2012
ELCA Youth Gathering
“Practicing
Discipleship” Opening Worship
July
19, 2012
Ephesians
2:14-20
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
So
what’s all this business about walls in our lives? Are walls really all that bad?
I
want to push back a bit and challenge the notion that walls are always awful—forever
a problem.
Sometimes
walls are pretty important—some walls are good, even necessary in our lives.
I’m
grateful for the walls of my house and all the houses I’ve ever lived in. Walls keep the roof from falling on our
heads. Walls keep blizzards outside in
northern Minnesota. Walls keep
air-conditioned air inside here along the Gulf Coast.
Walls
protect us. Walls keep us safe. Walls give us privacy, some space where we
can relax and be ourselves.
Same
goes for those walls we call boundaries.
Thank God for boundaries in our connections and relationships with one
another—boundaries like: “respect others”
and “no bullying allowed” and “keep your hands to yourself!”
Thank
God for these kinds of walls….physical, psychological and social. Some walls are good. Some walls we can’t live without!
But
like every other good thing God has created, walls can be misused, turned into obstacles,
transformed into weapons that stifle and even kill. There are walls that
diminish us, disrespect persons, divide us from one another. Some walls rob us of the rich, full, free life
God intends for us.
That’s
what the writer of Ephesians is talking about in our Gathering theme passage
when he speaks of a “dividing wall….(of) hostility.”
You
see, running right thru the middle of the Bible’s story of God and God’s people
is one huge wall. It's the wall
separating God's chosen people from everyone else. Over many centuries this wall fostered hostility
between God’s chosen people--the Jews--and everyone else--the Gentiles.
So there’s this “dividing wall (of) hostility”….and God has said this wall has to go….and so God sent Jesus to be the wall-defying, wall-busting One.
And
this Jesus, at his Cross, made peace permanently between God and God’s one new
humanity….peace that is meant to permeate and fill this one new humanity….
And
this same Jesus now invites and equips us to join him defying and tearing down
dividing walls wherever we find them in our world.
But
what might that look like—following, living as disciples of Jesus the
wall-buster?
President
Abraham Lincoln, once was asked why he was always reaching out to his political
enemies. “Mr. President, why don’t you
use your power to destroy your enemies?” Lincoln was asked.
…to
which Abraham Lincoln responded: “Isn’t
that what I am doing? Am I not
destroying my enemies, when I make them my friends?”
In
this last verse of our reading from Ephesians, we see how God through Jesus the
wall-defier, transforms us from being foreigners and strangers….to becoming
fellow citizens with the saints, members of one new household, best friends
forever in Christ.
The “Jesus-method”
of doing away with enemies is by making them friends, sisters, brothers,
neighbors.
And
Jesus gets us into the act. Today, our
“Practice Discipleship” day, Jesus will fashion and form and equip us to join
him in God’s work of breaking down dividing walls in order to create one new
humanity.
Discipleship
is about living the forgiven life, forming new habits of being together in
Christ, and fanning out across God’s world, starting today here in New
Orleans….
·
Substituting service for selfishness
·
Filling resentment with prayer
·
Placing worship at the center of our lives
·
Inviting others to join us, studying God’s
word, giving ourselves away, and through it all (because this isn’t an easy
path) encouraging one another to grow deeply into God’s one new humanity in
Jesus Christ.
So,
get ready to go and live the adventure of destroying enemies by making them
friends—friends of Jesus, friends who walk with us in our Lord’s footsteps, on
the road of discipleship—always, always toward God’s tomorrow.
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
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