THE HOUSE IS READY

1.  Where Is the Dividing Wall Today?

The house is ready.   I wonder if you will believe me this morning if I tell you that the house of ready.   No, I’m not talking about this tangible building, what we’re calling The Pine House.  This literal place of worship is not entirely complete.  Not yet.   We still need interior paneling.   It would be nice to have more windows.   We still need light fixtures and a heating system, which will be installed later in the week.   We still need a paved road with lined parking spaces.   We still need.   We’re always going to need…  But the fact of the matter is that in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, something new has been created.   Something new, something very similar to a house, has been created, and we can live into and out of this sacred structure by the power of the Spirit.   The house is ready.

I know this, and I hope that you believe this because of what we’ve read in Ephesians 2:11—22.   During the month of May we described what the effects of the Holy Spirit look like in the world—and most notably last week we described what the Spirit does as launching a massive and mysterious conversation.   But, you see, after a while, that conversation demands infrastructure.   There are patterns of speech that are considered reliable.   There are habitual behaviors that are considered sturdy enough to stand the test of time.  And those patterns and behaviors resemble the raw materials out of which this household of God has been constructed.  And the house is ready.

I don’t know whether we always realize this, but when we say and hear something like “The Peace of Christ Be With You Always,” that’s like taking shelter beneath a very hefty beam of wood.   And when we take a fragment of bread and dip it into the cup, in that moment, we are completely safe and secure.  No storm in the world can touch us.   And when we begin to take on the responsibilities of a servant—when we give of ourselves sacrificially—you and I are leaning against the walls that Jesus himself has crafted.

Still, I have a question.   And the question goes like this:   if it’s true that God has transformed Jews and Non-Jews into one household, or “one new humanity,” why does it appear as if so many divisions remain?

My friend, Red-hawk, told me last week that he spent the day tearing down a brick wall around his backyard and that his dogs were so used to the boundary that even when the wall had been totally demolished they still walked around the perimeter and entered the yard through the gate.   That is, these domesticated animals acted as if the wall were still there.

Robert Frost once wrote a poem in which a gruff old man makes this statement:   “good fences make good neighbors.”    He says it, of course, as he’s trying desperately to re-construct the property line which has been marked out with stone.   Good fences make good neighbors.   But the only problem with that philosophy, according to Frost, is that “something there is that does not love a wall.”   And based upon our reading of Ephesians 2:14 and based upon where we are today, I’m wondering if that something isn’t really someone.   Namely, Jesus of Nazareth.    “In his flesh,” the text says, he has “broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

So, if you to ask me today why so many dividing walls still seem to be in place around the world, I have to wonder if we’re not a little bit like Red-hawk’s dogs or the staunch neighbor of Robert Frost.    And maybe, just maybe, the Spirit of Christ is doing something that God has a tendency to do.   According to Jeremiah 30:18, “Thus says the Lord, I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob, and have compassion on his dwellings; the city shall be rebuilt upon its mound, and the citadel set on its rightful site.”   You see, God recycles.   All the old debris doesn’t go to waste.   All the bits and pieces of the harsh past are thrown into the dumpster.   And so, what we may be seeing, when we see division, is the way God recycles and re-uses our hurt for healing.

2.  We Will Go From Strangers and Aliens To Citizens with the Saints and Members of the Household of God

I want to share with you a clip from one of my favorite movies, called, My Life As A House. It’s the story of an architect who’s been divorced, diagnosed with terminal cancer and his son is in a lot of trouble.   On the surface, everything about this character’s life seems bleak.   And yet, what he has going for him is the raw material of reconciliation.   With the time that he has left, he sets his heart and mind on renovating an old, dilapidated house that he and his ex-wife once owned on the beach.   Anyway, this dying man and his distraught, despairing son fix up this old place and in the process they make amends with another family who they had harmed in a drunk-driving accident.   Here’s the clip, and at the end of it, I’d like to draw out what the apostle Paul means when he writes,

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (v. 19).

The point here is that church can be like this.   Church can be that place where we will go from strangers and aliens to citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.   We will go from being anxious and afraid that we don’t belong to the sensation that we’ve been built into something that’s larger than our own individual lives.

I remember the moment when I went to India, when I felt this sensation.   After getting over the jet lag from the 18 hour flight, and after driving to Rajasthan, we arrived at this house that had been converted into the Bethany Bible Institute.   We were there for three days and at the end of those three days I had gone from being a stranger to being a citizen with the saints.   I was a part of group of former Muslims and Hindus and Jews—many of them alienated from their families—and we were all there, living and learning under one roof  “with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”

3.  The House Has Structure and Grows Into A Holy Temple

None of this works, you see, without our mutual submission to Christ Jesus himself. And I’d like to pause here to distinguish between our beliefs and our opinions about Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus himself. Christ Jesus himself is that person who knows us utterly, but who can never be fully comprehended by us.   When Simon Weil had migraine headaches, she read a George Herbert poem over and over again, and then she says that Christ Jesus himself come into those repeated words and took possession of her soul.   That’s the difference.   Our beliefs and opinions about Christ Jesus are just that—ideas that we think of as reliable and true.   But there is something or someone who is even more reliable and true and that’s Christ Jesus himself.

William Willimon tells two stories from his ministry that I’ve never forgotten.   One of them involves a mentor, named Joe, in the church’s confirmation program.   Although Joe agreed to pray with and be there for his confirmation student, it all came crashing down when the student showed up at Joe’s apartment.  Joe’s girlfriend answered the door and it was clear from her attire that she had spent the night.   When pressed on whether he should be involved in this way with this woman, Joe said it was none of the kid’s business.   He said there’s a division between what he does at home and what he believes at church.   And yet…

“In him (in Christ Jesus himself) the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple.”

The house in which we live has structure and that structure does not have anything to do with our private code of conduct.  It’s a structure that is lived out as we talk and interact with one another.   The second Willimon story makes this clear.   It’s about a deacon in the church who had been scheduled to serve communion on Sunday morning.  The only problem was that on Saturday night, this deacon had been taken into custody by police.  Apparently, he made bail and by 11 am there was Bill, standing with a bunch of abrasions and band-aids on his sad face.   “Bill, what are you doing here?” said the pastor.  “Where else should I be,” whispered the deacon.   Where else, but the household of God.  #