Geared Up for Life: He is our Peace
Foothills UMC
“Geared Up for Life: He is our Peace”
Rev. Andrew Davis
Ephesians 2: 11-22
July 18, 2021
It’s hard to believe how fast these first three weeks have flown by!! Time flies when you’re having fun and so far, things have gone pretty smoothly. I think the most energizing part this week has been meeting a number of you during my weekly coffice hours and I hope to connect with more of you this week. It was also wonderful to connect with several who worship with us online. We have indeed created some new spaces beyond our building, and I look forward to making even more connections as we continue getting to know each other.
Continuing our series “Geared up for Life,” we are working through the letter to the Ephesians while thinking about what it means to actively live our faith. Just as we talked about setting our hope in Christ last week, today’s buzzword from the letter to the Ephesians is peace, as Jesus is one who can bring peace and tear down walls of division. Whether we are aware of it or not, we all face walls of division in life and along our faith journey. When the early church was beginning to take shape around the time Paul was writing his letters, there was great division between the Jewish and Gentile (non-Jewish) people, one of those “us vs. them” scenarios. The letter to the Ephesians encourages everyone to put their hope in Jesus, the one who is our peace and breaks down the walls of division, essentially building a new foundation and new way of living. In some ways, Jesus can be seen here as coming in like a wrecking ball to disrupt conflict and division in order to bring peace.
Amidst the great message of Christ being our peace, the inclination is still geared toward building walls, telling people “get off my lawn,” or creating ways to keep people out instead of making spaces for people to experience peace and hope. A few weeks ago, when I asked everyone where they see God, I appreciated hearing how we can see God in the homeless, as I hope we can keep engaging in our work with the homeless here in El Dorado County. In conversations I have had with those who work closely with the homeless around us, it saddens me in hearing stories of how many try to push the homeless around and how the homeless are treated as less than human. The same at my coffice hour from a young person whose classmate felt excluded by a church for being part of the LGBTQIA+ Community, although I was also very proud of this young person telling their classmate that our church is not like that, a strong witness to who we are as a church. I could go on and on about people being excluded and how such walls and divisions do more harm than good. A big part of our work together as a community of faith is tearing down these walls of division, while building a new foundation in Jesus Christ. When we get down to the heart of our lesson,
To claim Jesus as our peace doesn’t just mean we just get along with those on the inside; it also means we reach out to find community with those outside our
walls. We stand in solidarity with those who are abused, those who are suffering, and those who are neglected. We also stand against racism and the injustice of prejudice and hate. Recognizing that we are a dwelling place for God means that we take up the causes that God, through the prophets, has stressed through the centuries.[i]
As I’m still getting to know everyone here, I know that we may not think alike all of the time, yet in this short time together, I can see that we do love alike. This congregation is a very warm, welcoming family of faith. We let Jesus into our hearts to break down walls of division we may have and come together around Jesus and his mission. Whenever I walk around our campus, I love how it is open and inviting, even encouraging the community to use our picnic area and playground, another instance where we don’t put up walls to keep people out. Another time of seeing the church at its best and tearing down walls happened during my first year of seminary and was transformative.
One of the required courses at Wesley during the first year was spiritual formation for ministry, which included six weeks of service learning. For my service learning project, four of my classmates and I helped serve breakfast with Capitol Hill UMC’s “Our Daily Bread” ministry for six Mondays.* Each morning at “Our Daily Bread” was literally ALL walks of life coming together for breakfast and coffee, conversation, devotion, and fellowship. I have to admit that it was quite uncomfortable at first. Yet I realize that when I built walls around me, I failed to see how the neighbors around me and where I could see God. The stories and conversations and seeing everyone as a beloved child of God led to some significant self-reflection, deconstruction, and increased compassion. Serving at “Our Daily Bread” was very humbling because in our conversations, we heard the stories of how many of the people who came to Our Daily Bread still had a strong faith amidst the hardships they faced. The church was the one place they saw acceptance every day through “Our Daily Bread,” and I see why it is a transformative experience for everyone because Jesus was present and broke down walls by being our peace to everyone around.
In the weekly group blog where we reflected on our experience each week, our co-professor who is also a deacon at CHUMC, Rev. Dr. Sam Marullo responded to us in our final blog post that
the strength of [Our Daily Bread] ministry is really in the relationships, building a beautiful community of God's beloved and diverse children who care for one another. It sounds so simple, yet we so rarely encounter it any more outside of family, it seems. Where do people with advanced degrees and school dropouts; [all ethnicities]; [all sexual orientations]; diagnosed mental illnesses and undiagnosed; older and younger; [all economic statuses] get to hang out together, break bread together, and just be friends and engage God's Word? I don't want to overstress the differences, because in God's eyes [differences] are pretty meaningless and simply reflect the "image and likeness" of God. Yet our social constructions around each of these dimensions typically leads to separation and boundaries between us, and sometimes fear or mistrust of the unknown. I am glad that you are getting a foretaste of God's heavenly banquet through Our Daily Bread.[ii]
During those six weeks, we learned to see people for who they are and where they are at in life by building valuable relationships and letting Jesus break down the walls, while experiencing the new foundation that Jesus builds!!
When we allow Jesus to break down walls of division around us by making spaces for authentic belonging, we have the good news of knowing
[Jesus] is our peace. He is what binds us together into one body, into one family. This peace is not an inner peace to keep us [calm] in an [increasingly violent and angry] world. This is a wrecking ball of peace that knocks down the [chaotic] divisions [or] superiority, and binds us together…Those we thought were so different are reflections of the same God that we try to bear in our hands and hearts and words and deeds are really brothers and sisters. We sit at the table with them in defiance of a world that wants to build more walls. And when we encounter those divisive construction projects, then we, like [Jesus], come in like a wrecking ball. We strike hard in love. We tear down those walls, even if we get wrecked in the process. Even if. Because if we don’t, if we let those walls stay up, then we will never know peace. We will never know [Jesus] as we long to do and as we need to do. Because he is our peace.[iii]
Despite divisions and differences that still exist, Jesus is our peace and comes to help us live in peace with each other, and with everyone we encounter. Tearing down walls of division will not always be comfortable and will require boldness in order to bring the same peace that Jesus brought. Jesus is making a new creation when he tears down the walls of division and calls for us to do the same in the world today. We have so many opportunities before us and I hope that we can build upon the new foundation in Jesus, continue finding ways to make spaces for EVERYONE to belong, ways of caring for everyone in need, and bring a foretaste of God’s kin-dom to the earth here and now. Let’s continue to allow Jesus to come in like a wrecking ball, breaking down anything that divides us and to be our peace. A particular song that comes to mind as we think about tearing down walls is Mark Miller’s, “Christ has Broken Down the Walls,” which I would like to offer to you, and invite you to carefully listen to these words as we think about how Christ is our Peace…
[i] Derek Weber, “Planning Notes” in Geared up for Life Worship Series (Nashville: Discipleship Ministries of the United Methodist Church, 2021), Accessed 17 July 2021, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship-planning/geared-up-for-life/eighth-sunday-after-pentecost-year-b-lectionary-planning-notes
[ii] Rev. Dr. Sam Marullo, posting to “Our Daily Bread” group blog, March 13, 2013, https://blackboard.american.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_38345_1%26url%3D.
[iii] Derek Weber, “Preaching Notes” in Geared up for Life Worship Series (Nashville: Discipleship Ministries of the United Methodist Church, 2021), Accessed 17 July 2021, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship-planning/geared-up-for-life/eighth-sunday-after-pentecost-year-b-lectionary-planning-notes
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