Borders and bridges. Two politically charged and controversial terms and subjects. Today I drove past an “On the Border” restaurant and the building that used to house a Borders Bookstore. But those aren’t what I or today’s politicians are talking about. And tomorrow, I’m seeing my dentist to have a bridge installed (for real). That’s not what gets the political classes all upset, either.
No, in current political discourse, the terms, “borders” and “bridges,” deal with restrictions on the identities and movements of people. Borders refer to physical demarcations of national identity and sovereignty which separate groups of people, and bridges to connections between individuals and groups. One side says, “Build the wall!” and the other side says, “Build bridges, not walls!” (A third group, the construction industry, says, “Just build!”) The two terms are set as opposites and loaded with all kinds of personal and and political agendas, which I’m not going to get into.
After pondering the issue, and putting aside my own personal political predilections, I have come to the conclusion that both borders and bridges are necessary, not only to the social and political realm, but also to our faith and to life itself. Let me explain . . .
Part I: Borders are necessary.
When we speak of borders, we can also use the term, boundaries. Borders and boundaries are limits on space, time, matter and energy. They define identity and create units of life. They designate what is, and what is not, when it comes to speaking of anything. If I say who I am, I am separating myself from others who I am not. If I ask how are you, I am distinguishing myself from you. If I say this is where I live, I am defining one certain place as distinct from everywhere else.
This has been the case from the beginning, and I mean, from the beginning. When God created light, he said it was good, and he separated the light from the dark and called one day and the other night (Genesis 1:3-5). As God continued to create, the separations continued: earth, sun, moon, stars; plants and animals; the sky (“he separated the waters above from the waters below” – Genesis 1:6-7); the sea and the dry land (Genesis 1:9). Then, the pinnacle of God’s creation: mankind. Even in this final act, there were boundaries set: man/God, man/other creatures, and man/woman. Distinctions were made, and boundaries on actions were set: the fruit of one tree was made off-limits, out-of-bounds. And, when the man and woman violated that rule, God expelled them from the Garden and positioned the original border guards to keep them out: Genesis 3 says, “and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” The original ICE agents. Or should I say, FIRE agents?
As Christians we know the separation was more than closing off a piece of land by a physical border; we know that the real separation was spiritual: sinful man from a holy God, and life from death. (As Christians, we also know how God would build the bridge needed to reunite us, but you’ll have to wait until Part II for that!)
Leaving spiritual matters of borders, consider how essential boundaries are to our biological lives. All life is based on cells which are made up of a bunch of really cool stuff (nuclei, mitochondria, ribosomes, cytoplasm, etc.) which are contained within what? A cell wall (plant) or membrane (animal). The cell wall holds everything together that is needed for the cell to live, and keeps out the substances and other living things that would destroy the cell it is protecting. Whatever is within the wall or membrane is the cell; whatever is outside the boundary is not the cell. Life itself is based on such tiny borders. When a wall or membrane is broken open, the cell dies.
Moving up in size, the collection of cells which comprise an animal, person or plant are grouped together within an outer boundary – skin, exoskeleton, or bark, for example – which define the creature. Again, what is needed to sustain the creature’s life is within the body, and distinguish it from what is outside. When that outer boundary is compromised by injury or disease, the life of the entire body (and the cells which form it) is at risk.
Then there is the social order. The most basic unit of human society is the family. While there are numerous ways we speak of families and define them, the basic definition is of a group of people related through marriage or ancestry, or living together as a household. The classic example of a family is a set of parents living with their children. Whatever the makeup of any specific family, there is a common understanding within the group of who is part of it and who is not. Best friends are not part of a family. An overnight guest or visitor is not part of it. A pet is not part of a family (sorry, Fido and Fluffy). This doesn’t mean others cannot be accepted into the family through birth or marriage or adoption, or treated as one of the family, or expelled from the family for some horrendous behavior, but even all these exceptions depend on there being a social unit called the family which has an invisible, socially agreed-upon boundary. The basic family is formed when a husband and wife vow to forsake all others and keep themselves only unto their spouse; talk about a boundary – a boundary that defines the family!
In the social order above the family come clans, tribes, countries, nations, and other politically defined entities. Even with these, there are borders and boundaries which define membership, citizenship, and sovereignty of people. Whether you look at who pays taxes to whom, who pays tribute to whom, who enforces laws on whom, or who gets to vote for whom, the boundaries our societies draw to separate one people from another make a huge difference in our lives. Laws vary by state, the primaries going on as I write this vary by which state holds them, and the voters of one state cannot vote in a different state.
This kind of division also goes way back in time. We read in the Bible of God separating the people of earth into many nations, beginning by confusing the language which they spoke as they were building the Tower of Babel. Then, we read the names of many nations cited in the Scriptures: the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Hittites, the Chaldeans, the Assyrians, etc. bearing the names of the places they inhabited. Each had sovereignty over their own lands, and fought wars to gain control of other people and lands. Finally, when the tribes of Israel gained their freedom, God gave each one a separate piece of land in which to love and grow. God gave them laws and boundaries (see Joshua 15) , and forbade them from moving the boundary stones which marked off their borders (Proverbs 22:28). It’s obvious from history, in the Bible as well as from secular accounts, that people have not been satisfied with border restrictions placed on them. For many reasons – land, food, pride, lust for power and wealth – people have fought wars with people who lived on the other side of those boundaries. But ultimately the goal of such wars was not to erase boundaries, but to extend their own boundaries to include their conquered foes. Not always a good thing or a noble goal, but even so, establishing a sovereign nation (or city or states or county, etc.) is needed to social order and safety.
Which brings me to one final point about borders. We speak of respecting boundaries in our personal relationships as necessary for peaceful, respectful interactions with each other. Whether the boundaries are physical (not abusing someone physically or sexually), verbal (not gossiping or slandering someone), or social (not demanding favors, calling late at night, or interfering with someone’s life), there are and should be limits to how we treat each other (the Bible has some good ideas along those lines . . .). Many such boundaries are serious enough that we have passed laws regulating or forbidding their violation; most laws are just that: boundary setters with penalties attached for crossing them. The purpose of such laws and penalties is in line with the biblical mandate for government, which is to restrain evil (Romans 13:1-7).
Boundaries are natural, good, and necessary, but there are times they can be harmful and destructive, too. In those cases, or to prevent such harmful consequences, there also need to be bridges. And those I will cover next time in: Borders and Bridges Part 2
Until then, may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.
Read: Joshua 15; Romans 13:1-7