Why Does God Care More About Personal Boundaries than You Might Ever Think?

It’s so sad.  When this whole Jesus thing began, do you know what made us different?  We broke the boundaries.   We broke boundaries between men and women, treating them equally.  We broke boundaries between classes.  The rich and poor worshiped and led together.  We broke the race barriers. Jews and Gentiles served together as one family.  At our best, we’ve kept that record.   Christians like Frances Willard fought for to break the barriers that kept women from the vote.   Dr. King led the boundary breaking that segregated white from black. 

But do you know what’s happened now?   Now, do you know what boundaries Christians get known for breaking?  We get known for breaking the good ones, like breaking the boundaries that protect children from predators   Or every other week or so you hear of some new church leader who has victimized folks by breaking sexual or financial boundaries. 

A lot of boundaries you need.  If you didn’t have a boundary like say, your skin, you’d be in world of hurt.  And those boundaries, we need to honor.  If you don’t, you can end up messing up your life and others’ lives too.   But today, it can be easier than ever to violate those sorts of boundaries, and not even realize it.   

So how do you protect those boundaries?  How do you make sure you don’t cross them with someone else?   How do we make sure we live in a community here that breaks past the wrong boundaries but honors the right ones?  In these words, God shows you the way.

Deuteronomy 5:19

In these words, God is going deeper than simply talking about not stealing a car or a cow.  No, God is warning you to honor the boundaries, not only between things, but between people. 

In all these commands, God isn’t giving rules so much as principles.  If God was giving rules, then God would attach a penalty.  You break this rule, and this happens.  All the other rules in the Bible have penalties, but not these.  In these commands, God is sharing core values to guide your life.  God is showing you what a good, fulfilled life looks like.   And in this command, God is telling you.  A good, fulfilled life means honoring the boundaries.   Why?  Because when you don’t, life gets messy really quick.

When I first went to Haiti to visit our orphanages there, I remember the walls everywhere.   Everyone had these huge walls around their houses.  They lived behind massive metal gates.  I thought at first.   Oh, that must be to protect people from stealing stuff.  But I had been behind some of those gates.   Those homes didn’t have a lot you could steal.   So I asked.  Is that so folks don’t break in?  No, they said.  It’s so they don’t move in.   If you didn’t have walls, you could come home from work, and find a family had moved into your house while you were gone!  So, you had to build walls to keep that from happening. 

People have written millions of words on all the challenges Haiti faces.  But one challenge has to be that.  In Haiti, boundaries you take for granted simply don’t exist.  And that makes Haiti, a very stressful, insecure place. 

You need boundaries.  You need to know you can leave for work, and not stress out that your homes isn’t going to become someone else’s while you’re gone.  You need to know when you go on a green light, that the other cars will honor that red-light boundary and not run into you.    When boundaries like those go, everything starts falling apart.   

And when God talks about not stealing, that’s what God is talking about.  When you steal, you violate a boundary.  You take what is not yours to take.

Take a red light.  When you run a red light, that’s what you do.  It’s not your turn to go, and so you’re stealing someone else’s turn so to speak.  And you need people to honor that boundary.  Otherwise, no one would be safe. 

You need folks to honor boundaries, the ones we place around our traffic intersections; the ones we place around our houses, cars, stuff like that.  But God is concerned with boundaries bigger than those.  God is concerned mainly that we honor the boundaries around ourselves.

When God first shared this commandment, do you know what God’s likely major concern was?  God was concerned not about stealing things but stealing people.  That stealing happened a lot.  Raiders invading a camp or village often seized women and children as slaves.  Heck, if you follow the news, you know those horrors keep happening now, even here in Hollywood.    Any massage parlor you pass could very well have a few slaves behind its doors.     

So, God said.  Honor the boundaries, not just around your things but around each other.  Do you get how far this commandment goes?   You don’t have to steal somebody to break this command.  You can violate it in ways far subtler than that. 

Our son loves trains.  So, last weekend, we got a deal on a special Halloween train ride on the Brightline.  As we were hanging out looking at all the costumed kids, one of the security staff decided to take a picture of Patrick with her personal phone.  But we quickly said.  No, I don’t think so.   Now some parents might not have minded, but what struck me is that she didn’t even ask us.  She just felt that taking a picture was no big deal.  But that picture was not hers to take. After all, in our hyper-connected age, who know where that picture could go.  In 2009, a family in Missouri discovered their family photo was on a billboard in the Czech Republic! Crazy! 

Years ago, I remember traveling near the lands of the Hopi Tribe in New Mexico.  I learned that you are welcome to visit their villages but don’t bring your cameras.   For some Hopi members, taking a picture feels like you’re taking their soul.   If nothing else, you’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you, and that they don’t want you to have.  You are violating a boundary. 

But sometimes, you can ask and still be violating the command.  Many years ago, long before my marriage, I had a relationship where I got nervous about my girlfriend’s past relationships.  I decided I need to know everything.  I didn’t really ask as much as I demanded.  I cloaked it in some malarkey about honesty and sharing.  But here’s the truth.  I was jealous and insecure.  And so, she told me.  But I had pushed her to give what was not mine to ask.  I violated that boundary.  And I hurt her, and fatally wounded that relationship.

Do you see how easily you can break the boundaries?  Do you get how painful that can be?  Or maybe you don’t need me to tell you.  In your life, someone has violated a boundary with you.  And you know how painful that was.  It may even be a violation that leaves you wounded to this day. 

Any time you violate a boundary with another person, you steal something from them.  You could steal some of their trust in others or how they value themselves.   You could steal from them some sense of their security or safety.   But who hasn’t done it?  Maybe you shared news that wasn’t yours to share.  Maybe you unthinkingly made someone physically uncomfortable?

Can any of us, after understanding the depth of this command, say that we haven’t fallen short.   We can violate boundaries in so many ways and with so many folks; even those closest to us, our spouses or children, our friends and co-workers.  So how do you become someone who honors the boundaries?  You let the One who always honors the boundaries do in you what you can’t. 

Have you ever seen this painting? The painter, William Holman Hunt, based it on a sentence in the book of Revelation.  There Jesus says, Behold I stand at the door and knock.  And to anyone who opens, I will come in and eat with them.  But do you notice what Hunt didn’t paint on the door? He didn’t paint a doorknob.  Jesus knocks on the door yes, but he doesn’t barge in.  He wants a relationship with you yes, but he will not demand it.  Jesus will always honor the boundaries.   Why? Because Jesus will always honor you. 

Yet Jesus, freely out of his love, gave up his boundaries.  Jesus gave up even the boundary that protected his very life.  He let his very skin; his very flesh be violated for us.  Yet in that bold act, he shattered the boundaries that divide us, the divide between us and God, the barriers that divide us from each other from even ourselves, even the barrier that stands between life and death.  And as you experience how deeply Jesus loves you, how seriously Jesus honors you, that love and honor will free you to love and honor others in that same way. 

Yes, you will go with Jesus to break the boundaries that oppress, that demean, that hurt.   But in his love, you will grow to honor the boundaries that must never be broken, the one that honor not just things but above all people.  And as that love and honor of Jesus, grows in you and in me, it will shape a world in which everyone feels safe and secure, where every sacred boundary becomes honored and respected.   In the name of the one who created a world of safety and boundaries, in the name of the God who in Jesus sacrificed his boundaries for us, and in the name of the God who is creating a world where everyone feels secure and safe.  Amen.