Please Fence Me In

I have a strong nostalgic connection to the song: Don't Fence Me In. It was a part of a Sons of the Pioneers cassette tape my family played over and over as we drove west on I-40 from Asheville, North Carolina to my new teaching job in Albuquerque, New Mexico in August of 1999, and it brings up all sorts of complicated emotions for me that touch on my past and the idea of freedom and wide open spaces.

This morning, I started out in Genesis 9-11, reading the story of God's covenant with Noah and his sons immediately post-deluge, where the Lord promised never again to destroy all of His creation by water. He set His rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that covenant.

Side note: I love this original meaning of the rainbow, which is a sign of perfect completion, of absolute wholeness. A rainbow is made up of three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. The colors that show in between those colors are a mixture of the primaries. So, orange is the mixing of red and yellow. Green is the mixing of yellow and blue. Purple is the mixing of blue and red. And we're right back to where we started with every shade in between. Whole, complete, and beautiful.

God doesn't promise anything halfway. He doesn't set out a half-hearted "I might take care of you. Maybe today I'll watch over you. Possibly I might fulfill your needs, if I feel like it."

Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known verses of the Bible, both for people who choose to walk by faith, as well as those who don't. It is everywhere - on stained glass, bookmarks, jewelry, plates, doors, plaques, pillows, everywhere. It's a clear picture of a caretaker shepherd, in this case, the Good Shepherd taking the best care of His sheep that has ever been written.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I lack nothing. 

He makes me lie down in green pastures, 

He leads me beside quiet waters, 

He restores my soul. 

He guides me along the right paths for His Name's sake. 

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me. 

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

When I was reading Genesis this morning, I went from the rainbow promise, the complete covenant of God's protection, took a little time-stamp through a couple of genealogies, and dove into the story of the Tower of Babel, where, if you are unfamiliar takes place on the plain of Shinar - early Babylonia - and is where mankind has once again forgotten that there is a God who created them. So they say to each other: "Here's a great idea! Let's build a city with the tallest tower ever so that we bring glory to ourselves and so we won't be scattered over the face of the earth" (my paraphrase of Genesis 11:4). 

Note: God had given a specific command first to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28 that went something like this: "Have lots of kids, y'all, enough to have lots of kids, who'll have lots of kids - you get the idea - until you fill up the whole world." 

God reiterated this exact same command to Noah and his sons when they exited the ark stage left. Genesis 9:7 says: "As for you, be fruitful and increase in number. Multiply on the earth and increase upon it." In other words: "I told the first people whom I created the same thing that I'm telling you: spread over the whole world. I've given you a wide-open space, now make use of it!"

Soooo, back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:4. Everyone got together and decided to do the exact opposite of what God required of them. Not only did they decide they didn't want to spread over the whole earth, they also decided they would build a tower that reached to the heavens - a testament to the glory of man rather than the glory of God.

Epic fail. Here's the thing: every time you step outside the boundaries that God gives you, there will be a few consequences.

In Genesis 11:7, God intervenes. He divides the earth (not physically as in land masses shifting; many Bible scholars believe that happened during the Great Flood), but through language barriers. Suddenly, there was no longer a single language. Suddenly, people couldn't understand each other. I wonder if those language divisions even happened within families. People had to learn to mime... or move out.

And move out they did. They scattered over the face of the earth... as God had commanded them.

This has Tough Love written alllllll over it. God said: "Do this," people ignored God and said, "No," and God orchestrated His plan anyway, because His plan was far greater and far more expansive than His creation's plan. 

Even though geographically, God had no fences (they were scattered over all the earth), God placed specific boundaries on their behavior. His creation was not allowed to exonerate themselves to godhood. They could not make themselves God. The original idol, Self, was not allowed to step into the role of the master of the universe.

Rather than God waving His hand of blessing over the people and saying, "Go on; do whatever makes you happy..." He instead "makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside quiet waters. He restores our soul. He guides us along right paths." 

He has given us a beautiful fenced-in meadow that - instead of fencing us in - rather keeps out the things that would harm us. Those boundaries are there for a reason.

"Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." What did a shepherd use his rod for? It was a weapon against wild animals: jackals, lions, bears, predators. What about a staff with the crook on the end of it? It caught sheep gently by the neck who veered off the good paths and pulled them back to safety. If a sheep got caught in the cliffs, the staff's crook could lift the sheep back into the shepherd's waiting arms. Both the rod and the staff were tools for the protection of the sheep, EVEN when they didn't feel like protection. I've gained so much comfort from the idea of "Don't go beyond the reach of My staff."

"I am the Good Shepherd," Jesus says in John 10:11. "The Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep." And so He did. And because He did, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!" Hallelujah!

We are living through a season of tough love. God is always there to shepherd us, but that staff's crook seems fairly prominent at the moment on a national and international level. Once again, the Lord is looking at the towers we're building, at the strongholds we've been clinging to...

Strongholds set up over a political divide,
Strongholds set up over racial tension,
Strongholds set up over masks, of all things. 

That crook intervenes; a fence goes up. "No, you don't need to look to a politician as a savior. I've already done that. I've already given my blood for your sins; I've already paved the way for eternal life, I've already given you the hope you need."

The crook intervenes; a fence goes up. "No, you don't need to divide your friendships and your families over whether or not one should wear a mask. Don't you know how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity? That's where I give My blessing."

The crook intervenes; a fence goes up. "No, you don't need to take a single side: a white side or a black side or a brown side or a blue side. My love for every single person I've created is rooted in you, too, if you walk the paths where I lead you."

I've seen absolute despair, fury and vitriol, hatred, and vile, cutting things said about each other across the board over the last week just on Facebook - both from people of faith and those who don't claim faith.  

Oh Lord! Help us to see, appreciate, and love the fences You've put in place around us, the fences that are there to keep us in Your meadow, by Your stream, in Your dwelling place forever and ever. Cure us of our propensity for jumping boundaries You've given us and going cliff-diving, and then bleating in terror until You come to rescue us. Keep us from building idols to Self and participating in Self-serving. Help us to consider others, yep, even Democrats, even Republicans, as better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Above all, Lord, thank you for Your borders. Discipline us when we need it. Help us to see the love in Your eyes while You do it.