ALL MEANS ALL

Galatians 3:23-39
September 20, 2009


Robert Frost has a poem called “Mending Wall,”
and it’s about a man and his neighbor
They have a stone wall that divides their properties
but during hunting season, the wall gets broken down
by hunters trying to get at rabbits
who hide in crevices in the wall
So it becomes a spring-time ritual every year
for the two men to mend their wall
replacing the stones that the hunters removed
But the poet wonders this time, ‘why are we mending the wall?
Why do we keep the wall between us?’
It’s not like they had cows that would get out

And his neighbor’s reply with a simple shrug is
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
It’s what his father always said,
and so he believed it

But the poet persists, why?
Why do good fences make good neighbors?
And he writes,
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
what I was walling in or walling out
and to whom I was like to give offence
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
That wants it down….”
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
that wants it down…

Paul is writing to his church at Galatia
and the man is really ticked off
Paul was known to have a passionate temper
and at the beginning of Chapter 3,
he says to them, “You foolish Galatians!
Who has bewitched you??”
This is not a friendly letter
to make them feel all warm and toasty inside
The Church at Galatia has gotten caught up
in the law, in the rules
and is more concerned about the rules
than about the spirit of faith
I imagine if he were there in person
he’d slap them all on the back side of the head,
Hello??
He’s pretty much saying,
what’s happened to you?
You were doing so well,
you were following Christ,
you were doing what Christ would want you to do
reaching out to others,
showing mercy and justice
But they got off track somewhere
they took a wrong turn
and now they were very focused in this misguidedness
They’re focused on who’s circumcised
and who’s not circumcised
and therefore who’s in and who’s out
and at one point,

Paul is so angry that he basically says
I wish those who are misguiding you
would just castrate themselves!
He’s mad
Mad that his dear Galatians have wandered off
into strict adherence to the law
and set such strict boundaries for righteousness
that no one can possibly get in

“Before I build a wall
I’d ask to know what I was walling in and walling out…”

Another poet, Irene Zimmerman
wrote,
“In Bethlehem
a baby’s cry
shatters barriers
Women, men,
of every creed,
culture, race
gaze across
the rubbled walls
in wonder
finding every face
luminous
with godliness!”


We see a lot of rubble
there are holes blown in walls all the time
there are people out there trying to dismantle them
and there are just as many, if not more people
trying to put them back up

“As many of you as were baptized in Christ Jesus have clothed
yourselves with Christ
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is not longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus…
And if you belong to Christ,
you are Abraham’s offspring
heirs according to the promise.”
Those are pretty radical words
No barriers,
no boundaries that separate
the people of God
All of you are one in Christ Jesus
it doesn’t say…
“All.. except this one or that one
All except the ones who don’t go to church
ALL except the ones on the streets
All except the ones who live over there
or have that strange accent
or believe this
or smell funny..

ALL is ALL… Paul puts no exceptions
NONE
What rubble do we stare at in our lives?
Who do we see across the rubble
that we still keep at a distance?
Who do we know that can’t come home
because they know even their church family
their hometown
wouldn’t accept them as they really are?
Who do we wall out?
What do we wall in?
What do we protect?
What and who are we afraid of
that will creep across our property, into our lives?

There’s the story of a rabbi
who asked his students how one could recognize
the exact time when night ends
and day begins….
“Is it when, from a great distance,
you can tell a dog from a sheep?” one student asked
“No,” said the rabbi.
“Is it when, from a great distance, you can tell a date palm
from a fig tree?” another creative student asked
“No,” said the rabbi.
“Then when is it?” they asked him.
He replied, “It is when you look into the face of any human creature
and see your brother or your sister there.
Until then, night is still with us.”

Night is most definitely still with us…
We might be embarrassed by our history
when there were signs in public places
“Whites Only”
and if you know your biblical history
you know that even the temple was divided
In the inner most sanctum of the temple
was the Holy of Holies
believed to contain the presence of God
No one, absolutely NO ONE was good enough
to go on there
except the priest appointed for that day
who would go in and offer up prayers for his people
The people would even tie a rope to his ankle
before he went in
just in case he did something to make God mad
and God struck him dead
and they could pull the body out
without having to go in there
But in the temple,
the people were divided
The main section of worship
was for men only
There was an outer court
for Women and Gentiles
where they could overhear
I guess they had a sound system set up or something
and then of course
anyone else
was not allowed

A woman who was having her period
a person who was crippled or deformed
a woman who had given birth recently
an unmarried woman
with a history…
and just use your imagination
There were strict laws as to who was in and who was out
Who was worthy, who was not

Have you ever been told
as a child or as an adult,
“You don’t belong” ?
“You don’t fit”?
That hurts
It just doesn’t hurt when you’re a kid
left out of the softball game
or not invited to a party
it hurts as adults

One small church I served in Nebraska
many years ago
didn’t like women pastors
and didn’t think that pastors who were divorced
could serve either
It was biblical, they said
And one year while Larry and I both served that church
we had a lot of deaths in the church in a short period of time
a lot of cancer and loss
People in the community told the church members
that it was because God was punishing the church
for having a woman pastor
and a male pastor who was divorced and remarried

It’s a ridiculous story now
but at the time that kind of stuff really hurts
We were basically accused of being murderers
simply for being who we are

The rest of the world loves a good solid wall
they like to determine every day
who is in and who is out
Who is trustworthy and who is not
Who is good and who is evil
as if there’s nothing in between
We build solid walls
that are hard to break
We liked clearly marked walls
so that we know where to stand
and know that we’re ok

But Jesus is one of those who hates walls
he doesn’t love a wall
and he spent his time here kicking them down
which of course made a lot of people mad
mad enough to kill him
but he kept kicking them down
and then he went so far as to kick down the wall
that divides life and death
he kicked down that huge boulder
that sealed the tomb
and showed that he won’t let anyone shut him up
He won’t let anyone silence him
He won’t even let the powerful forces of death
hold back the light that he came to bring

I love the scene in the latest Harry Potter film
In the last four books and movies of the series
the Power of Evil seems to be winning
It has taken over the world
and is causing pure chaos and mayhem
things look pretty hopeless
There are daily battles between good and evil
and good wins for a time
but then evil turns around and lashes back
with cruelty, torture and death
In the 6th movie,
it seems that evil has reached its crescendo
someone let the forces of evil in through the back door
of the castle
and all the powers of darkness
seem to take over and destroy everything
In one of the final scenes of the movie
Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts
and the most powerful wizard that exists
has been killed by the DeathEaters
Dumbledore was someone everyone thought could never die
could never be defeated
and yet there was, killed by the evil crowds
broken and helpless and lifeless
The whole congregation of students
gather around his body in the darkness
and in the sky is menacing sign of the Dark Mark
It’s like a huge Face of the Devil
laughing at them all
mocking them in their pursuit of goodness
mocking them in their grief
But then one of the students lights up his wand
and holds it high in the air
silently, all the other students follow suit
lighting their wands and raising them into the air
until the collective light is so bright
it lights up the darkness
and the ugly face in the sky disspates
and fades into the mist

The story is not over then, of course
Evil is still very powerful
it still seems to win every day
and to gain power and momentum
especially when it creeps into the hearts of good people
who get sucked into it
and use their power for evil instead of good

Jesus doesn’t love a wall
and Jesus wants them down
His ministry was always about tearing down walls
and he didn’t just stand and stare across the rubble
he walked right through the rubble
to bring life to those who were once imprisoned
behind those walls

We are baptized into Christ
What does that mean to us?
Is it just water on our forehead?
Is it just a memory we can’t remember
but rely on the memories of those who were there
or the memory of that piece of paper we kept?

To be baptized is to be invited in to the intimate fellowship
of Jesus Christ
To be a part of a fellowship,
it is to belong, to be loved and cherished
to bring your whole self to the table
and know that you are loved for who you are
and the doors are no longer shut to you
It’s hard to live for Christ in this world
The world loves walls
and is finding more and more ways to build them
to keep people out
to protect our precious territory
forgetting, of course, that none of this really belongs to us
but belongs to God
But as long as there are walls being built
Jesus will keep finding ways to tear them down
and he gives us the power through his Resurrection
to be a people of life and light
to be people that hate walls
and he gives us the tools, the courage and the power
to take them down

There’s the story of an old neighborhood in Chicago
On the first night of Hanukah,
a menorah appeared in the window of one of the homes
This had never happened before
The next morning, the front door of that home
bore a large, crudely painted swastika
That evening a second candle appeared in the window
But now, another home across the street had a menorah
in the window as well
Next morning, the second home also
had a swastika on the door
On the third evening, three candles burned in the window
of the first home
and now menorahs had shown up in the front windows
of half a dozen homes round about
Next morning, six more swastikas
By the fourth evening, menorahs beamed light
from the windows of homes all up and down the street
No more swastikas appeared in the neighborhood
Light had chased away the darkness….

Jesus is alive and very much among us
very much alive and wandering through this world
don’t make him go all alone
He lit a fire in you, he lit a lamp in you
to carry through the heavy darkness of this world
there will be pain, there will be resistance
because evil doesn’t like competition
But you are children of the Resurrection
baptized believers in the power of Christ
Keep your lamps lit
keep holding them up
and together the light will be brilliant

and the darkness will be overcome …. someday.