This is from my weekly bulletin comment
A friend sent me a postcard from Germany in 1989 of an unbelievable sight...
the hated wall of Berlin being sat upon by a jubilant group of people from all over the world; and another photo showing the wall being vigorously demolished by a young man with a huge sledgehammer. It marked the beginning of the end for a reality that been a part of my, then, 42 years on this planet - a divided Germany, symbolising a divided Europe; further symbolising a divided generation. “The Iron Curtain”, the “bamboo curtain”, the Berlin Wall, the generation gap.
Some walls remain and divide us, even define us because it’s easier to say what we don’t believe or what we’re against than to take the risk of saying what or who we’re for. We gather behind them, or even in front of them shouting “hurray for our side!”
Even in the church we do it - you might be liberal and I KNOW that I’m orthodox, or one might be charismatic and another traditional, or one is for Calvinism and another is for “free will”. In actually making the walls and describing, proscribing the differences we imply right and wrong around choices and preferences. What we joke about or ridicule we are implying to be without the same value that we experience for our own opinion or pressure group. We need to look again at the Cross where all barriers were demolished by the Prince of Peace and all the interesting disparity of humanity is brought together as the image of God in the Temple of God...the body of Christ in the midst of the the dying world.
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