Sermon preached by The Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA ON THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 23 JULY 2006


"You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and the household of God." (Ephesians 2:10)

I turned on the TV the other day and saw the talking head of an incumbent politician desperately seeking reelection. He gives his pedigree --- the son and grandson of hard-working people who migrated to this country from Europe. His grandfather was a coal miner, and to hear the politician tell the story, his family has helped to make America great. He comes from what some call "good immigrant stock." Then he contrasts his own family to a new wave of immigrants who allegedly are trying to get into the U.S. with "more sinister intentions." They must be stopped at all costs, we are told. Walls must be erected at the Mexican border, and millions of dollars must be spent so that thousands of guards can be deployed to bar their entry. This must be done not only to keep such undesirables out, but, we are told, to honor those who became a part of America's great melting pot by playing "according to the rules." The politician, it should come as no surprise, is identified with what has become known as the "religious right" and the paid political announcement comes as yet another reminder that that group is neither. It has, in the name of religion, constructed and justified a thinly veiled theology of bigotry.

Let us unpack the statement. What is "sinister" about the intentions of the new wave of immigrants? Nothing at all. They seek entry into the "land of the free and the home of the brave" for the same reasons the politician's grandparents did --- to improve the lot of their families. Rules? The politician needs to remind himself that the rules --- including quota regulations --- have long been weighed in favor of immigrants from Europe or those who look like them, and less in favor of people of color. This is why boatloads of Cubans, for example, can routinely be granted asylum status while Haitians are more likely to be sent back, in their barely seaworthy dinghies, to Port-au-Prince. The rules about which we should be concerned are the more stringent immigration laws born of a fear that it will be only a matter of time before the so-called minorities outnumber the majority culture --- and this development, to the Christian Right politician, somehow smacks of being un-American.
The commercial came to mind when I read this morning's epistle, and I couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between the politician's message and that of Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. While the politician preaches the necessity of erecting walls, Paul makes it clear that Jesus came precisely to break down walls. "For he is our peace," Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, "in his flesh that has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." Who are the "both groups"? They are the Jews and the Gentles, and yes, I will remind you yet again that the Greek work for Gentiles is ethnoi.

Now Paul was thoroughly familiar with the pecking order in a Greek city-state (or polis) such as Ephesus. Here the ethnoi, the Gentiles, were the only ones entitled to full-fledged citizenship. The Jews, whose true home was the Temple at Jerusalem, were clearly a rung below. Most of the Jews in a city-state were classified as strangers or xenoi (It is interesting that the word "xenophobia" --- fear of strangers --- occurs in English, but I have never heard the word "xenophilia" the love of strangers.) The xenoi were considered aliens, outsiders, exiles, spies, and generally people not to be trusted. Other Jews were "sojourners" (paroikoi, literally those outside the house) and they were more or less like Jews with a green card. They had limited privileges in the polis, but lived under the constant threat that such privileges could be summarily revoked.

Now it is an interesting aspect of human nature that when underdogs become top dogs, they often imitate the behavior of their former oppressors. When we leave the city-state and go to Jerusalem, the tables are turned. There, it is the Gentiles who are the second-class citizens, if they dared enter the Temple, they found this sign at the entrance to the inner court: "No man of another nation is to enter, and whoever is caught will have himself to blame that his death ensues." Unfortunately, the church took over where the synagogue left off. Believing that Jesus came to redeem the Jewish community, some of the new Christians proclaimed that Gentiles would have to become Jews before converting to Christianity, or otherwise put, be circumcised before they were baptized.

Enter Paul. He takes all these exclusive concepts and turns them on their head. He strikes a blow for inclusivity two thousand years before the Episcopal Church embraced the concept. In the Church of Jesus Christ, says Paul, there will be no more of this in-group out-group stuff. Those differences have melted away in God's household, the church, where everyone --- Gentiles and Jews, slave and free, men and women, are fellow citizens, sympolitai, that is, one with the polis, the new polis, the city of God. Moreover, everyone joins the ranks of the saints (hagioi) who now have equal access to the Throne of Heavenly grace. Why? Because that right of access does not depend on the laws which men contrive, but comes instead from the free gift of the Spirit.

We hear a lot today about the "clear meaning of Scripture." The phrase is often evoked to justify discrimination against women or sexual minorities. Well, what about the clear meaning of today's Scripture? What could be clearer than Paul's theology of inclusivity? Yet probably no concept has been more ignored than this one. In his epistle to the Romans, [12:12] Paul says that our role as Christians is to transform the world and not be conformed to it, but conforming is exactly what Christians have done, trying to make the church in its own image. We have imported our prejudices and imposed them on the church. Like the politician who urged the erection of walls, church folk have erected walls between various groups. Walls keep people apart, making them suspicious and distrustful of each other. Walls kill fellowship, breed prejudice and reinforce stereotypes. The columnist Maureen Dowd once wrote that stereotypes can nevertheless be comforting; shallow though they may be, they keep familiar things familiar. And yet, if Robert Frost is correct, we have an uneasy feeling when we erect walls. "Something there is that doesn't like a wall," he reminds us. Walls separate black from white, rich from poor, straight from gay. Sometimes walls have been erected to separate ethnicities. Many Roman Catholic bishops, for example, have discovered that the easiest way to start World War III is to propose a merger between an Irish parish and an Italian parish.
The story is told about a king who owned an uninhabited castle. It was the constant target of vandals and looters. They would come and walk off with furniture, tapestries, even windows --- whatever they could carry. When it seemed on the brink of total destruction, the king decided to do something to protect it, so he hired a local contractor and assigned him the task of building a wall around the castle. The fee was agreed upon and the contractor began his work. But after a short time the contractor began having trouble finding rocks for the wall. So he called the king to complain about the situation. The king sharply replied, "I don't care where you get the rocks, I want you to build that wall!" Some time later the king came to see the progress of the work, and found a beautiful high wall. He was so impressed with the fine work the contractor had done. It was a perfect wall for his castle. But then he went through the wall, and found that the castle had gone! The ingenious contractor had used the rocks from the castle to build the wall which was being erected to protect the castle. When all was said and done, the beautiful wall had been erected but was protecting nothing! So often we erect walls to protect our cherished selves, but by the time the wall is built, we find that we have torn down ourselves to such an extent that there is precious little left to protect.

St. Paul tells us that Jesus has abolished the laws and ordinances that created walls, but we seem to pass new laws resulting in the creation of new walls. And this occurs not only in society, but in the church. We seem to be witnessing the creation of new canons, or the interpretation of old ones, designed to erect more walls between groups within the household of God. Today's epistle makes it clear what our role as Christians should be. I wonder if this week we might commit ourselves to breaking down one wall, between ourselves and a neighbor, family member or a loved one. In this way we might be joined together and grow into a holy temple in the Lord.

Let us pray:
Races and peoples, low, we stand divided, And sharing not our griefs, no joy can share; By wars and tumults, love is mocked, derided; His saving cross no nation yet will bear; Thy kingdom come, O Lord, thy will be done.

How shall we love thee, holy hidden being, If we love not the world which thou hast made? Bind us in thine own love for better seeing, Thy Word made flesh, and in a manger laid. Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, thy will be done. AMEN. ["Father Eternal, ruler of creation," Hymnal 1982, 574]