"The Great Divide" -  A Sermon        July 23, 2006        Rev. Laird Duran

Today, we live in a world divided. Divisions in the family, in the economy, the society, and between nations. Of course this in not new. One was of defining sin is a division between human beings and God and between people. Sin or division has been around since Adam and Eve. We find it in family divisions, racial divisions, ethnic divisions, and nations divided against each other, which lead to war and death. (As I wrote this sermon, the news of war between Lebanon and Israel is on the news. I believe the scriptures show us the way to peace, and I pray for an end to this war. )

Throughout the history of Lutherans in America, the main issue was the language we used for worship. My first call was to a Slovak Lutheran Church that had two worship services, one in Slovak, and one in English until 1985, just before they called me to be their pastor. I was the first pastor who could not speak Slovak. For the older members, I learned the Lord’s Prayer and words of institution. In their liturgy, the Pastor sang these words, so I learned the melody as well. They really appreciated my efforts, even though my Slovak was terrible.

But I could see that being Slovak and learning the language were two different things. I would never be one of them, no matter how much Slovak I learned. This first struck me when the daughter of one of the members had a "mixed marriage." When I first heard the phrase, I though she meant that she had married an African American. But as we were talking about this, I figured out that she had married an Irish Catholic. She called her husband a Johnny Bull, a pejorative term for someone who was English-speaking. They were still very much a Slovak family church. And they expected their young people to marry within the clan.

We were going to have the annual Halloween Party. They said it was for "the children." I understood that it was for all children, so I invited two of the neighborhood children to come. They came for the costumes and the candy and the fun. But in the middle of the party, the president, a man named Bob came to me and said he had to tell the two children to leave. He said this party was only for "our" kids.

I was angry! I had a meeting of the call committee, and told them about what happened. I told them my understanding of the mission under the gospel. Privately, I had decided that this was an issue over which I could not compromise, and I still hold the same conviction. The purpose of the church is to reach out to all people with the love of God in Jesus Christ.

The call committee heard me, and did not argue against my positions. I asked them, what are we going to do about Bob, the president. He said, "I’ll take care of Bob."And he did, but Bob was not happy with me. When budget time came, he proposed cutting my salary. When they didn’t do that, he resigned as president, but he stayed in the congregation. The good thing was that the congregation began to accept new "non Slovak members and invited all children to the annual Halloween Party."

During the time all this was happening, I learned very quickly about congregational dynamics those first few years of ministry. The scriptures began to speak to me in new ways. I could see that this kind of thing had happened since the time God made the first covenant with Abraham and Sarah. I also began to see that all of Paul’s letters are written to congregations that had similar issues, and this was true in the Letter to the Ephesians.

Ephesis was a little city that Paul visited less than 50 years after Jesus resurrection. The first members of the congregation were mostly Jews like Paul who believed in Jesus Christ, and followed him. But since Paul’s visited, more and more non Jews or gentiles were coming and following Christ. Gentiles were often called Greeks, because that was the language used for business throughout the Roman Empire

The problem was that some of the Jews would not associate with these Greeks. We call them Jeudaisers. The Jeudiasers assumed that all Christians would remain Jews and adopt Jewish customs. They feared that if they allowed it, they would be giving up their heritage. For 2,000 years before Christ, they regarded themselves as God’s chosen people given specifically to them as a matter of patriotic privilege. They identified with keeping the Jewish Sabbath, eating certain Jewish foods, and Jewish customs for worship and prayer. For Jews, being one.

Before he became a Christian, Paul was named Saul. Saul was a loyal Jew who hated all those who followed Christ. In his early years, Saul rounded them up and handed them over for trial, even execution to the Romans. Then one day Paul was on the road to Damascus, the risen Jesus came to him. Jesus told him to stop persecuting him, and his church. Jesus called Saul to preach the gospel to the non Jews, and Saul adopted new non Jewish Greek name, Paul. Once the risen Jesus appeared to Saul, Paul life was changed forever.

Paul preached that in Christ there was neither gentile or Jew, woman or man, slave or free. He preached that the gospel was for all people, regardless of their social standing, or the language they spoke. But now he has gone to another far away city, and hears about the fighting in Ephasis.

The Greeks and Jeudiasers were sitting in separate places of the synagogue. The Jeudaisers were speaking Hebrew in their worship, the other speaking only Greek. The Jeudiasers were saying things like says, "those Greeks are taking over our synagogue. Why do they pray and worship like that? What we need to do is circumcise them. That will put the fear of God in them!"

Then the Greeks were saying, "Who do they think they are? So what if they are descendants of Abraham? What they need is to circumcise their head, or maybe their heart. We belong to Christ, and that’s all that matters!"

Now Paul writes this letter trying to help them overcome this division by speaking a word of peace to both sides. He began the letter by commending the whole church for their faith in Jesus Christ. He praised them for the whole first chapter. Then in chapter 2 he gives the way of justification and salvation, spelling it out clearly and simply and beautifully.

"All of us once lived among (the disobedient) in the passions of our flesh. But God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ– For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God-- {9} not the result of works, our so that no one may boast. (Works means the good things that we do according to the law of Moses) {10} For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

What comes next is to the gentiles, telling them to honor the Jews who were the original people of the promise. "So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth ..... remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he 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.

The next words speak to those of Jewish decent.

{15} Jesus has abolished the law (the Jewish Torah) with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, {16} and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So then you are .... with the saints and also members of the household of God, {20} built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

The point is that Christ death put to death all of the reasons for human divisions. We are all washed in the same baptismal water, and we share the same cup, and eat the same loaf, the one cup of salvation, the one bread of the word. We are all part of God’s household. Being part of the body of Christ means there are no distinctions between us.

How does this apply to us? Of course you can see that we are living in a divided world, poor verses the rich, Spanish-speaking verses English-speaking, black verse white. This week a war has broke out between the Arabs and Jews that is killing thousands of people. Like Paul, we are called to work for justice, and speak to both sides of the conflict in an effort to bring peace.

We are the church, and are one in Christ Jesus. We are his living body in the world today. In our baptism. And we can say to the leaders of the world that God wants them to work for justice so that the world can live in peace.

As for our church, I’m proud to be a part of our congregation’s history. About 15 years after the congregation was chartered, the leadership decided to speak English. They did that for the sake of their children, and the pastor who was a part time Army Chaplain at Camp Bowie during the First World War. They wanted to reach out to the soldiers and invited them to come to our church.

Let us continue to reach out to others, no matter what language they speak. When we come to the Lord’s table, come hungry for peace in a divided world. Receive his body and blood and the forgiveness of sin and division. Then let us leave eager to work for justice in the world, knowing that his peace has already come to us. Amen.