“Leap of Faith: God Doesn’t Recognize Walls“, by Rev. Tom Duley
There is an old Christian rock song by Randy Matthews that you can still listen to on YouTube. Isn’t everything still on YouTube? The name of the song is “It Took a Carpenter.” The line that gets repeated throughout says, “It took a Carpenter to tear down my walls. It took a better man than me.” There’s a good deal in that little line. Perhaps that’s why I still remember it all these years later. Of course, the carpenter is Jesus and the songwriter is astute in recognizing that Jesus is a wall destroyer. There are so many ways that we separate ourselves from God, from each other, even from ourselves sometimes. Jesus takes down those walls.
The line also recognizes that there is someone who knows us better than we know ourselves. There is someone who is better than we are; someone who is constantly working to get us to stretch beyond that which feels safe and makes us comfortable to our better selves. Of course that man is Jesus and one way he helps us to become our better selves is by moving us beyond the walls we build. Jesus helps us to realize that God doesn’t recognize walls…
God recognizes people.
~Tom Duley
The Word
Luke 15:1-7
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
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