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.
Robert Frost, Mending Wall, 1914
Here is a deep truth, that walls are built to keep some things in and some things out, but how does one tell the difference? And who are we offending by building walls between us and them?
A professor in university once told me that the best way to look at Old Testament law was like this: “The law provides a wall, one which you can see over. But on the inside there is freedom. Freedom within a fence.” For the people of Israel, the law was a boundary marker. Across this you are not to go, but this law actually was a line over which no Gentile could cross. Circumcision was for Jews a testament and promise for them as people set apart for God’s holiness.
Amazingly, though, when Paul writes to the Ephesians, as Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were often in hostility towards each other he says, ‘For he is our peace who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility in the flesh, he made of no effect the law… so that he might create in himself one new body from the two.’
When the dividing wall of hostility, those who followed the law for reasons of righteousness and those who did not, was torn down, peace was created. And the new body of people, Christ’s body as the Church, can now do what it was designed to do: to be ambassadors for Christ’s peace.
We are set apart for a purpose, every member of Christianity, to make connections in the community and beyond. How do you see yourself as part of this?
As you approach worship this week, whether in person or online, read Ephesians 2:11-22.
Pr Reid Matthias
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