Fence Lines
Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything, either small or great, contrary to the command of the Lord my God. Numbers 22:18 NASB
Contrary to – How far are you willing to go? Where are the boundaries, the fence lines, in your life? Balaam, a prophet who was not exactly the best role model, understood the limits. He uses a Hebrew word that tells us a bit more about these limits than we get in the translation. That word is ‘abar. It is really a word about passing over, going through or passing by something. It is used for physical movement like winds that blow through or waters that overflow. But in its metaphorical sense, it is about crossing the lines that God establishes with His Word. Perhaps we would have caught this meaning if the text were translated more literally. “I could not do anything . . . that would go beyond the mouth (the spoken words) of YHVH my God.”
Jonathan Sacks provides us with a telling insight. “God creates order; man creates chaos. That is the message of the early chapters of Genesis. Each element of creation has its proper place. The Hebrew word averah, like its English equivalent ‘transgression’, signifies that sin involves crossing a boundary, entering forbidden territory, failing to respect the separation between different spaces and times. Adam and Eve transgress the boundary between permitted and forbidden foods; Cain transgresses the boundary of human life itself. The punishment or consequence of sin is exile. The measure-for-measure result of an act in the wrong place is that the agent finds him- or herself in the wrong place, in exile, not at home in the world.”[1]
Fence lines are not restrictions. They are protection. To cross the fence line, to transgress (averah), is to end up in exile, in a place where we are no longer at home. When we sin, we exile ourselves not only from God but from ourselves. Adam discovered that he was no longer at home in the Garden. That’s why he said, “I am afraid.” He knew now that he didn’t belong. He was changed. He was aware of his lack of transparency in a place where everything could be clearly seen.
What happens when you and I step over the boundaries set by the mouth of YHVH? At first we feel the euphoria of personal choice, the false sense of throwing off what we perceived to be limits on our lives. But soon we discover that outside the fence line life takes a strange twist. My “freedom” enslaves me. The feeling fades. Endorphin withdrawal demands more. I discover I am not who I thought I would be. I must move further into exile in order to keep the feeling fresh, but the further I move, the more I am not at home with myself. I learn too late that the thing I sought led me into a dysfunctional prison cell. I don’t work any more. I am alien to myself and home is a long, long ways away.
Have you gone beyond the word of YHVH? Now we aren’t speaking just of morality. I am confident that each of us knows where we have crossed those fence lines. Now we are including the whole Word of the Lord. Have you and I stepped over His boundaries with regard to worship, nutrition, ritual purity, treatment of others, rest? Have we pushed our theological speculations beyond His revelation? Are we making our own borders according to our cultural and religious expectations?
God put boundary markers in the ground for a reason. When was the last time you noticed where they are? Perhaps you can answer that question if you ask when you last felt at home in this world.
Topical Index: sin, exile, home, averah, ‘abar, transgress, boundaries, Numbers 22:18
[1] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, p. 76.
I feel I should copy this and put it on my wall. Too good. So right. So inspiring I gotta go spend some time re-running the sum of me through this way and look at how it equates! Thrilling!
Shabbat shalom!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU “Can’t remember what it’s like to be home.” Now I know why. This would make great required reading in school!
I’m about halfway through Guardian Angel, so this TW aligns perfectly with what I have been reading for the past few days. I never realized how loaded Genesis is. I have always felt like the story in the garden was incomplete. But there is so much more there than meets the eye, especially in English. It’s really shaping my understanding of sin and God’s order vs. man’s chaos. And thus, how upside down our modern (and Greek) idea of freedom is. I feel like my heart and every center of my brain is lighting up and coming alive with this understanding, like I am vibrating with the sympathetic resonance of truth.
Our very fabric, mystically knitted in the womb and joined with the living Force that gives us life, is designed to mesh with; to RUN ON, relationship. If we are fractured from rightly relating with God, ourselves and others in any way, we experience dis-ease. The church became so increasingly focused on dis-ease in the spiritual dimension, though, it seems that we ended up leaving behind the understanding that that is NOT the only place that dis-function is going to show up.
The Mosaic instructions for illness required that a person go to the priest, not only for correct diagnosis, but also to be pronounced cured. The PRIEST? In James 5, though, we see the same thing again, in that the first reaction we should be having to illness is to submit it to the inspection of the elders, with the expectation that somewhere in there there is going to be some sort of confession of sin. CONFESSION OF SIN?
But what if a lack of homeostasis, which is the secular term of the description of what shalom looks like in the mental and biological, is a result of a fracture somewhere between ourselves and God, ourselves, others, or our environment (sin)? What if it really does come down to whether or not we are in correct RELATIONSHIP with “His boundaries with regard to worship, nutrition, ritual purity, treatment of others, rest”?
What if dis-ease is not just a penance to be endured as a show of submission to a vengeful god, but a DESIGN to show us exactly WHERE we are out of relationship? What if there really is a method to the seeming madness of disfunctional fracture, in that we can read, if we can learn how to read, where we are actually messing up, for the purpose of getting it TAKEN CARE OF? What if we could go to elders who were trained physicians of the spirit, mind and body, who knew how to discern and take care of the spiritual fracture involved with illness and other disaster, so as to return us to shalom? Obviously, the priests USED to be able to read these things for us. What happened?
I understand that I was made on three levels that work together – but that do not work apart from each other – to express love. That does not mean, even in the flesh, that I am three DIFFERENT persons, but each of those levels DO express ‘me’ very well. The more I understand my spirit, the more I am amazed. The more I see how my mind is just a mirror of where my spirit is, I am amazed. But the real shocker is, the more I understand how my BODY physically shows where I am at spiritually and mentally, I am speechless. The very cells of my body carry my emotional blueprint. Over 80% of my seratonin receptors are, of all places, in my gut! Not my brain! The nerves in my back can store pain memories that can re-activate without ever going through the brain! And the latest studies on theta brain waves will finish destroying what you used to think were these nice little sterile boundaries between your spirit, mind and body. We are fearfully and wonderfully made!
One of the most thoughtful, humble, and God-fearing persons I know of is Dr. Frans Cronje from South Africa, who has set out to unravel this association of our triune selves in the context of healing disease. He is not some off-the-edge whacko. The lectures he gives are usually to international heads of the medical field, and he is well respected as the top in his own field. Find him on YouTube. If nothing else, his latest lecture out, titled God’s Covenants and Judgments, will forever change the way you see how your body works. As a trained engineer, he sees the world through those lens, and he sees in fractals. He also notices things like the ends of the telemeres on our DNA, that protect (bound) our mortality, look just like a tzitzit fringe, that represents that boundary of protection for us spiritually. No difference. If you Google him, he is easy to find, and his thoughtful study of what those original covenants and laws were designed to accomplish for us, I think, should command our attention if we want to start to unravel just where our safety lies. I know that Dr. Cronje was instrumental in showing me what was not functioning in my own life, and why, and what I needed to do to re-establish those boundaries and find shalom on all three levels. I am a totally changed person today because I came to understand where my fence was, and how to get those things that were ruining my peace and safety back out, and me back in. Halleluah!
God bless us all.
Hi Skip,
I have read, pondered, slept, read and considered (easily done in NZ).
I agree with what you have said, I see how it should work, but!!!
I feel like an alien, I feel like I am in some sort of alternate reality, where all the boundary markers have been tampered with, they are all up for negotiation.
I am originally from the UK, I have lived in 17 years New Zealand. I became a God believer here, and I have seen a a radical change in societal values and morals. I look back at the UK and I see that it has gone to hell in a handcart, but I also recognise that the same attitudes and behaviours are flooding into what was once an unspoiled, and fairly innocent country.
So, do I feel at home? NO! I a grateful that I have the God’s Word, I feel that i am equipped with a moral compass to help me navigate this storm. This world is not what God intended, it is terminally ill. The only thing that keeps me half pie sane, is the realisation that it will be recreated perfect and that by observing God’s blueprint for my life, I get to offset the slip into chaos and share in the recreation/restoration of the universe.
You are not alone in this evaluation. But don’t imagine that it is something new. When I lecture on the ships about the colonization of the Roman Empire, I point out that all of this has happened many times before–and always with the same result. Complete social collapse. Read James Black, When Nations Die, to see what’s happening.
I appreciate all the links and suggestions that people give here, and try to go and check them out. I have really been expanding! Thank you all! I found book reviews of this book, Skip, and I wonder if I could find a way to read it. It sounds seminal, on the order of de Toqueville’s Democracy In America, which I just cannot find a more prescient snapshot of what American is than what he saw then. He also predicted our Achilles heel, and I bet the two authors are agreeing.
This reminds me of a lecture by Dr. Frans Cronje titled Covenants and Judgement on YouTube that I think mentioned elsewhere, where he was working with the succession of covenants as given in the Torah; although he was pointing out what the connection was between that bullet point list of James Black that I found in one of the reviews in connection with a breakdown that Dr. Cronje is seeing in physical health. Not surprising that there seems to be no difference.
wow !this confirms art work I felt led to draw today – it was a bridge made of Gods word as the base & platform of the bridge & the word t r u s t was across as the structure on the top of the bridge ……:)
Father, You have captured my heart with Your great love. You are leading me in laying down all the false images I had of You. Lead me now in abandonment to Your word that gives real life here in this present moment with You. Lead me in forsaking all that i have clung to that is not in Your will.
Hi Skip, I have contemplated your writing “Fence Lines” since yesterday. No, I do not feel at home in the world although I do understand the safety of the fence around me. I feel at home inside the fence but not in the world. The following scriptures describe the world we live in however we are not of it, is the way I have always understood it.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust, of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Can’t be at home in a world that hates me.
I am truely blessed blessed by this word exposition.