Good Neighbors Make Good Fences

I want you to imagine with me a beautiful picket fence. There’s one in my neighborhood that I particularly have in mind. It has those wide slats that run along the rails. The tops of the slats vary in such a way that there is an artful sweep between the posts. At the top of each post is a beautiful, simple finial. Let’s image that that fence runs along the boundary of our property. Yes—our property. 

 

You know what they say, don’t you?  “Good fences make good neighbors.” Inside this lovely fence, we can feel safe and relaxed. We can feel comfortable sitting on the porch, drinking iced tea and watching the world go by, while a lovely breeze pushes the baskets of hanging flowers in slow rotations. Occasionally, we have to go out and get our mail from the mailbox near the gate. Ah, yes, good fences do make good neighbors.

 

What is the function of a fence? To beautify, to keep things in, to keep things out, to protect. There are all kinds of fences—pretty white ones, chicken wire fences, split rail, chain link, razor wire. I remember a particular kind of fence from childhood. It was an invisible one. My brother is only two years older than me and when we were young and on family vacations this line drawn between us. It was alternatively him or me who drew it right down the middle of the back seat. It was drawn with precision and much animosity. You know what we said to each other, right? “Don’t you dare cross this line.” That was a type of fence.

 

There appears to be a Biblical law about this matter. In Deuteronomy 22:8 the Old Testament law says, “When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof…”  What? A fence, a barrier, on the roof? That seems odd, doesn’t it?

 

This portion of the law we just read from Deuteronomy was just that—a portion.  Here’s the whole law. “When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.”  To understand the cultural context of this law we’re going to have to dig a little deeper. During the time of this law, most homes had flat roofs. The roofs were far more than a covering for their heads or protection against storms. These roofs, as you can also see in many places in the world today, were used for a variety of things. They were used to dry herbs, to thresh grain, to air laundry, to host larger parties and sometimes were even sleeping areas for guests. So, when the Old Testament Law includes the need for a fence on the roof of a house, it is a law based on care and concern for others—for the neighbor. If a guest was sleeping on top of that roof, and woke in the middle of the night, got up and stumbled off of the roof without a fence, what would become of that person? If the roof were high enough that person could die or if were just a single story, that person might break their legs. So, this law was in place to protect fearless children, unfamiliar guests and residents of the house who just might stumble. A pretty good law, right?

 

Again, why are we talking about roof fences? We have a good enough fence right here in front of our place. What would our neighbors think—since we are good, biblical Christians—if we suddenly hired a fence builder to move our lovely picket fence up around the roof of our lovely home because the Bible told us to?

 

Here is where we have to dig deeper still. The Law of God was first given to Moses and a scraggly group of ex-slaves. They had lived under another and brutal law for over 400 years—that law was the whip of the slave driver. Suddenly, by the hand of God, they were freed! Freedom without guidance results in chaos, anarchy and violence. Therefore, one of the most loving things God did when he freed the Hebrew slaves was the establishment of his Law entirely based on his love for his people.

 

Tremper Longman III wrote a great little book called Making Sense of the Old Testament: Three Crucial Questions. In the chapter “How is the Christian to Apply the Old Testament to Life?” Longman describes the structure and function of Old Testament Law. There are three types of Law in the Old Testament:

Ceremonial:    How to worship as God’s people

Civil:   How to be God’s Nation

Moral: How to behave with each other

These laws can be considered either general or ethical laws and are firmly rooted in the oldest set of laws for God’s followers, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17.)  The first half of the Ten Commandments is about love toward God, while the second half is all about love for our neighbors. The rest of the Law in the Bible, that followed this revelation to Moses and his people, comes directly from just these ten. In fact, there is a wonderful ancient command that sums the Law up beautifully. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Love is the foundation of the Law!

 

There is a fourth type of law in the Old Testament. These are called case laws. They are laws which are derived from all the preceding Law of God. In other words, when a situation arose wherein it was not clear how the Law of God was to be interpreted, God spoke through Moses to describe how the underlying principle of Law would apply in that case. Longman states that these are not laws in addition to the Ten Commandments, rather they are applications of the Ten Commandments to the specific situations of the Old Testament people of God.  This is precisely the kind of law we just read in Deuteronomy 22:8—a case law derived from the foundational Law of God.

 

Longman summarizes the role of the Law in this way. “The role of the law remains the same today as in the past: it is our gracious God’s guideline for living that pleases him and is good for us.” It is God’s good fence.

 

So, let’s take that fence down off of the roof and talk about how that case law might be interpreted today in our modern location. There are many local and state laws that require builders to build in certain and safe ways. These laws were made not just to delay building projects or to avoid litigation, but to do what? To protect people. Whether or not you have ever looked at building codes this way, those are codes of love—a rudimentary respect for the life that God has given to every person who enters that house.

 

There are many other laws. The speed limit is not there just to keep us from going fast, but to protect the lives of other drivers and pedestrians. How about city codes that say we have to keep our sidewalks free of snow and ice?  It’s not just a rule that makes us get out of our warm house to do something we really would rather not do. Does that not provide safe passage for anyone on our property, helping them to avoid falls, concussions and medical bills?

 

Centuries after the Law of God was handed down through Moses, a group of religious folks called the Pharisees, challenged our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now these folks, along with other religious leaders called the Sadducees, had taken hold of God’s law and made it burdensome by adding hundreds of other petty rules that they thought were important to keep the faith with God. But these rules, let’s call them that rather than laws because they were man-made, were so restrictive that they choked out love. These religious folk followed Jesus and his disciples around demanding that they follow rules such as never threshing grain on the Sabbath. But their definition of work was extreme. Some of the disciples were hungry one Sabbath day and simply gathered some grain into the palms of their hands as they walked along. They rubbed the grains together to remove the husks and popped them into their mouths to eat the good protein. The rule-makers condemned them for meeting a basic physical need on the Sabbath. The religious leaders were so consumed with following the Law of God and their own rules that they denied, crushed and obliterated love.

 

In Matthew 9:9-13 we come across another scene where they attempted to abolish love for what they thought was God’s Law.

 

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

 

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

 

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

 

Here Jesus tried to move those religious leaders back to the true meaning of the Law of God—mercy. Mercy speaks to those who others will not. Mercy sits down to table with them and listens to their stories. Mercy feeds, clothes, heals and cares for those within its reach—our neighbors.

 

In Peter’s great sermon after Pentecost he confronted his listeners with this truth. Acts 10:37-38. “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

 

Do you know that if it were not for the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, our beloved Gospel writer Matthew may never have come to know true freedom and salvation? And then he would not ever have written one of our Gospels that we pour over today? Jesus Christ, who is the one and same God of the Old Testament, lovingly called out to Matthew a Roman tax-collecting, reviled neighbor.

 

Take a look at Matthew 22:34-40. “…the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

Can we go back to the Old Testament Law for a minute? Go to Leviticus 19:9-18 and read these words about how love works itself out toward the neighbor.

 

“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.

“‘Do not steal.

“‘Do not lie.

“‘Do not deceive one another.

“‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

“‘Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.

“‘Do not hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.

“‘Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the Lord.

“‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

“‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people.

“‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.

“‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.

“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

 

The Law of God is shot through with love for our neighbors! Everything we do has consequences for our neighbors. Everything we say has consequences for our neighbors. And if those things are done without love . . . may God help us!

 

The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2:1-5

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,  then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…

 

Do know what love does? It inverts our fences. It pushes our self-protectiveness, our isolationism, our self-satisfaction and self-righteousness, our love-less defenses to the back instead of the front. It reaches out in love to our neighbors because God in Christ Jesus first reached out to us! It doesn’t care what the Pharisees say or think, it sits down with the addicted and demonstrates compassion toward them. It doesn’t think about how lonely it might be; it reaches out to the lonely. Like the good Samaritan, it doesn’t put its nose in the air and walk by the suffering. It stops and provides safety and security for the battered and bruised.

 

I’ve got something new to declare to you today—Good neighbors make good fences.

Good, godly, loving neighbors look out for those around them. We put up fences against wickedness, evil, injustice and hate and open wide our arms to those around us. We are thoughtful about preventing injury to the children in our streets. We vote against destructive legislation. We speak kindly to the abrasive co-worker. We reach out to the wayward and plead with them to come on back to the house that has fence of active love all around the roof.

 

The Apostle Paul had experienced this kind of love when on that Damascus road his Savior confronted him with a full, direct, light-filled intervention of love. After his profound conversion, the teaching of loving Christians and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, he went around doing good as well. He established churches, evangelized the Gentiles, mentored young pastors, rebuked wayward believers and guided congregations into what real love meant.

 

Before we get much further we must come to terms with what godly, neighborly love is not. John R.W. Stott, was an English Christian leader and Anglican cleric who was noted as a leader of the worldwide Evangelical movement. (1921-2011) He wrote a little booklet that was published by Intervarsity Press entitled Who is My Neighbor? The Challenge of Christ’s Compassion. In this booklet Stott comes face-to-face with what it really means to be a loving neighbor. (Emphasis added.)

 

The only limit we have the liberty to place on our giving and serving is a limit placed by love itself. Probably all of us go through a stage of what might be called “indiscriminate charity.” We take certain phrases from the Sermon on the Mount with unimaginative literalism, especially “give to him who begs from you.” So we give to every beggar and respond to every appeal. And certainly an indiscriminate charity is far better than no charity at all. But then we come to see that true love is discerning. It looks beyond the appeal to the real need. It recognizes that it is not always in the best interests of the beggar to yield to his every demand, for he may be a gambler, a spendthrift or drunkard. Then love limits giving, not in order to dodge the challenge but in order to meet it more responsibly.

 

John Stott reflects the actions of Jesus toward the combative religious neighbors of his day. Jesus did not give in to the Pharisees’ tricks or try to placate them. He did not overreact to their loud noises and bristling threats. He rebuked them, calling even some “a brood of vipers”. But he did this out of love for their dying, love-constricted souls. He wanted them to know the love of God in its true state, not bound to religious rituals or petty practices, but pouring out through them to their lost and suffering neighbors.

 

We must read 1 Corinthians 13 in relation to our neighbors.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love I, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

It is here that we see how love throws down the gate and moves the fence built to keep others out. It moves it behind us to provide for protection for those within our reach. Read how the fence moves because of love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust., always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Paul knew that all the fences we put up in self-righteousness, in fear, in sorrow, in self-centeredness, in stunted spiritual growth, will eventually fall down.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man [woman/mature Christian], I put the ways of childhood behind me.

If Paul could use his God-given will and the power of the Holy Spirit to move and replace his Pharisaical, violent, destructive fence, so can we!

Paul also gave us some grace. For we all know that we cannot be completely loving all of the time. Sometimes we’re going to mess up this loving-our-neighbor stuff. And when we do, we ask for forgiveness from God and our neighbor and push that fence back into its right place, believing by faith that someday, when we are sitting at the feet of Jesus, our love will finally and truly be like his.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

What if love for our neighbor did not have to be a law? What if it just flowed out of us naturally? Paul wrote that it can. If the love of God, through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, fills our hearts, guess who it pours out on?  Our grumpy, mean, destitute, filthy, lonely, combative, pharisaical, not-like-us neighbors.

Today we have the opportunity to take action with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may be talking with you about some things right now.

-Is there someone or some people group, some neighbor, that has been brought to your mind?

-If you don’t have love for them, maybe we need to start with two of the most fundamental prayers.

Our Father, in heaven, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. 

Ask God to forgive you of your prejudices, your bias, your blindness—for not loving your neighbor as yourself.

Oh, God, give me more love and love for my neighbors! 

Then we open our hands to receive the limitless love of God for others.

What if we did not feel compelled to draw a line between ourselves and our neighbors? What if we cut down our razor wire fences and put up loving fences behind us? What if we embraced with true love those within our reach and put up protective fences to keep them from harm? What if we had a big pitcher of iced tea and invited neighbors to come to table with us on the front porch—no matter what the Pharisees said?

Will you imagine, visualize, what it would be like if you invited those neighbors to join you at the table of Jesus Christ?  He invited you there. Good neighbors make good fences, my friends, just as Jesus did.

 Amen

 

Copyright 2021 M.R. Hyde