Our question this week comes from one of the Lenten devotionals from, "Parables and Passion: Jesus' Stories for the Days of Lent." Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
" 'Good fences make good neighbors,' asserts Robert Frost's poem 'Mending Wall.'...
'Good fences make good neighbors.' That attitude predates my 1950s St. Louis neighborhood by at least two millennia. A lawyer asks Jesus a question about fences. He doesn't use the word 'fence' per se, but it's there. Having come to test Jesus and then finding himself questioned by Jesus, the lawyer seeks to pin Jesus down: 'Who is my neighbor?' The question traces back to the lawyer's own understanding of what the law requires to inherit eternal life. 'You shall love the Lord your God . . . [you shall love] your neighbor as yourself.' Loving God is relatively clear. But if love of neighbor is involved, then who is my neighbor? What are the limits? Where is the fence that seperates neighbor from stranger or enemy or whomever the obligation to love omits?"
Do "good fences make good neighbors"?
What are some of the "fences" that divide individuals and groups in your school, community, nation and the church?
Are some "fences" necessary? Why and/or why not?
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1 comment:
Fences purchased or built,even poorly buried within the ground or cemented may be safe guards, while many times narrowing interaction that would otherwise produce meaningful relationships.
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