One of the favorite toys at our house these days are Lego bricks. We have collected many over the past year of being mostly at home. Daniel, Wade, and I love working on sets together, and (Daniel and I, at least!) have very meticulously organized all the different tiny pieces in divided boxes. Wade likes to build and play, especially with vehicles for his ninja minifigures, but most days it seems like his favorite part is destruction. Meanwhile, I’m watching with dismay as the creation I’d so carefully spent time building is pulled apart in a few seconds, and I often find myself flinching at his disregard for where the pieces are flying.
I much prefer building to destruction, and enjoy sticking with familiar sets with their tidy directions. And yet, even I know that the whole point of Lego is that the bricks can be transformed into anything - built and dismantled again and again. Following that wild destruction, we gather up the bricks and build them into something new.
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| Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash |
In today’s reading from the letter to the Ephesians, we hear about one of the challenges for the earliest Christians - divisions between those who had been Jewish and those who were not, called Gentiles. There was a dividing wall between them - the commandments and ordinances that dictated how God’s people Israel should act in the world. The purity and conduct laws for Jews found in the Scriptures were intended to signify the distinctiveness of God’s people from the people of other nations who worshiped other gods. Through circumcision, and dietary laws, and other practices, God’s covenant people had been set apart in a special way. There were clear insiders and outsiders.
God, however, is always doing a new thing. God is always expanding the circle of belonging and challenging our understanding of family and citizenship and welcome. As the fledgling Church takes shape, the people begin to realize that it is no longer helpful for God’s people to use these laws and ordinances as a way of dividing themselves from others who also belong to God.
Walls and boundaries can be comforting things. We like to know who is on our team, who thinks and looks and believes like we do. We like to measure ourselves against others, or at least point out the things that allow us to feel superior. We look with disdain on those who are different from us, if we even see them at all from behind the walls that separate us into tidy groups. The walls we build up seem to shape our sense of who we are, and how we relate to the world.
Watching those dividing walls come crashing down, then, can be an uncomfortable and even painful thing. Like me with the Legos, we might watch with dismay as the walls we so carefully spent time building and maintaining are pulled apart in a few seconds. We might find ourselves flinching at God’s disregard for where the pieces are flying.
Divisions in our communities and families and nation seem to be as entrenched as ever. The dividing walls are high, and the desire for reconciliation often feels so very small. I think, though, we’ve seen the harm and brokenness that result from these deep divisions and our inability to really see one another. We are exhausted from shouting, hungry for peace, and without hope, feeling powerless to bring about any change.
What grace, then, to hear that “Christ 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.”
In Christ, God is building something new. Brick by brick, God tears down walls of hatred and prejudice and superiority, instead transforming our differences into something life-giving, and unifying, and infused with love.
With the bricks that had been a dividing wall, God instead builds a house of living stones - us! The people of God! It is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. This house is a place of rest and welcome and safety. It is a dwelling place for God.
With the bricks that had been a dividing wall, God instead builds a well, a source of living water for all people. Its cool, refreshing water nourishes, cleanses, and forgives, sustaining life for all creation.
With the bricks that had been a dividing wall, God instead builds an endless table, laden with abundance. Then, having set the table with a feast, God gathers up both those who are far off and those who are near. As everyone settles in for the meal, God proclaims not animosity but peace; not division, but reconciliation; not strangers, but family.
What else is God building? What new thing is God doing in our midst? And how might we help gather up the bricks and build something new, something for all?
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