When the walls come tumbling down: Ephesians 2:11-22

Baptist History and Heritage, Spring, 2005 by Walter B. Shurden

In Baptist circles these days it has become a part of one's homiletical responsibility to quote Fred Craddock as well as the biblical canon. Indeed, some preachers almost do not know the difference between Craddock and the canon! However, let me show due deference and begin with a Craddock story.

Craddock tells about returning to his small west Tennessee hometown each Christmas. Every year he would visit an old friend named Buck. Buck owned a cafe on the main street of the town, and he always gave Craddock a cup of coffee and a piece of chess pie. One Christmas when Craddock went in to get his coffee and pie, Buck said, "Come on, let's go get a cup of coffee." "What's the matter?" asked Craddock, "isn't this a restaurant?" "I don't know; sometimes I wonder," Buck fired back.

Later, sitting across from Craddock, Buck asked, "Did you see the curtain?" "Yes, Buck, I saw the curtain; I always see the curtain." The curtain was in Buck's cafe, separating the front half of the cafe from the back half. White folks came in the front of the cafe from the main street, but black folks came in from an alley behind the cafe. The curtain was there to separate, to separate white people from black people.

Buck looked up and said, "Fred, the curtain has got to come down." "Good," Craddock responded, "Pull her down!" "That's easy enough for you to say," said Buck. "You come in once a year and tell me how to run my business." "Then leave it up," Craddock countered. In personal agony, Buck said, "Fred, I take that curtain down, and I lose my customers; I leave that curtain up, and I lose my soul!"

Buck was right, of course. Some curtains have to come down. Some curtains have to come down because if we leave them up we will lose our souls, no matter how many church customers we gain! The church of Jesus Christ simply must rip some curtains from top to bottom and dump them in the garbage. So "Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (Mt. 27:50-51).

Not only curtains but walls came tumbling down that day when Jesus cried with a loud voice. The wails of anger, the walls of hostility, the "I'm-better-than-you walls," the "I'm a chosen one and you are not walls," the "I'm a male one and you are not walls," and the "I am a clergy one and you are not wails." My! My! My! How those wails came crashing down at Calvary! And no one has described it better than Eugene Peterson in his rendering of Ephesians 2:14 in The Message:

   The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now
   together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He
   tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He
   repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and
   footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started
   over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by
   centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human
   being, a fresh start for everybody.

By the way, did you know that there really was a wall in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem that divided Jews from Gentiles? Right in the middle of God's house stood a wall that divided people by race! But that racial and ethnic wall came crashing down that day at Calvary!

Did you know that there really was a wall in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem that divided Jewish males from Jewish females? That's right! A gender wall--a "boy" wall and a "girl" wall right in the middle of God's house! But that sexist wall came crashing to the ground that day at Calvary!

Did you know that there really was a wall in the Jewish temple at Jerusalem that separated the priests from the lay people? Right in the middle of God's church, a wall stood that said "No laity beyond this wall!" But that clerical wall came tumbling down that day at Calvary! Calvary was not simply a crucifixion. It was a construction project! Jesus was tearing religious stuff up, hanging there spread eagle before the world to mock.

And did you know that there really was a wall in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem that separated the holy things of God from the common things of life. That's right! There was a "spiritual" wall fight in the middle of God's house! This is holy; this is not. But that spiritual wall came tumbling down that day at Calvary.

But what happens to the priesthood when the temple falls? What happens to the priesthood, the religious tribe, the professionals who did the temple work ... what happened to them when the walls come tumbling down? It is a question that in many ways has been at the heart of 2,000 years of Christian history? It haunts us all; it haunted them in the first century and it haunts us today.

What happens to the priesthood when the temple caves in? Who do the priests become? How do you find a new identity when you have lost your profession? What do the priests do now? And where do they do it? When the walls of the temple come tumbling down,what happens then to the professional priesthood? Do the falling walls mean no more priesthood?