Ancient Landmarks

Ancient Landmarks.  Fences are expensive, arduous tasks to build and maintain. A nearby neighbor is building an extensive, painted, 8-foot-tall privacy fence out of pressure-treated lumber around a rectangle of land that has zero buildings built on it. Only grass grows there for now. An entire crew has been fence-building in the heat for several days; they are not even half-finished. In ten years, this elaborate fence will be rotten and need replacing.

His fence makes me remember the fencing that I still need to build to keep the deer out of the garden and the dogs away from the deer. I delay because of the cost and the effort, and because fence-building seems an exercise in futility. Inevitably, deer will find a way in, and dogs will find a way out, while grasshoppers munch on the garden no matter the fence’s design. Sometimes an apparent futility is an excellent teacher, as G. K. Chesterton’s line suggests, “Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.”

Fences may seem futile, but the concept of borders serves an important purpose. Borders doubly remind all Earth’s citizens that God ultimately sets all boundaries and that he meant us to have and be neighbors. He is the host; we are his guests. He gets to set the edges in creation because, frankly, it is his! He built the place and fully expects us to respect his order. Therefore, we build fences not to keep others out, but to remind ourselves by clearly marking its edges that we are responsible under God, and where we are accountable to him. Thereafter, we respond to others with love (Matt. 22:39).

It is not politics or economics but God who establishes borders (Psa. 74:17; 104:9; Jer. 5:22). “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God” (Deut. 32:8). Consequently, it is a crime against God to move his landmarks, whether literally or figuratively. “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark” (Deut. 19:14). “Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor’s landmark” (Deut. 27:17). Even if expedient, moving landmarks is a dangerous business: “Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their cause against you” (Prov. 22:28-29).

Not all fences are borders, but all fences deserve a pause long enough before displacing them to ask if and why God might have put an ancient landmark here at this juncture. Is this an edge marker and why is this an edge marker? Is this a historic backstop built against the cultural slide toward immorality? Why might a barrier have been installed here? Fences rot, but borders remain for God’s glory and for our good.