We learned to draw lines
before we learned to cross them.
Lines around nations,
lines around neighborhoods,
lines around property,
lines around race and class,
lines around the worthy
and the unwanted.
And after drawing them long enough,
we began to believe
that God had drawn them too.
But then came Christ.
Not carrying another map of exclusion,
but walking directly toward
those whom the maps had forgotten.
He crossed Samaria.
He entered the houses of sinners.
He touched the untouchable.
He welcomed the stranger.
He placed a child among the powerful.
He sat at tables
where respectable religion
had refused to sit.
And wherever humanity had written,
KEEP OUT,
the Gospel whispered,
COME NEAR.
There stood the wall—
built stone upon stone
from fear,
privilege,
memory,
property,
prejudice,
and power.
One generation built it.
Another inherited it.
Another forgot why it existed.
And finally people called the wall
normal.
But the Gospel remembered
the people standing
on the other side.
“For he is our peace...
and hath broken down
the middle wall of partition between us.”
— Ephesians 2:14
Christ did not come
to paint the wall.
He did not come
to decorate it with religious language.
He did not come
to place a cross upon its highest stone
and declare the division holy.
He came to break it down.
And when the wall fell,
there was the neighbor.
The one we had called stranger.
The one we had kept distant.
The one whose neighborhood
we drove through
but never entered.
The one whose labor built our prosperity
but whose wages could not purchase
a place within it.
The one displaced
so another skyline could rise.
The one sleeping beneath the highway
that once divided a community.
The one whose suffering
had been hidden behind
the geometry of privilege.
There stood the neighbor—
not an issue,
not a statistic,
not a zoning category,
not a demographic,
but a human being.
And Christ asked:
Do you see him now?
The Gospel draws another map.
Where the old map says: far,
the Gospel writes: near.
Where the old map says: outsider,
the Gospel writes: neighbor.
Where the old map says: boundary,
the Gospel opens: a road.
Where the old map says: stranger,
the Gospel prepares: a table.
Where the old map says: there is no room,
Christ says: make room.
For mercy has no red line.
Grace recognizes no privileged ZIP code.
The Cross does not ask
which side of the boundary
deserves redemption.
Its arms stretch
in both directions.
So let the Gospel walk again
through our cities.
Let it walk beneath the overpass.
Let it enter the forgotten block.
Let it stand beside the displaced family.
Let it knock upon the gated neighborhood.
Let it enter city hall.
Let it sit beside the planner's map.
Let it stand beside the developer's blueprint.
Let it enter the church
and examine the distance
between the sanctuary
and the suffering outside its doors.
And let it ask us again:
“Who is my neighbour?”
Until we finally understand
that the question is not merely
Who lives near me?
but
Whom am I willing to come near?
For the Kingdom of God
does not advance
by moving the unwanted
farther away.
It comes near.
It crosses.
It touches.
It welcomes.
It restores.
It reconciles.
It makes strangers
into neighbors
and neighbors
into one household.
So when another generation
receives the map from our hands,
may they find fewer walls upon it.
May they find repaired breaches.
May they find restored paths.
May they find tables
where boundaries once stood.
May they find neighborhoods
where belonging is not purchased
by the exclusion of another.
And may they say:
Here was once a wall.
But mercy crossed it.
Justice dismantled it.
Love refused to rebuild it.
And the Gospel made neighbors
of those whom geography
had taught to remain apart.
Break the dividing wall.
Repair the breach.
Cross the distance.
Restore the neighbor.
Build the table.
Make room to dwell.
For wherever the wall ends
and the neighbor becomes visible,
the Gospel has already begun.
Emmanuel. Amen.
Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
August 17, 2026
https://www.facebook.com/steven.g.lee1/posts/pfbid02W9CJktbEpdRJYciFCBADzebH41bNZtj2975xDL9k7mwYzgqLFujxrhL85TkPAi7tl
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