...tearing down our fences

*this writing was tapped into being in the year 2008, but seemed timely when I stumbled across it.
-laca.

So brothers, sisters, praise his name who died to set us free

From sin, division, hate and shame, from spite and enmity!

In Christ there is no east or west --- he breaks all barriers down;

By Christ redeemed, by Christ possessed, in Christ we live as one.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” says the New England neighbor in Robert Frost’s Mending Wall. And probably at some time in all of our lives, we may have been tempted to quote him; when the neighbor’s grass reaches knee-high, when the next-door yard is full of tiny plastic ride-on toys and lots of screaming toddlers falling off them, maybe when your neighbor gardens in a bikini that would have been close-fitting several years and pounds) back. We even like the idea of fences and walls to keep certain groups of folks separated from others; them, and us.

In this text we sing that Christ came to break barriers, to minimize what separates us, to set us free from the things that hold us back from unity. And there is something a little scary about tearing down fences, something a little out-of-control about ending our human-constructed divisions. Jesus says we’ll just have to trust him for that. “Something there is,” Robert Frost said, “that doesn’t love a wall.”

Here’s to a tear-down, coming soon to a neighborhood near you!

...I confess. And I believe.

God, let us be a bridge of care connecting people everywhere.

Help us confront all fear and hate and lust for power that separate.

When chasms widen, storms arise, O Holy Spirit, make us wise.

Let our resolve, like steel, be strong to stand with those who suffer wrong.

---Ruth Duck, 1991

I confess today. I have been small, and I have limited my idea of God to smallness. I have hated those who were other, and feared those I hated…or did it work the other way around? I don’t want power in my own hands, that is too heavy a thing; I just want things to work the right way, my way. I confess this yearning for a finger in the pot.

My God, I pray for the things that separate me from serving and standing resolutely with those who suffer to yield to wisdom from you. I pray for the fears and doubts that keep me shackled when I should be about kingdom business to yield to the floods of your hope and healing love.

And I believe. I believe that at your table, transformation is an everyday miracle, and grace is served at every meal. We may come to the table as strangers, lonely and weak and worn, but we leave as friends, strengthened for the challenges of building family and standing with each other.

I confess. And I believe.

...sitting in unlocked cells

He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free;

His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me.

---Charles Wesley, 1739

I have been singing this hymn for most of my life, and other Christians have been singing it since, well, the mid-1700s when Charles Wesley composed the text. You can imagine, then, how surprised I was by something new speaking to me from this page of the hymnal.

I believe most of us are familiar with the idea that Christ’s sacrifice has freed us from, and forgiven us for, our sins. This act of Christ’s has removed the separation between us and God. Look closer with me at the first phrase of the selected verse: “He breaks the power of canceled sin.” Now I am thinking, what is the power of sin, if it has been canceled by Christ? For me, the power of canceled sin in our lives is guilt, and the inability to really believe in Christ’s power to forgive. With the memory of sin, its shadow, hanging over our heads, we continue to live as sinful, and therefore separated, beings.

And friends, living in the shadow of canceled sin, in guilt, is in no way living as free people. In a way, guilt is more of a prison than sin ever was---because, brothers and sisters, we sit in cells with unlocked doors, steadfastly refusing to step out into the freedom of forgiveness. By letting guilt exercise its death-grip on our hearts, we hold ourselves hostage.

But we have a great Redeemer. Our 'gracious Master' has not only broken the power of active sin in our lives, but also the power of canceled sin. We are free from sin…and guilt. We are free.