St. John’s Episcopal Church
Ephesians 2:11-22 718
July 19, 2015
1. Intro: Scott Hall, InterVarsity, urban ministry internships for college students
a. A few weeks ago leading a conference call with an InterVarsity staff, a 24
year old African American woman in Chicago, the day after the Charleston
murder of nine Black lives
i. Tabled my agenda to pray together
ii. In tears she prayed, “Jesus, you say you are king, that your kingdom is
coming, that you have won the victory…right now it doesn’t look like
you are winning.”
iii. She’s right: it doesn’t look like God is winning
b. In Revelation 7, Scripture paints a portrait of the people of God from every
nation, from all tribes and tongues standing before the throne worshipping
God together as one people: it’s a portrait of what’s coming, what we are to
become
i. But that’s not where we are today
ii. In 1963, Dr. King said that 11 am Sunday morning was the most
segregated hour in America…you’d think we’d come so far since 1963
iii. Yet his statement is as true now as it was then
c. There’s a chasm between where we stand and Revelation 7: Where does the
Church fit? How do the people of God bridge that gap?
d. That’s my job: bridging that gap
i. I mentor and train college students who are trying to follow Jesus into
living lives of faith that actually engage and transform the social
problems of our world
ii. In middle of leading 25 college students through this experience in the
Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma
e. In today’s Scripture reading I see hope, but I also see a challenge…I see an
answer to bridging that gap:
i. Ephesians: Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility
2. Ephesians 2:11-22—what Christ did to the dividing wall of hostility
a. To appreciate this, need to recognize the hostility that existed between J & G:
i. Religious tension, but especially ethnic, racial tension
ii. Jesus’ first sermon, Jewish audience, loved it…then he cited two
examples of faithfulness in the OT—both Gentiles—and they suddenly
tried to throw him off a hill and kill him—like he gave a rousing stump
speech at a Klan rally…and then took off his coat to reveal his Malcolm
X t-shirt—that was Jesus’ first sermon
b. So much hostility that the temple had a literal division, a wall: court of Jews,
court of Gentiles…you can worship our God, but you’ll always be second class
c. But then Paul tells the Ephesians that the blood of Christ changed all that
i. Christ’s blood gave all people access to God: not because of ethnicity,
or adherence to cultural rules…but by the grace and invitation of God
ii. And because of that, the ethnic divisions between Jew and Gentile
became irrelevant
d. Christ’s blood broke down the dividing wall of hostility: it’s a metaphor
based on the actual wall that separated the temple courts: Christ’s blood
broke down the dividing walls:
i. No more separation, no more division, no more hostility
ii. One big temple court…everyone together
iii. Not just Jew and Gentile, but Black and White, Asian and Latino,
Middle Eastern and Native American
e. Christ breaks down the walls between us
3. But life in America builds those walls back up
a. Our churches are segregated by ethnicity and language
b. Our neighborhoods are divided by economics
c. Our quality of education is dependent upon tax revenue in our cities
d. And there’s a direct pipeline from poor schools to prisons: state of Texas uses
5th grade test scores to determine how many prison beds they will need
when these kids turn 18: this many below a certain percentile? That many
beds 7 years later
e. Prisons are privatized for-profit institutions in our country: as a result we
incarcerate nearly twice as many per capita any other nation in the world—
today 2.3 M—and while African Americans are 13% of our population,
they’re 47% of our prisons
f. Christ breaks down the walls, but life in America builds those walls
back up
4. Life isn’t equal for Black and White college students
a. Four Black women in our Tacoma Urban Program: all students at PLU
b. Intelligent, attractive, charismatic…yet with a set of circumstances and
experiences in life and in college that their White friends just can’t relate to
i. One of them, her father went to prison when she was 2 months
old…never known him…he got out this past Tuesday
ii. Another on full-scholarship at PLU, but last year in March scholarship
was changed into loans that she’ll never be able to pay off…she
dropped out and is hoping to start at UW Tacoma next year
iii. A third, at her first day serving at a Christian non-profit in Tacoma had
the training supervisor intentionally butcher her name—D’Ajah (dahdah, jah-jah, yo-yo)…kept doing so intentionally when she kept
correcting him
c. And as you might guess, our White students don’t know how to be there for
their Black friends because their experiences is so foreign
d. So to help students go deep in friendships we actually have to split them up
into ethnic specific groups—it’s like we’re helping them break down the
walls brick by brick
i. The Black and Asian folks need to vent about their anger, their pain,
and the frustration of not being understood by their White friends so
they can be healed by the grace of Christ
ii. The White folks need coaching in how to not react defensively to their
own ignorance, and training in how to own up to their apathy, to ask
the right questions, and to listen without trying to fix everything so
they can be more led by Christ than by White-American social norms
e. Life in America builds up the walls, but Christ breaks them down
5. We’re at a pivotal point in the Tacoma Urban Program right now
a. I see God’s Spirit inviting folks deeper—inviting Black and Asian folks into
forgiveness and trust, inviting White folks into empathy and humility—but
will they respond?
i. My job is to hold their feet to the fire, to hold up the beautiful dream of
Revelation 7, to remind them that if the people of God can’t overcome
racial segregation and inequality, than no one will, to teach them how
to let Christ break down the walls of hostility one brick at a time
b. And so I’ll turn the same question toward you and hold your feet to the fire:
i. Which Spirit leads you more strongly? The Spirit of America that
builds walls up? Or the Spirit of Christ that breaks walls down?
ii. I don’t think there’s a middle ground…it doesn’t happen overnight, but
brick by brick we’re either building up the wall, or breaking it down.
c. The gospel reading shows the people hungry for what Jesus has to offer. I
believe the world around us has that same hunger: hunger for something
beyond partisan politics, hunger for a quality of community that transcends
ethnic, economic, or social differences, hunger for the dream of Martin Luther
King, Jr…the dream of Jesus.
d. Will we let the Spirit of Christ lead us, brick by brick, to break down the
walls? Will we become the kind of people, the kind of community, that our
world is hungry for?