The Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland, is a community quote ‘rallied around one inspirational idea: ‘Together is better.’ And I begin and end this morning’s sermon with a prayer of theirs that I found the other day
God of the histories we tell,
God of the histories we don’t:
on either side of a border, you are there.
May we, in living out our faith,
never pretend that there is a way
to make ourselves purer, or more righteous, or holier
by separating ourselves from those
that you will never stop loving.
We’ll come back to that prayer at the end, but for now join me on a visit to our loft at The Vicarage. A loft I vowed when I moved in that we would never fill. Hmmm.
Now in my defence it’s not full and we have got rid of a lot of stuff but there’s still stuff we want to keep but have nowhere else to store it, sound familiar to anyone?
And amongst those things are some toys and games the children had when they were younger.
Listening to Neil MacGregor’s wonderful radio programme ‘The history of the world in a hundred objects’ on my travels on Monday I was reminded how objects take us to a time and place.
So, the other day whilst taking something up I found the box of those large colourful duplo lego bricks. And through them was transported back to a time a few years ago now. To living room floors where great constructions were built.
With duplo big is best, so you almost always build big towers or big walls.And its walls I want to dwell on today because it seems from a young age we learn and like to build walls.
Something that we pick up again perhaps in our own homes especially in a place like this. For if you spend a bit of time walking around this parish, you will see how a great deal of effort goes into the walls, or fences, or hedges that divide us from our neighbours.
There are good reasons for this of course. We like our privacy, need our own space and lets be honest neighbours are not always easy to get on with.
So, the often quoted words of the poet Robert Frost in his poem ‘Mending Wall’ ring true ‘Good fences makes for good neighbours.’
Walls are necessary then indeed we are gathered within them today, a temple we love. And it was, to turn to the Gospel for today the temple at which Jesus was looking sat on the Mount of Olives.
The disciples were impressed by them ‘”what large stones and what large buildings!”’ Jesus though isn’t and and as he looks into the future he says ‘Not one stone will be left here upon another.’
The verses that follow are challenging as he talks of wars and nation rising against nation. We look back from a different vantage point yet today of all days we know there is truth in his words.
I wonder how many of those conflicts began in some way because there was, not always physically of course a wall that divided and separated people in one way or another.
And if we think of ourselves today we can be impressed by walls for they give us a sense of security. Across the pond an election manifesto pledge of the last president was to build a wall.
And here we return to Frost’s poem who goes on to ask‘Before I built a wall I’d ask to knowwhat I was walling in or out.’
Walls serve a purpose, they can be helpful but they can also divide and separate, something we know too from history.
Just think of the Berlin Wall and how when it fell it meant so much more than restoring the connection between East and West Berlin. This fall of this wall symbolised freedom.
St. Paul knew something about this imagery himself for when he wrote to the Christians of Ephesus he said that Christ ‘has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.’
And that Christ is who we come here to meet his morning. The Christ in whom there are no borders and barriers, who breaks down the walls that separate us. Something that is symbolised by our gathering together around his table where all are welcome.
And as we are fed our vision is renewed and we strive to see the world as God sees it. Where there are not winners and losers, or goodies and baddies but beloved people in every place and continent, on either side of the walls we build.
The tight rope we walk in our worship today is to honour those who have given their lives for the freedom we enjoy but not to think that God is on our side. To sing ‘O God our help in ages past’ as if that means God was our help and no-one else’s.
For the walls we build, the conflicts we fight, the lives that have been lost grieve God’s heart of love.And if we look at ourselves in the mirror for a moment and ask how often do we build high walls to protect or to hide that which we find difficult?
Perhaps it’s necessary but let us never forget that God is not held captive by the walls we create, but on both sides gnawing away at the foundations until they crumble.
The Corrymeela community has a history of working for reconciliation in Northen Ireland. That land has known the cost of building walls. That land knows that we are ‘better together’.
And one of the key figures in the story of that community Ray Davey having witnessed the destruction of Dresden from a prisoner of war camp knew that what he had seen could never be the way, that we were and are ‘better together’.
And it is to a prayer of that community with which I end on this remembrance Sunday when we look back with a strange mix of thankfulness and sorrow and forward defiantly hoping still that the walls that continue to divide and separate will crumble and fall.
God of the histories we tell,
God of the histories we don’t:
on either side of a border, you are there.
May we, in living out our faith,
never pretend that there is a way
to make ourselves purer, or more righteous, or holier
by separating ourselves from those
that you will never stop loving.
Amen.