Theological Truth: The Love of God in Christ bridges all of the gaps that separate us from God and one another.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I’ve spent most of my life living alongside the Mississippi River. And whether it’s New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or Memphis, the river always divides people. We can see across it, but we don’t go across it.
In New Orleans, those who live on the “east bank” rarely venture to the “west bank.” And those living on the “west bank” wouldn’t dream of living on the “east bank.”
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Yet despite several bridges, the river continues to divide the people of those cities…and so many other cities.
Why do we look for ways to divide ourselves? Why do we resist crossing bridges?
Maybe it’s a way of claiming and protecting our identity. We think we know who we are by defining who we are not. More locally, I’m learning that there are those who are very clear that they are NOT Hokies fans…and those who insist they are NOT Wahoos. It’s all in good fun, but you get the idea.
Dividing up into sides also gives us a sense of belonging. Barriers and boundaries define where we belong. THIS is my side of the river….my home…my place…my tribe. I belong here, in this group. Having a sense of identity and a place of belonging provides us with a feeling of security that makes the changes and chances of this life just a bit more tolerable. Divisions give us the illusion of safety and control.
But after Easter, what is there to fear? Why do we insist on being in control? Are these divisions necessary any longer?
That’s what Peter and the apostles are trying to process in the reading from Acts. While living in Joppa, on the coast of Israel, part of modern-day Tel Aviv, Peter has this vision of unclean animals being offered to him to eat. Being an observant Jew, he refuses. But he hears the voice saying,
“What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
This insight into God’s work of tearing down the walls that divide us is proven by the Spirit’s clear direction for Peter to go with the Gentiles “and not to make a distinction between them and you.”
So, Peter goes with them, he crosses the bridge that divides those two cultures: Jew from Gentile, circumcised from uncircumcised, and lo and behold, the Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentiles just as it had on Peter and the gang. Peter has the good sense to realize, “Who am I to hinder God?” and the apostles and believers in Jerusalem are awed into silence as they too come to realize that God’s work of salvation crosses all barriers, bridges all divides, and tears down the walls between us. They take a giant leap forward into what life after the Resurrection looks like. Divisions between us and God, and us and one another, have been bridged by the inexhaustible love of God in Christ.
Living into this life after Easter wasn’t easy for those early Christians, and it’s not for us either. That’s why we celebrate Easter for fifty days.
Easter isn’t one day of joy, flowers, and memorable hymns. Easter is a season and a way of life—new life. It is a time to not only remember Christ’s victory over sin and death, but also to reflect on how we live into the reality of this Kingdom of God here and now, knowing that death no longer has dominion; hatred doesn’t get the last word; violence and destruction are no match for God’s way of sacrificial love and generous mercy.
This new Easter life gives us all of the identity, belonging, and security we need. There’s no longer a need to divide ourselves into sides, camps, or tribes. What God has made clean, we must not call profane. The Holy Spirit is offered to all. God has given to all the repentance that leads to life.
Or as the Revelation to St. John proclaims, “See, I am making all things new.”
But “new” is often frightening for us. Like Peter and the apostles, we may need some time to adjust to the idea of comfortable barriers being removed and familiar divisions erased. But adjust we must, because the work of Easter is still unfolding. The Holy Spirit is still being offered and just like it worked through Peter, it now works through us. Our work is to join the Spirit’s work of bridging divides and tearing down the walls that separate us from one another. Think of it as building bridges and crossing bridges.
I crossed such a bridge during a summer youth trip to Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The “Black Belt” initially got its name due to the rich black topsoil in this strip of Alabama counties, but it took on additional significance in the 19th century when cotton plantations thrived because of the use of thousands of enslaved people of color. We spent part of that trip learning about the terror of life there in the era of Jim Crow and of the civil rights struggles that took place there in the 60’s.
One of those events, the day known as Bloody Sunday, took place on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965. As Civil Rights demonstrators tried to cross the bridge on their march to Montgomery, police attacked with horses, bill clubs, and tear gas.
I didn’t know much about what had happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge before that trip. I had been conveniently shielded from such uncomfortable parts of our nation’s history. But on a summer day forty-five years later, I walked across that bridge with a group of suburban teenagers. Better late than never. Better to be building and crossing bridges than denying their existence or perpetuating the great divide.
My sermon would have ended there. But Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man, armed with assault weapons and filled with racial animus, entered a Buffalo grocery store and killed ten people in what law enforcement officials describe as a racially motivated hate crime. Eleven of the thirteen people shot were black.
These divisions are killing us.
The proliferation of weapons are killing us.
This way of hatred and violence is killing us.
There is a better way. The way of Love that has bridged all that separates us from God and one another. It is more urgent than ever for us to walk this way of love, to cross these bridges and know our neighbors, to tear down the walls that divide us and build the beloved community.
Trinity is doing that in so many ways.
Yesterday, for example, we hosted a rummage sale for Anna’s House, a recital for a group of violin students, and a potluck for the Newtown Neighborhood Association. Tonight, we’ll welcome the community to an “All Choir Evensong” and a picnic afterwards. In three weeks a group of ten teenagers and six adults will travel to Honduras to renew our relationships with our partners in mission in Copán.
But I also hope we will do the harder and more critical work of bridge-building, bridge-crossing, and barrier removal as it relates to racism.
The national Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia are committed to Building the Beloved Community. It’s the work of dismantling the race-based injustices that continue to divide us. It’s the opportunity to build and cross bridges so that our divisions may cease, and we may all respond to the voice of the Sprit who continues to say, “go and do not continue making distinctions between them and us.”
You’ll be hearing more about those efforts in the months ahead. I hope you will prayerfully consider what bridges you’re ready to cross; what divisions you will no longer allow to exist.
God in Christ has indeed broken down the barriers that divide us. God is indeed making all things new, and, as people of the Resurrection, God calls us to do that work of reconciliation and restoration.
— Fr. AJ Heine, Rector, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C: Readings: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
