellow church members, close neighbors, are experiencing new harassment and threats from some whites who are fearful, resentful or feel threatened by the election of President-Elect Obama.

Now we face a time when we must give witness to what we have said we believe. We are not dependent upon the political process to witness for justice and equality; these are not mere ideals of our nation, they are part of our witness of faith in Jesus and the power of His Gospel.

We are called to give witness that the healing of nations comes when Christians live up to the teachings of Christ in our daily lives. Now in this historic time of opportunity and danger, we must speak and act in witness of life, not fear and death. When we see oppression born of fear, we will speak against it. When we observe racist behavior, or hear racist language or stories, we will not silently ignore it, especially when we see and hear this among Christians, even in our own congregations. We have an active role to play in our congregations, community, at our places of employment, and in our social interactions. We can help to turn around a conversation from something negative and frightening by witnessing with our positive listening and speaking.

We are all created in God’s image. We will live our lives in witness of this truth from scripture. Now is a particularly important time to offer this clear and certain witness for the “one new humanity” in Christ. (1)

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! It’s seems such an intrusive message into this Advent season.

What makes the message so intrusive is that it calls for us to change. Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand! Change the direction of your lives! It sounds so guilt-producing. It seems such a negative message for Advent. In our seeker-sensitive-megachurch-consumer-oriented-self-absorbed-war-is-okay-until-it-becomes-inconvenient-culture words like “sin” and “repent” and “redemption” go over like a lead balloon.

This attitude is reflected in a Doonesbury comic strip. The “Reverend” is explaining to a couple inquiring about church membership about the basic approach of his Little Church on Walden:

Reverend: I like to describe it as 12-step Christianity. Basically I believe we’re all recovering sinners. My ministry is about overcoming denial, its about recommitment, about redemption. It’s all in the brochure there.

Wife: Wait a minute---sinners? Redemption? Doesn’t that imply guilt?

Husband: I dunno, there’s so much negativity in the world as it is.

Wife: That’s right. We’re looking for a church that’s supportive, a place where we can feel good about ourselves. I’m not sure the guilt thing works for us.

Husband: On the other hand, you do offer racketball.
Wife: So do the Unitarians, honey. Let’s shop around some more .

There you have it--- John’s abrasive message for Advent. Do we have Advent ears open to hear what he is really saying? Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand! The dominion of heaven is near! The age of God’s reign is just around the corner. The time is coming when God will cut down the trees of self-centeredness and injustice at the root. The season is at hand when peace and hope will bud and bloom. The day when war and violence shall forever cease is upon us. The hour when we will be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character is at the doorstep.

As the streets are decorated with wreaths and fake snow is prayed on windows, the time is close at hand. As we make our shopping list and check it twice, the kingdom is coming! As we decorate the tree with lights and get out the Christmas recipes, the reign of God has a foot in the door. So, prepare a way for the Lord! Make his paths straight!

If we’re going to prepare the way for the coming reign of God, we better get started now. Grab a hoe. Get a shovel. Fill in a pothole. Level the road. Pick up a rock. Pull up a weed. Volunteer to feed the hungry. Work on a project for peace. Dismantle white racism. Let go of some of your privileges and possessions. Welcome a stranger. Visit a prisoner. For God’s dominion has already begun. God is coming down the highway of this wilderness world. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas reminds us that the coming reign of God we prepare the way for is already here:

(Jesus’) disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is.’ Rather the kingdom (of God) is spread out upon the earth, and (people) do not see it.”

From the baptismal waters John cried out, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!” It was nearer than even John could imagine. But, thanks be to God, he had Advent eyes to see. For the road sign pointing to God’s reign stepped into the muddy waters of the Jordan river right next to him. He opened his eyes and looked at Jesus, stepping into the muddy Jordan river and said, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The Messiah of God’s dominion has come. Do we have Advent eyes to see even now God’s reign is spread out across this wilderness world?

Look. An older man kneels in the front to the church. He has just found faith. The water drips from his head and mingles with his tears. His smile is brighter than the Advent candles. Look. Soldiers are packing their camouflage duffle bags in Iraq and unloading their weapons. An army helicopter hums outside their tent. It’s taking them home. Listen. The chatter of people waiting in line sounds like a Christmas carol. A doctor is spooning some stuffing into the plate of a homeless woman at the shelter. He does this every year during his vacation time. Listen. Children shout and laugh as water gushes from a newly built pump just finished in their village. Listen….listen closely…can you hear it? A distant coyote is howling in the wilderness and a faint voice is crying out…Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight.

(1) Jim Shrag, An Open Letter to Congregations: http://www.mennoniteusa.org/Home/News/tabid/65/EntryID/24/Default.aspx

Plied Piper: Poem and Painting by Leo Hartshorn

in the prelude was the singular note of the primal overture

until the counterpoint of a discordant melody came slithering

from the plucked strings of the sorry sapling

bringing infamy into the nursery symphony

who will play the price of the singular note?

snake-infested terra firma poisoned naked naivete

which in truth alone can play the lyre

while the underworld maestro's prodigal performers march

to the broken metronome headlong into the abyss of leviathan

who will play the singular note?

pied beauty of burnt siena torn from heaven's blue rib

fingers the pierced stick kissing it with overdrawn breath

in order the he might play the ransom note

a solo on wounded flute with violen(t) accompaniment

the price of the singular note on a wooden instrument

M.U.S.I.C.:Musicians Undermining Social Injustice Creatively, Drawings by Leo Hartshorn

Longing for Light: An Advent Poem by Leo Hartshorn

Anticipating…

Hoping for hope
for an advent sign along the abandoned road
that is supposed to lead to life
Lighting purple candles
Longing for light
under the shadow of winter’s cloak

Waiting…

Leaning forward for the future,
for joy divine to peek his head
from beneath the swaddling clothes of
ordinary time
Singing carols
Longing for light
under the shadow of winter’s cloak

Watching…

Looking for love
incarnate in the here and now
fleshed out in the midst of ghosts
of Christmases past
Reading ancient texts
Longing for light
under the shadow of winter’s cloak


Hoping…

Expecting faith to come
even while she has hopped a train
south to Doubtsville
Listening for a faint whistle
in the church’s chants and
the world’s wistfulness
Longing for light
under the shadow of winter’s cloak