Ephesians 2:14-16; Mark 6:31-14 by Rola Al Ashkar

Maybe one of the most famous walls that were built in history was the Berlin wall, which separated East Berlin and East Germany from West Berlin for almost 30 years. And when we think of Berlin wall, we think not only of duality and separation but also of disparity and inequality. West Berlin, conveniently entitled “island of freedom,” was a wealthy cosmopolitan city, and a center of education, research and culture. And virtually all of the rest of Germany was in slow economic growth under a communist rule.

There are a lot of famous stories of people who tried and succeeded in crossing from the Eastern to the western side. Like a man who risked his and his daughter’s life to escape in a suitcase in the trunk of an American soldier. Another swam his way out to freedom all night and until the following morning. But hundred others died or were killed trying.

If, like me, you come from a developing country you’d understand why people would want to risk everything to escape across that wall. Yet, in a very intriguing photo, people from the Western side of the wall -the side that is not guarded since no one would want to escape it- were peeking at the Eastern side, just to see how it is like to be on that side. Though trips to the East were legally permitted, most West Berlin citizens wouldn’t have wanted to try and go to the communist part of the country, unless they had relatives to visit or a really good reason.

The Berlin wall is just one example of a division wall in modern history, others include the apartheid wall between the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian Territory, the fence between Spain and Morocco, the wall between India and Pakistan, and needless to mention the USA-Mexico wall.

Sadly, strategic divisions continue to tear our world and even more sadly our churches, ever since the church was born, on the second half of the first century. We can see an example in today’s reading about the Christian community at Ephesus. Whoever wrote that letter to the Ephesians was well aware of the history of the separation wall between Jews and gentiles, a history that was then being repeated between Jewish Christians and pagan Christians. Though by that time the temple altogether was destroyed, yet, the nonphysical wall persisted between the two parties inside the one community.

And throughout its history, the church continued to build walls of separation both physically and metaphorically. Physically, if you have been to an Eastern Orthodox Church, you might have seen the altar imitation of the holy of holies place. And metaphorically, to name a few, the Catholic-Protestant separation wall, or the wall that is not to be crossed by LGBTQ individuals, or the wall that separated and still separates women from the pulpit in many places around the world, and the most unfortunate walls of exclusive doctrines.

We take pride in our church here at Parkview that we receive everyone and anyone no matter their backgrounds or identities, but when we remember that we are called to be the church, each one her or himself individually, then our individual walls risk becoming the church’s separation walls.

Two years ago, the Presbyterian church of Aleppo in Syria was destroyed by ISIS attacks, the entire building was smashed off but the church didn’t stop to exist, and surely enough their community service did not stop. They liked to refer to themselves as a church without walls. And when their physical walls had fallen down, all the other walls were forced to fall as well, because that made them face the reality of what it means to be a church, what it means to be a witness of Christ at such a time and place.

I pray that we learn to be a church without walls, but first and foremost that we learn to be humans without walls. And that isn’t something that can be achieved overnight, but at least we can start with the realization of the barriers that we have built and continue to nurture.

One of the most striking facts about Germany today is how much hasn’t changed in terms of disproportions in economic development. The East is still trying to catch up with the West 29 years later, and some regions never recovered from the aftermath of the wall and its fall.

If that indicates one thing, it is that walls we build can last for longer periods than we think they would. And these are many, whether they are walls of envy, or walls of greed, walls of unresolved issues, or walls of self-righteousness that blind us from seeing our own flaws, if we don’t try to cut them shorter, they only keep growing taller.

What are the walls that exist in your life?  Whatever they are, today’s scripture reminds us that when we are in Christ, all walls of hostility are to be abolished. Jesus who initially intended to go to an isolated place with his disciples, later refused to hide at the other side of a wall. Instead he chose to cross through his discomfort and be with the people.

I would like to invite you this morning to think of someone whom you have built a wall between you and them, as you let the Spirit move you through these verses from Ephesians:

For he [Jesus] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us . . . that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it [the cross].”

Friends, faced with the madness of separation, the madness of duality, of disparity and inequality, let us affirm the madness of the cross, the madness of a crucified Lord, of outstretched hands to accept and embrace and love everyone, and to break all the walls that might divide God’s good creation. Amen.