EASTER BREAKS EVERY BARRIER

EASTER BREAKS EVERY BARRIER By: Bishop Susan Brown Snook On Holy Monday, a group of Episcopalians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and others joined together at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church for a Service of Lament and Witness. From Good Sam, we walked to the nearby trolley station, which connects all the way south to the US-Mexico border, for a time of public witness there. We witnessed to God’s love for every human being and God’s hope for a renewed and transformed world. Sadly, though, that transformation seems far away, because we live in a world of barriers between human beings, built to exclude and separate and break down relationships. If you cross the border into Tijuana and look at the border wall, you will see high, slatted fences that go right out into God’s ocean. That wall stretching out into the shining ocean seems to me to be a symbol of all the ways humans enforce exclusion, distance, and difference, and fail to create space for inclusion, compassion, and love. During Holy Week and Easter, we Christians remember that Jesus came to break down barriers – barriers between God and human beings, and barriers that separate people from each other. Jesus commanded us to love God and love our neighbors. He lived a life of justice, peace, healing, and reconciliation. Read More