Sermon | The Rev. Susan Anderson-Smith
The world is full of walls. Everywhere we go, there are fences,gates, partitions and other ingeniously constructed barriers – all aimed at keeping something or someone in and keeping something or someone else out. We need them: in our homes to protect us against the elements; in our school yards and playgrounds to keep our children (and pets) safely in and predators out; in our workplaces to help us separate spaces and improve organization and efficiency and privacy. But one does not have to be a sage to comprehend howwalls, both literal and spiritual, can lead to grief, division and even violence. All walls serve a purpose, but not all walls serve the purposes of God.
In Ephesians we read “…For he (Jesus the Christ) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” It is difficult to understand how this can be, especially today, when hostility appears to be the bread and butter of human relating and living, when peace feels more far off than everbefore. We know that we have helped to build walls of hostility. We’ve built many of them not out of bricks and stone, but out of the raw material of fear and hate. Then we’ve cemented them with the mortar of name-calling, labeling and prejudice.
As people of faith, we pray for an end to hostility and division,an end to gun violence and all fear-based violence and oppression. Every week,gathered in this place, we pray for peace. But what is the peace we seek? Formany of us, the peace we want is for everything to feel settled. We want an endto uncertainty and turmoil; we want the violence to stop. We want to be able tosee a clear path ahead. We want to know that everything will be okay again.
What is the road toward dismantling walls and establishing peace?
There’s an American parable — a true story, in fact — that mightoffer us a bridge out of our current divided, violent culture.
Picture this: A year in the United States unfolds like no other,with widely shared images of apocalyptic-like war with children suffering unfathomable violence, never-ending student protests, a generation traumatized by the murder of unarmed Black men, a decade of both progress and setbacks on civil rights and a fiercely divided country experiencing one of the most polarized elections of its time. A presidential candidate rooted in his white, Christian convictions is suddenly felled by a would-be assassin’s bullet.
The year was 1972, when segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace was running to defeat Richard Nixon and become the next president of the United States. At a campaign stop in Maryland, Wallace was shot on a May afternoon and barely survived, with a bullet forever lodged in his spine, ending his ability to walk.
For more than a decade, Wallace was Enemy No. 1 of millions of Americans who pursued civil rights. At his 1963 gubernatorial inauguration,after winning the Statehouse in a landslide, he declared, in words written by KKK member and Wallace staffer Asa Earl Carter, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” The new governor then set forth on stopping any civil rights gains statewide.
The 1960s are remembered for horrific political violence, in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and Malcolm X.
After a decade of division and political violence, the shooting of Wallace in 1972 felt like yet another expected and intractable moment in the never-ending political and cultural polarization of the country, with a script that seemed to be uncontrollably writing itself.
That’s when the unthinkable happened. Someone stepped into the gap to trouble the narrative: A political rival went as an act of faith to visit the paralyzed Wallace.
The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, Shirley Chisholm, an American hero, was the first Black woman elected to Congress and was herself running for the Democratic nomination, with the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.”A self-declared “black-and-proud” woman, Chisolm ran a long-shot campaign that was not just an attempt to disrupt politics as usual, but a morally grounded effort by a woman of faith looking to find new ways to bring the country together amid crippling poverty, racism and a war in Vietnam increasingly seen as illegal. She couldn’t have been more unlike George Wallace.
Chisholm’s visit with Wallace is captured in this year’s Netflix movie, “Shirley.” W. Earl Brown as Wallace asks, “Where do these people come from, Shirley?” Portrayed by Regina King, Chisholm replies: “I suppose it’s the hate that hate creates.” Wallace winces, not ready to hear the truth.
Chisholm continues, sharing how she once survived a similar attack and believed that God had spared her so she could go on to serve others with a higher calling. With profound empathy she shares that she believes the same for Wallace, concluding, “You have an opportunity … to be more than what you were.”
As the scene ends, she holds his hand and prays for his health and recovery.
Years later, Wallace’s daughter Peggy remembered that momentas a “real awakening,” the moment when her dad began to change. Over time, he would publicly ask for forgiveness, and in his final term as governor,appointed historic numbers of African Americans to state governing boards; he also did his part to help double the number of African Americans registered to vote.
Of course, we’re living in 2024, not 1972. Ours is one of the most divisive and polarized eras in America’s history, causing deep concern for the fate of so much that we hold dear. Yet that doesn’t mean we can’t pursue with truth and clarity, with compassion and mercy, the kind of people we want to be and are called to be.
Maybe in 2024, we can take a page out of Shirley Chisholm’s playbook and a page out of Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus. We are divided on policy, on culture, on who’s in and who’s out, on who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s only by looking beyond ourselves and our various walls and being human to one another that we can build a bridge to God’s dream of a just,peaceful and loving future, a bridge to Beloved Community.
The peace of Christ that breaks down division and hostility is the embodiment of a new world. It is the connection we can experience when we let down our guard; it is the community we can build when we believe anything is possible; it is the wholeness we can feel when we realize that we are not alone. This peace does not always make things easier and it is not a return to normalcy. We know that Jesus’ life and the lives of his first followers were full of struggle. The peace of Christ is the promise that we can always be restored to each other and to God, no matter how bad things get.
The most important thing we can do in the time ahead is care for each other – and boldly live out our values and our calling. We are called to live our lives grounded in the abundance and transforming power of God’s love and confident in God’s peace. That means that our relationships with each other and our commitments to welcoming the stranger and building bridges with our neighbors matter more than ever.
We’ll navigate the time ahead together and care for each other through whatever turmoil arises. We are blessed and grateful to be on this journey together. Let us continue to pray together and work together toward the fullness of God’s peace. AMEN
