When siblings are sharing a room, they would often create an imaginary line down the middle of the room and declare, “This is my side and that is your side.” Having lived in Quaker Pennsylvania, there were very few walls defining where one’s back yard began or ended but in California, there are countless gated communities. I have been to the US/Mexican Tijuana border visiting with American Baptist missionaries, the Western Wall in Jerusalem on a religious pilgrimage, the graffiti wall separating Israel from Bethlehem visiting the Church of the Nativity, the Berlin Wall for a Martin Luther Reformation tour and saw how formidable all these walls are and were. And if there were ever a people who know how to build a wall it would be us Chinese—the Great Wall of China. Astronauts can see this from outer space!
Robert Frost once disparagingly said, “Good fences make good neighbours.” My neighbors in the back of our house just put up a new redwood fence since the old one was dilapidated. Nothing special about that except that he installed the nice finished side facing us! They are good neighbors.
In recent days, there’s been a lot of rhetoric about putting up walls. Many believe that walls define necessary boundaries to know our responsibilities. It’s like siblings who might say, “I’ll clean up my side of the room and you need to clean up yours.” There are laws to protect people regardless of how they happen to be on one side or the other side of the wall. Some cities within their boundaries have voted to become “sanctuary cities” that offer some refuge for undocumented people. Since our most reverent spaces in our churches are called “sanctuary,” I ponder what a Christian witness might be especially in times such as these. In public places in some cities, there is a “Wall of Empathy” where people write hopeful words on Post-Its to encourage those who are despair.
Jesus said he came to break down the walls that separate us from God, the walls that separate us from one another, the walls that separate us from being whole again. In Ephesians 2:14, “For (Christ) 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.”
In Advent, let us tear down the walls that keep us from the Nativity. May the walls that we have make us good neighbors—just a simple preacher.