“Moving Fences”

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Moving Fences

During World War II, a Protestant chaplain with the American troops in Italy became a friend of a local Roman Catholic priest. In time, the chaplain moved on with his unit and was killed in combat.

The priest heard of his death, and knowing that the chaplain had no close family back in the States, asked the military authorities if the chaplain could be buried in the cemetery behind his church. Permission was granted.

But the priest ran into a problem with his own church authorities. They were sympathetic, but they said they could not approve the burial of a non-Catholic in a Catholic cemetery. So, the priest buried his friend just outside the cemetery fence.

Years later, an Army veteran and friend of that chaplain returned to Italy and visited the old priest. He asked to see the chaplain’s grave. To his surprise he found the grave inside the cemetery fence.

“Ah,” he said to the priest, “I see that you got permission to move the body.”

“No,” said the priest. “They told me where I couldn’t bury the body. But nobody ever told me I couldn’t move the fence.”

We must always be moving fences if we claim to be Christians. We are compelled to break down barriers. Our faith demands that we be bridge builders between persons, groups, and nations. We are to ALWAYS try to enlarge the circle of understanding and concern.

It’s understandable that people will become fearful and xenophobic in our increasingly divided and fractured world where violent terrorist acts are played out in real time on our TV’s.

We may want to erect barriers; shut people out; exclude those who are different… but if you look at Jesus, you will notice he was more about moving fences, breaking barriers, crossing divides, healing fractures – than he was about building them.

That was exactly what got him into so much trouble. Women, children, tax collectors, prostitutes, pagans, drinkers, sinners and outcasts, lepers and the mentally ill, all were brought into the circle. Jesus is the paradigm, par excellence, of God’s grand vision of reconciliation – the reconciliation of all things.

But it’s easier said then done.  I am reminded of a story Rev. Frank Smalls, of Mobile, Alabama, tells of his childhood:

I had a sixth grade teacher who had an intense dislike for people from north of the Mason-Dixon line. She was an elderly lady with a long, seething memory of 19th century injustices. Truly, she was an unreconstructed rebel.

When she talked about “the war,” you did not ask which war. If on a test paper you referred to that war as “The Civil War”, you got an “F.” If you called it “The War Between the States,” you got a “C.” If you wanted an “A,” you called it “The War of Northern Aggression.”

Since I love history so much, Rev. Small continued, I could easily have absorbed her resentments and prejudices. But about the same time I was being saturated with the Gospel.

In Sunday School we sang, “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

Perhaps that song, more than all the Supreme Court decisions, caused the walls of segregation to come tumbling down. I learned in church that all persons, regardless of accent, politics, geography, or skin pigmentation, are created in God’s very image. He loves each one enormously.

And every single person is potentially my brother or sister in Christ. It was clear to me that this included my sisters and brothers from up North even if my history teacher couldn’t see it.

When the love of Christ captures our heart, we are compelled to spend the rest of our lives moving or tearing down fences, and enlarging the circle of Christian fellowship.

And that’s the theme of our scripture today: “Moving Fences.” The Apostle Paul called it “reconciliation.” Let me lift up a few interrelated truths that I find there.

The first is this: The Reconciled Make the Best Reconcilers

In verse 18 of our text we read: “All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

According to Webster, to reconcile means to settle a quarrel or to harmonize opposing forces. From the very beginning human beings have experienced separation from God. We separate ourselves from God even today – every time we sin … but … God came down in the form of a man named Jesus in order to break down that barrier between us and Him …to show us a better way.

For most of us it takes a while to “get it.” We are inundated with attitudes that run exactly counter to what God intends.

True story: A little five-year-old kindergarten student was playing during recess. At some point he fell down and hurt his head. A teacher went running to him saying, “Don’t cry, don’t cry, you’re going to be alright.”

The little boy said, “Cry nothing! I’m gonna sue this school for everything they’ve got!” Someone taught him that attitude.

When a person encounters God’s love he can never be the same again. The wall between God and him is battered down. God and that person are reconciled.

Almost immediately that person discovers an inner compulsion to be reconciled to every other person and to help each one be reconciled to God.

That’s exactly the “love God” and “love your neighbor” thing I have been preaching about since I got here. 

Have you been reconciled to God?

Some of you will remember back in the late 1970’s when former Vice President Hubert Humphrey died. A memorial service was held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Washington’s elite gathered to say good-bye to their much-beloved friend.

Richard Nixon was there that day. He sat off to himself as if he were quarantined. Senator Howard Baker, remembering that day, said, “Nobody would talk to him.”

The awkward ostracizing of the former president ended when President Jimmy Carter walked over to Mr. Nixon, shook his hand, and welcomed him back to Washington.

Newsweek magazine concluded that this simple act of humanity and compassion changed Nixon’s future. Newsweek wrote, “If there was a turning point in Nixon’s long ordeal in the wilderness, that was it.”

Don’t you think that Jimmy Carter’s action had something to do with the fact that he was a Baptist layman who had experienced forgiveness and acceptance from God?

The reconciled always make the best reconcilers.

The second truth suggested by our scripture is this: When Jesus Christ Captures Our Hearts, He Changes Our Vision.

Listen again to Paul’s words in verse 16: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no 1onger.”

Back when Paul the Apostle had been Saul of Tarsus, he had regarded Jesus as a blaspheming pretender who deserved to die.

But when Jesus confronted Paul one day on the road to Damascus, Paul’s view of Jesus changed. Paul’s primary mission in life became to tell the story of Jesus.

When Jesus Christ reconciles us to God, he gives us new eyes with which to see other persons. We no longer focus on the size of their bank accounts, the color of their skin, the slant of their politics, or the refinement of their personalities.

Our vision is dominated by the fact that all persons are made in the image of God, and are designed to be our sisters and brothers.

Perhaps in the past we may have regarded Democrats or Republicans as people of debased motives, flawed attitude, dangerous goals.

But guess what happens when Jesus captures our hearts? We find ourselves loving Republicans and Democrats when we disagree with them. Sounds almost un-American, doesn’t it?  You do love Democrats AND Republicans, don’t you???

In the past when we took a position on an emotional issue like abortion, we may have regarded opponents as people of questionable motives and inferior judgment. Frankly, they just made us angry.

But when Christ lives within us, he teaches us to assume that our opponents are honorable people with respectable views until proven otherwise.

There was a great Presbyterian preacher down in Georgia named Sam Jones. He exuded the spirit of reconciliation. He was asked one day, “Brother Sam, why don’t you preach against the Catholics?”

He replied, “By the time I get through working on the Presbyterians, it’s bedtime.”

The truth was that Sam Jones’ heart was so filled with the love of Christ that he saw the Catholics as just another part of his Christian family – which they are. When Christ fills our hearts, our vision changes.

The third truth I find in our scripture is this: The Love of God is Not Really Ours Unless We are Willing to Share it With Everybody.

The love of God is a strange commodity. If you give it away, your own supply increases. But if you hoard it in selfishness, your own supply disappears.

When Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to enter major league baseball, he faced jeering crowds in every stadium.

One day, when playing at home in Brooklyn, he made an error. His hometown fans began to taunt him. That really hurt.

He stood on second base, feeling humiliated. Just at that moment, shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a white player, came over and stood next to him. He patted Robinson on the back and gave him an encouraging word.

The fans got quiet. Later, Robinson said that simple deed by Pee Wee saved his career.

Where and when have you taken the side of a rejected person as to increase his acceptance?

Where and when have you moved fences to enlarge a sense of community?

Where and when have you included someone who was formerly excluded?

Where and when have you had courage enough to speak up against the poison of prejudice?

If you are captured by the love of Christ you are never the same again. Old divisions, old hatreds, and old prejudices fade away. In every pair of eyes you catch a glimpse of Jesus, and the fences come tumbling down.

Amen.