2/17/57

Scripture: Ephesians 2: 13-22.

On the leeward side of the Island of Hawaii, one can find the remains of a wall which had, at an early time, been built of lava rock. It is nothing formidable now, for one can climb over it easily, or walk through the spots where it has been leveled to the ground. Probably it was never very high; but it represented the difference between life and death to certain fugitives in earlier Polynesian history. For, if one were accused of a crime against the other people and the laws of the early Hawaiian community, or if one found himself suffering from the acute displeasure of a chief, one could al least attempt to avoid punishment by escape over that wall into what they called the “City of Refuge.” It was a sporting agreement, and to be scrupulously held, that if one could reach the “City of Refuge” before pursuers could catch him, he was safe so long as he stayed there. None might come over that wall to get him.

Through the centuries, mankind has built walls of every description. Men were building walls before the dawn of recorded history -- probably before they discovered the wheel or the lever. Some walls have been designed for shelter against nature’s severity. Some have been intended to keep others out; some to keep folk in. Walls, fences and thick hedges have been built or grown on modern property lines on the assumption that “good fences make good neighbors.” (Robert Frost). Walls are made of every kind of material; stone, brick and mortar, wood, glass, steel. Many of them are built for permanence. But sooner or later they come down. Not infrequently it is the man who brings down the wall who is better remembered in history than the man who erected the wall.

Careful students remember that Nehemiah was a great wall-builder in Biblical history. It was he who led the children of Israel to rebuild the walls of the holy city. The job was a difficult one, and was beset with all sorts of difficulties and enemies. But it may be that Joshua is the man who is better remembered -- and not because of wall building, but because he led his people in tearing down a wall -- the wall surrounding the city of Jericho.

How many know who was the designer of the great wall to the north of China? But most folk know that it was the Mongol hordes sweeping out of the north who, through trickery and bribery as well as power, breached that wall and defeated its purpose. Who remember the engineer of the French Maginot line? Yet most mature folk can remember that it was the Nazi armies who swept the northern flank of that tremendous wall of concrete and steel, thus rendering it non-effective in the defense of France. One of the lessons of history is that, no matter how high or how strong the walls are built, eventually (and often much sooner than men have thought) the walls must fall.

This is an observation that has its application to all sorts of man-made barriers. It applies to the walls made by man’s hands and constructed by his machinery. It applies as well to the invisible walls built by the minds and hearts of people to separate folk and cut them off from one another. You know the kind of wall of which we are now thinking.

1) The wall of pride, or conceit, or self-righteousness is one of them. For some reason, usually without any basis in fact, we get the notion that we are better than someone else. Perhaps we find that we can excel in some one particular, or in one kind of event, and we generalize from that point. And so we build a wall between ourselves and those who do not appear to us to be as good, or as capable, or as desirable as we suppose ourselves to be. It is not a wall that can be seen, of course, but it is nonetheless real. It can hurt people; and it shuts off communication. If it is successful in fencing the other fellow out, it just as surely fences us in.

2) Another is the wall of fear. It is a hard and treacherous wall. It is expressed in enmity and hatred, sometimes in cowardice -- all of which may just be other names for fear. Much more often than we like to admit, the wall of fear is built to conceal some weakness of our own. It may be that we are not as big, as competent, as able as we’ve been advertised. And so, for fear of being discovered, we build walls behind which we can brag, and threaten, or warn the other fellow to keep his distance. It makes for an interesting show, but it is largely wasted effort. For weakness has a way of showing itself. Instead of building walls behind which to hide, how much better to blaze trails that lead to resources of strength. It is the truly strong person who has no need to be afraid.

3) Yet another of these invisible, but real, walls is selfishness. It is in fact akin to fear. Much of it is built from our nursery days. Perhaps you or I liked to get into a corner where we could play with our own blocks or sticks or toys with no one else to share them. We’re still at it -- both as individuals and as a nation --- piling our precious possessions behind a barricade so that no one else can touch, enjoy, or use them. It is hard for us even to imagine how we must appear to millions elsewhere in the world. Perhaps one graphic way to describe this wall is suggested by an American observer who has seen conditions both at home and abroad and who notices that America is the only country were dieting becomes a major problem. The rest of the world is concerned with getting enough food just to stay alive.

4) Mixed together, pride, fear and selfishness become parts of the most fearsome wall known to man. It is the prejudice of person against person, people against people. This is a wall of unbelievable height, thickness and strength. It stubbornly stands even when its foundations have been discredited and washed away. But sometime, this wall too must come down. We know a great deal about the tenacity with which prejudice isolates us from others. We are aware of the prejudices of other people. Perhaps we are less aware of our own. But frankness compels us to admit our prejudices. Even admitting adverse prejudice does not eliminate it, however. How then can we dare to say that the wall of prejudice is going to have to come down? Isn’t that overly optimistic? How can we -- any of us --- know that this wall is going to fall?

We know because the power of God in Jesus Christ is a living, leavening thing in spite of the adversity and perversity of the world. And wherever the Spirit of God is known, there is freedom. The walls of separating prejudice simply have to come down. Jesus is the great barrier-breaker. Where his spirit prevails, he destroys the walls that separate men from each other. He will not countenance the dividedness and isolation which we people impose on ourselves.

Jesus had to deal with prejudice at close range. He was raised in the Jewish family and community. Those who knew and followed him evidently expected him to bring salvation to Jewish people, but hardly to Gentile folk and foreigners. It took a most pointed story from him to illustrate that an “inferior” Samaritan may be as good a neighbor as any else; indeed better than some Judeans! [Luke 10: 30-37].

It was a Roman officer who knew that he, a Roman, was dealing with prejudice, but yet pleaded with the Jewish Jesus to restore his daughter. Jesus was once asked by a Tyro-Phoenician woman -- a Greek -- to heal her daughter. Pointing up the prejudice of Hebrew people, and speaking as if he may have been supposed to have been sent only to Jews, Jesus remarked that it was not seemly to be doing things for a Greek outsider while the children of God’s favored were yet unfed. The woman countered his statement with the utterly humble observation that even dogs were allowed to pick up crumbs under the children’s table. Whereupon Jesus showed her the same mercy he showed to any other, and her sick child was made whole again. [Matthew 15: 22-28].

It is out of the spirit of Jesus that we derive our conviction that all men are created in an equality; and if equal then brothers. “Therefore love your brothers as yourself.” Jesus not only believed, but he also lived the spirit of universal brotherhood and the fellowship of all people. He knew the sins of pride and fear and selfishness that build the walls of adverse prejudice. And when he died, he not only suffered their burden -- he broke them down so that all people might knew the freedom which, as sons of the one true God, is their rightful heritage. “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” [John 12: 32]. That is not an empty boast. It has been going on through 20 centuries.

Our own nation is going through the agony of great interracial strain. One of our problems, and a blot on our reputation with other nations for a long time, is the prejudice existing between while and black -- between Caucasian and Negro -- indeed between Caucasian and every other race or color. The prejudice between white and black has been brought further into the open by the ruling of the US Supreme Court that segregation of schools and public facilities is unconstitutional and must come to an end. Integration is moving ahead with surprising speed in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling in law. More than 2000 Negroes are now enrolled as students, and are studying without incident in universities and colleges hitherto reserved for white alone. Harold Bosley says that of the ten Methodist Seminaries, eight now admit Negro students for the ministry. Of 48 states in the Union, 43 have accepted the policy of integration and working out ways of implementing it.

At the same time there is terrific resistance to integration. Perhaps no more than 30% of Southeastern whites are in favor of integration now, though nearly 70% agree that it must come sooner or later. They say “go slow,” which is probably good advice, provided it is enlarged to read: “Go slow -- but go!” There are those who hasten to join White Citizens’ Councils in an effort to stop integration, or any talk of it, wherever it appears in school or church or in public life. And an observer tells this revealing story: “At a meeting of one of the newly formed Citizens’ Council groups, to discuss the school segregation issue, a member proposed asking a well-known minister to advise them. ‘There ain’t a bit of use sending for him,’ said the chairman. ‘All he will do is give you the Christian solution’”!

Most church pronouncements, like those of the World Council and National Council of Churches, approve integration. But there is a long, sad lag between what denominational gatherings say and what the local church will do.

Meanwhile, it is necessary for us in the north, in Wisconsin, even here in Wisconsin Rapids, to remember that race prejudice and discrimination are not confined to the south. Southerners and foreigners can point sternly to the undeniable fact that the serious race riots have been in northern cities like Chicago and Detroit. Southern Negroes may move to northern communities all right. But they will usually run into restrictive covenants in housing and other segregation conditions.

People of good will, convinced of the brotherhood of all men, must consider several aspects of the racial problem: (1) first, it is a world-wide problem; (2) second, we must shorten the time and interest lag between World Assemblies and General Councils and Conferences on the one hand, and local churches on the other hand; (3) third, each local church and each local community must tighten up its relationship with the insights and recommendations of the larger Christian fellowship.

But these are only matters of inter-racial brotherhood. There are other areas where the need of understanding and fellowship is also great. I refer to differences of opinion and understanding between religious groups beginning with the three main divisions known as Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Far too many Jewish folk have thought of Christians as Jew-killers in the various purges and pogroms and ghetto districtings of a disgraceful history. They need the patient, honest, assuring acquaintance of Christians who can bring them to an honest understanding that these are not Christian phenomena, but are the phenomena of un-Christian prejudice.

Christians need to forget the notion that Jews are, or have been, “Christ killers.” That is a prejudice that is not rooted in fact. Jesus was crucified by the wish of some Jews and some Roman pagans. He was loved loyally by other Jews and an increasing number of Gentiles. The sin of rejection is not that of one group alone, but of every individual sinner and group who turn against the Nazarene.

The brotherhood of man becomes a reality when we try to understand each other, welcoming communication with and knowledge of each other, without starting from the premise that of course the other fellow is all wrong, or inferior. May I not appreciate what makes a Catholic or a Jew; a Mexican or a Negro or a Chinese; a member of a political party other than mine; a man who thinks in, and speaks in, a language different from mine and still regard him, with his differences from me, as a brother?

Our Lord certainly set us an example in this respect. He ate with those accounted to be sinners --- without himself participating in any wrong. His friends and followers have been folk of every color and condition and nation. No one was, or is, outside his understanding and concern.

In him we are brethren one of another, and brethren also toward those who do not acknowledge his name. Christ is our living peace. In him let us tear down the walls of our adverse prejudices and together build the temple of brotherhood --- not of just a select few, but of all mankind.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 17, 1957.