A House Divided
(Ephesians 2: 11-22)
On June 16, 1858, senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln gave his famous House Divided Speech. He had just accepted the nomination of his party to become their candidate for the United States Senate. His address closed the convention and he said, in part: A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the nation to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South. Lincoln would not defeat his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, who ironically believed the issue to be one of state’s rights to decide, but it would set the stage for something much bigger and costly in terms of human lives and carnage, a great civil war. In the meantime, the debate would paralyze the Union to the point it could not function.
Lincoln drew his house divided analogy from the New Testament where Jesus essentially says in Matthew, Luke, and Mark that every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. Jesus was responding to the efforts of the Pharisees to discredit him and divide the people over the issue of whether or not Jesus came from God and claimed that Jesus was in league with Satan. The stage had been set for a struggle over religious authority with the religious powers that be fighting to maintain their control and status quo and the Son of God who had been sent to reconcile the children of God, all of the children of God, a struggle that would literally end in the human death of God’s beloved son, the long-awaited Messiah.
And it’s the bringing together of a divided people that the Apostle Paul writes about in his letter to the Ephesian churches. He reminds them that at one time they were Gentiles by physical descent, who were called “uncircumcised” by Jews who are physically circumcised. He says: At that time you were without Christ. You were aliens rather than citizens of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of God’s promise. In this world you had no hope and no God. Paul is saying that they were former strangers to the Jewish covenants and were thus without the true God in their lives. They have now, by the shedding of Christ’s blood, been brought near to God and made coheirs with Jewish Christians through salvation. It was Christ’s atoning death during this historic struggle that broke down the wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. Christ’s death made peace between God and humankind, and between two major divisions of human beings, giving all Christians access to the one true Father by means of the one Spirit as a result of their faith in Christ.
The Apostle tells us that Christ is our peace, that he made both Jews and Gentiles into one group, one household, and with his body, through his supreme sacrifice, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided the people. Paul says that Christ canceled the detailed rules of the Law so that he could create one new person out of the two groups, making peace. He reconciled them both as one body to God by the cross, which ended the hostility to God. When you think about it, this is pretty ground shaking. It’s hard to understate the radical nature of the inclusion of Gentiles, those people, into the people of God through the blood of Christ. The Jews had expected redemption to come to them because the God of the Jews, their God, made a covenant to save them through a Jewish messiah. But when Christ came, he clarified the definition of the people of God. There was no longer a “they” or a “them”. There was now a “we” and an “us”. We were no longer a house divided. What brought the people into a right relationship with God was faith in Christ, not ethnicity and strict obedience to the law.
Paul tells his readers that when Jesus came, he announced the good news of peace to those who were far away from God and to those who were near. He says: We both have access to the Father through Christ by the one Spirit. So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household. He tells them that as God’s household, they are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. He says: The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit. God didn’t do all of this so we could fall apart at the seams two thousand years later over who is closer to God, who are the truly chosen children of God.
There are many barriers that can divide us from other Christians and the world in general such as age, appearance, intelligence, political persuasion, economic status, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, theological perspective, and any other irrational fear of the other that may find itself the focus of unwanted and unmerited attention. One of the best ways to stifle Christ’s love is to be friendly with only those people whom you like and like you back. Fortunately, Christ came to knock down these barriers and unify all believers into one family, one household, and gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us look beyond the barriers to the unity we are called to enjoy as we live in peace and love our neighbors, all of our neighbors.
But just as Christ tore down these barriers there are those who are hard at work erecting new barriers meant to divide us. As a denomination, we know it all too well as we recently became a house divided suffering a split over a barrier, we could not tear down ourselves. So, as the Methodists who remain united what do we believe? Paragraph 161 of our Book of Discipline, The Nurturing Community, says that the community, which I assume to be the community of believers, provides the potential for nurturing human beings into the fullness of their humanity. It says: We believe we have a responsibility to innovate, sponsor, and evaluate new forms of community that will encourage development of the fullest potential in individuals. Primary for us is the gospel understanding that all persons are important—because they are human beings created by God and loved through and by Jesus Christ and not because they have merited significance. We therefore support social climates in which human communities are maintained and strengthened for the sake of all persons and their growth. Language of a derogatory nature (with regard to race, nationality, ethnic background, gender, sexuality, and physical differences) does not reflect value for one another and contradicts the gospel of Jesus Christ. Essentially it says that we are to work diligently, to be an active participant in building community and not erect walls that divide us, that become barriers to each and every person seeking to enjoy the same peace we have in Jesus Christ.
In reality, God’s household is not a building, not a brick-and-mortar church, but a group of people. He lives in us and shows himself to a watching world through us. Through us people can see that God is love and that Christ is Lord as we live in harmony with each other and in accordance with what God says in his word. They can see that we are home builders, building with the determination that our house shall not be a house divided against itself. It shall not fall if we have anything to do with it.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, how we praise you for your tender mercies, mercies shown to us your children in the times of great distress, times that divide us from one another. We pray that you strengthen us, that we work together for the greater good of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ as we work to build your church into a stronger community of all peoples who love you as much as we do. We pray for your church universal that it shall not become a house divided, that it will stand the test of time until the triumphant return of our Lord and King. This we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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One of the best ways to stifle Christ’s love is to be friendly with only those people whom you like and like you back.
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