I never knew the man personally. He had died several years before I arrived in Sweetwater to
be Vicar there and in Colorado City. But I knew his wife…I believe she was probably in her late
70’s or early 80’s then. I don’t really know. But in his time, he (her deceased husband)
was a well-respected rancher and community leader. I won’t share the name out of respect for
the family because…for a significant portion of his life he was also an alcoholic. He, thankfully,
died many years sober. But…an alcoholic. She told me…sometimes, when he was still drinking,
she would wake him up early Sunday mornings and make him come to church – and he’d sit
there in the pew at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. She told me he complained…and he’d say,
“These Episcopal hymns are impossible to sing when you’re hung-over.”
In Vino Veritas Some of ‘em are impossible to sing stone-cold sober.
Many times, I would go out to their ranch and walk with her, this woman who became a dear
friend. She knew things…names of plants, flowers, grasses, trees…she could show me how the
landscape changed due to soil erosion and lack of water, show me where their attempts to
preserve and nourish the land made a difference. She knew things.
And running all throughout the area closest to the main house, winding around the
cottonwoods, alongside the old brick pump house, even over the crest of this hill next to the
old family cemetery there was this….stone wall. Like the ones you see in Ireland…it came to just
above my waist, each stone, all various sizes, but acutely chosen to construct this wall. It was
beautiful. And the story is…when he first started getting sober her husband started
building that wall…by hand, stone by precious stone…and he never stopped till the day he died.
I asked her once, “Why did he do it?”
And she said, “You know, I asked him once. And he told me, ‘I don’t know. I can’t figure out if
I’m tryin’ to shut somethin’ out or keep somethin’ in.”
One time I had a dream. Personally, I don’t put a lot of stock in dreams. But every now and
again you have one you can’t forget. It sticks with you. Follows you around like a gum shoe
detective. You look over your shoulder and it’s peering at you from behind a lamppost. I
dreamed I was walking along that wall at night, one hand running along the side of it – feeling
the texture of each stone – the other hand holding one of those old-timey hurricane oil lamps.
And out in front of me were all kinds of animals leaping back and forth over the wall – deer and
rabbits and horses, even animals that couldn’t possibly leap that high - like cows and buffalo.
And I wanted to ask her, my dear old friend…what she thought it might mean.
But I never did. I don’t know why. Maybe embarrassed or scared. Maybe, all of us…sometimes
can’t figure out…
…if we’re trying to shut somethin’ out or keep somethin’ in.
The Pharisees, the ones that came all the way from Jerusalem to challenge Jesus yet again –
they had built a wall too. I don’t think it started out that way necessarily…I think, maybe, it even
started with this intention to safeguard their way of life in a complicated world. All this washing
of hands, and ways of eating, and who you ate with…all the cleanliness and purity rules…they
were never about hygiene, they were these symbolic acts of purity….rituals intended to deepen
one’s faith, set them apart as a people committed to following YHWH – being the people of
God, a light to the nations. There was even a saying. Something the rabbis taught from their
literature, words they lived by.
Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the law.
Now, does that sound so bad? Does that sound so awful? Surely, we can understand that, right.
What’s wrong with being deliberate? What’s wrong with discipleship? What’s so wrong with
boundaries? Making a fence around those traditions and practices that are meaningful?
I imagine there’s many of us this morning who can get on board with that. We are, after all,
Episcopalian and I’m sure you’ve noticed…we have a fair share of traditions, customs, and
practices that are important to us.
And I love that about us Episcopalians! I do. It’s one of the reasons I am one. It’s one of the
things that drew me in as a wayfaring, cynical twenty-something. It grounded me, nourished
me. Still does. I love that we have fences around our traditions. I think…to riff off G.K.
Chesterton, it is what “allows grace and goodness to run wild.” BUT…..
But….what happens….. ….when the fences become walls?
Well…what happens is what we see happening in the Gospel of Mark.
There’s all kinds of people standing around outside the wall – Gentiles and tax collectors,
prostitutes and drunkards, the lost, the last, and the least - all leaning against it, peeking over,
pressing a listening ear against it, trying to climb over, cupping their mouth and saying, “What’s
going on in there?! What’s that all about?! Can I be part of that too?!”
And all they get in return is the quoting of rules OR…just as worse a silence as cold and hard as
the stone the wall is made of.
Until…. until Jesus.
Who, standing outside the wall with all the hungry souls, screams over – echoing the voice of a
prophet of old, “Isaiah was right about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their
hearts are far from me…You care more for your traditions than the people God commanded
you to love.” And Jesus inaugurated an un-ruly faith, and opened the tables that had once
been closed, and reminded them of the heart of the law.
Even the early church wrestled with this. All of them gathered there in the book of Acts, the
Council of Jerusalem – scratching their heads, pounding the table, distraught…leaders of the
early church figuring out if they’re building a fence or a wall - saying, “What are we gonna do?!
Paul is out there galavantin’ around with Gentiles -GENTILES. Letting ‘em all in….In Galatia, and
Thessalonica…pretty soon he’ll be off to Corinth! AND ….did you hear…rumor is Peter decided
to eat with some Italians. Can you believe that…heard he was slurping noodles, marinara sauce
all in his beard.” BUT….but…ultimately, they decided – who are we to stop
the movement of God. At least for a while. Until fences started becoming walls.
We are really good at finding creative ways to build walls.
History holds up example after example and we can even look around at our current religious
landscape and see the walls. They’re there.
Why do you think people build walls?
You know…I think it might be too easy, too simplistic to to say it’s because people are mean.
I think people build walls, not because they’re mean but because they’re scared.
It’s easy to turn the Pharisees into the big-bad meanies of the gospels and Mark certainly helps
reinforce that, BUT… they were trying to help their people, they were trying to be good, trying
to offer strength under the crushing weight of Rome…and over time more fear set in and
without even knowing it…the fence became a wall and compassion, and mercy, and justice, and
love were left out. Forgotten.
You know what they called Jesus in the early Church – they said he was a “stumbling block” –
“a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” Maybe for first century Palestinian
Jews, Jesus was a stumbling block, but I can’t help but wonder if for twenty-first century
American Christians Jesus might just be a hole in the wall.
Or…maybe the blocks we’ve always stumbled on are the ones he’s knocked out of our walls…
to let Spirit of God in, to dismantle our walls, reveal to us the nature of own hearts,
or at the very least ask us…
“if we’re trying to shut somethin’ out or keep somethin’ in.”
Amen.
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