One More Brick In The Wall

As seen in the HEARTbeat and the Village voice

One More Brick in the Wall

            No, I’m not about to break into some spiritual assessment of the Pink Floyd album!  My thoughts today are on walls.  As I travel our city, I notice a lot of different style homes.  Being part of the largest gated community in the United States, we draw a lot of people from across the country.  Some people are fond of the houses with siding.  Some are fonder of the rock-clad homes.  Me, I’m a brick kind of guy.  For me it’s a maintenance issue.  Brick requires much less maintenance than the other types of exteriors, unless the home was constructed on a bad foundation.  If so, the brick exteriors will be the first to show signs of settling with cracks appearing in the walls; some small and some “ginormous!”

            It fascinates me how talented bricklayers are.  They begin at the foundation and lay row after row of brick up the side of a house.  Every few rows they tie the wall into the insulation board with a metal strip placed on the sideboard by the construction crew.  They get to a corner and it seems they always need just one-half of a brick.  It’s almost like a big puzzle with every piece, every brick, fitting in just the right place.  They slowly climb the wall until they meet the edge of the roof, and of course there is just enough space to place the last brick in the wall.

            We, as Christians, build a lot of walls.  As we grow, we place a wall over here to protect us from being hurt by one group of people, and then build another wall over there to shield us from the happenings around the world.  Slowly but surely, we build protective walls around us to keep things out.  Finally, we have our safe space constructed just the way we want it.  But does God call us to build these walls?

            Jesus warned the Apostles about the rough times they would have.  He knew the persecution all twelve would go through.  John, the writer of the book of Revelation survived being boiled alive and because of his resilience he was sent to work in the mines on Patmos.  All the other Apostles died terrible, martyr’s deaths.

            One day as they were walking, the mother of James and John, the Zebedee brothers walked beside Jesus and asked, “Can my sons sit on your right and left hand when you come into your kingdom?”  Jesus said, “Woman, you do not know what you are asking.”  He knew the peril her sons would eventually face.

            Jesus didn’t ask us to pick up our satin pillows and follow Him.  He said to pick up our crosses, our rough, heavy, splinter-inducing crosses.  And this command wasn’t just one time a month, it is daily.  Following Jesus in no picnic here on earth, but the promised rewards in Heaven are beyond our belief.

            Don’t put another brick in your wall to keep people out.  How else are you going to reach people unashamedly for Christ?  Get out of your safe spaces.  Tell others about the grace and love that is theirs just for the asking.  This is our Christ-given task!