SERMON OF DR. MICHAEL STANFIELD
Boundary Lines in Pleasant Places
April 27, 2014
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I
have no good apart from you.’ As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble, in
whom is all my delight. Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows; their
drink-offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. The
Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have
fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. I bless the Lord who gives
me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before
me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad,
and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, or
let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is
fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Psalm 16
Our New Testament text comes from the gospel of John chapter twenty-one verses eighteen
through twenty-two. It takes places just after Jesus has appeared to the disciples in a house.
Now they are by the Sea of Galilea and Jesus is giving the Apostle Peter some last minute
instructions before his ascension. Listen:
Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to
go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and
someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’
(Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.) After
this Jesus said to Peter, ‘Follow me. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus
loved, John, following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the
supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw
him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that
he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’
John 21:18-22
This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our
hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.
When I was a child in the 60’s, my parents built a house in what seemed then an idyllic setting: a
developing neighborhood deep in the woods off the fifth hole of the Forest Oaks Golf Course in
Greensboro, NC. Through the back yard, between my house and the golf course, there was a very
large, rolling field. For several years, our house was the only house at the end of a gravel road. Off
the front of the house was a grassy cul de sac surrounded by nothing but woods. Beyond the miles
of woods were cattle and tobacco farms to which we kids could reach about as fast through those
woods as our parents could by the road in a car.
It will come as no surprise that my house was the central hub of the neighborhood. The sage brush
field between our house and the golf course was large enough to play baseball on. Only we would
always beg my dad to wait until the late spring to mow it; the sage brush was just too much fun to
hide in. With such a combination of open fields and woods, we would play games like hide and seek,
and kick the can, or better yet, we would make up games.
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And it was a funny thing about those made up games. For them to be worth playing in the first place
there had to be rules – rules that included boundaries. Too many rules and all you did was argue.
Too few rules and it either gave some who were playing the game unfair advantages, or it was so
difficult to understand what the real goal of the game was, that playing seemed pointless.
It was the same with the boundaries. If the boundaries were too wide and the space too large –
particularly in games where running and chasing was involved, then the task of catching someone or
finding someone became impossible. If the boundaries were too tight and the space too small, the
game was too easy; the result then being that we all became bored with the game very quickly.
Little did we or our parents know the valuable lesson we were learning that we would take with us
for the rest of our lives – the very same lesson of the Psalmist
– that boundary lines are important
– in fact they are a gift when, as the Psalmist tells us they fall in ‘pleasant places’
– that is when they are optimal
– when the space in which we play or operate is just right.
The Psalmist is using vocabulary from the book of Joshua, where boundary lines referred to the
division of Canaan among the 12 tribes of Israel, granting each tribe a portion. The tribes considered
that their destiny, from that point onward, was tied up with the land portion they received – with the
boundaries of their portion.
Here in Psalm sixteen, the psalmist is using boundary lines metaphorically, to say that his life is
marked by blessing and destiny in God that can’t be taken away because God himself holds it fast.
The psalmist’s statement about boundary lines is not unlike saying, “I have truly been blessed.” But
more than that, he is pointing to the root of his blessing – the God who set those boundaries –
boundaries that have set the course of his life and brought it to this crescendo of joyful gratitude.
Using boundaries to refer to blessings is very interesting and quite uncommon. Generally, when
things are going very well for us, we don’t think about boundaries or limits at all. In fact, life usually
seems open ended. We generally only become aware of boundaries when it feels like they are in our
way.
But when the boundaries are just right – like when we were kids playing games – the result is pure
joy – an ability to forget self and to live like we used to play – with complete abandon.
So what does the Psalmist mean by having boundaries in pleasant places? For most interpreters of
this text, it means following God’s law. And while I would agree that this is part of the answer as
this would be assumed, it is not really what the Psalmist is referring to here. For the Psalmist is not
preaching objectively to a gathered congregation. No, he’s waxing poetically as he subjectively
gushes gratitude over the unique blessing that has come to him in a very personal way – as in, the
boundary lines of my life have fallen in pleasant places. The arena out of which I have operated and
continue to operate is the perfect environment for me to have realized my destiny. For, I am living a
deeply meaningful, joy-filled life.
On the one hand, the Psalmist is praising God for the family in which he was born – the heritage
and blessing he has received at the hands of his upbringing. But more than that, the Psalmist is really
talking about discovering and living out his true calling as a unique one of a kind child of God.
Heritage and background is a big part of it. But so is his own individual awareness of what it means
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that his life is in the hands of God. He has heard the calling of God, he’s heeded that calling and his
life has been and continues to be deeply meaningful and fulfilling.
You know we don’t use the language of calling in our culture much anymore. It used to be that –
even outside the church people would refer to participating in meaningful work as a calling –
whether one was an engineer or a pastor. But alas, the goal of finding meaningful work in an area
that will produce joy regardless of the pay or the recognition – work that is intimately related to
one’s special and unique set of gifts seems to be a thing of the past.
The Huffington Post’s most recent survey of college bound students revealed that over 80% were
there in order to get a higher paying job. Over 75% were also convinced that they were individually
going to change the world. And yet, less than 20% where there to discover who they really were and
how they could, based on that self-knowledge, contribute in a meaningful way to the world.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the boundaries of a good portion of that 75-80% are not going to
fall in places that are very pleasant.
In my work as a therapist, I see individuals all the time who work sixty hour work weeks bringing in
decent pay checks but who really live for some future time when they will be off from work and able
to have a vacation.
As writer Alan Watts puts it, “Most of us are willing to put up with lives that consist largely in doing
jobs that are a bore, earning the means to seek relief from the tedium by intervals of hectic and
expensive pleasure. These intervals are supposed to be the real living, the real purpose served by the
necessary evil of work.”
Not only are we busier than we have ever been, but we have come to see this as the natural state of
affairs. Furthermore, when we do suffer because of our work habits, we tend to assume that it is a
personal failing or weakness on our part. Rarely do we consider there might be a problem with our
work.
Then there are the young people I see who have grandiose plans but can’t find a way to commit to
any specific area so that the big dreams can have any chance of becoming a reality. Either the
boundaries are too strict, too wide or just plain wrong.
Please hear me: there can be great value in making good money at a lucrative job. And having big,
impossible dreams is crucial to incorporating needed cultural and social changes. But that is not the
point. The point is: what does God have to do with it? If what we are doing is intimately connected
to Christ’s will for us, then all will be well.
In our New Testament text today, we find the Resurrected Christ on the shore of Galilea speaking
to Peter about his destiny. First, he tells him that he will live and die a life that has been similar to
Jesus. And notice how Peter responds – it’s not “What an honor and a joy to share so intimately in
your life and death.” It’s not “How wonderful it now is to know exactly what it is that I am
supposed to do.” No. Peter turns immediately to John and says, “What about him?”
How like Peter we are! We have a tendency to resist looking at and accepting the very destiny that
will give our souls exactly what they need – that will perfectly set the boundaries of my lives. We
would much prefer to avoid the deeper questions of our souls and to compare the boundaries of our
lives to that of others – to try and make sure that we are getting our due. But getting our due
according to whom? Notice the response of Jesus: “If it is my will for John to grow old and die of
natural causes – what is that to you – Follow Me!”
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It is so ironic. We will change our appearance, change our hobbies, change our values, change our
spouses and families – do anything to avoid what it is that is really right there in front of us: the
perfect boundary lines of following Christ that were tailor made for our souls.
The truth is that the boundaries for one disciple can be, and often are very different from another –
comparisons don’t work. Asking about John is asking the wrong question.
It’s why it is perfectly OK for some to drink alcohol while for others it marks the road to perdition.
It’s why it is OK for some to be leaders and others to be followers.
It’s why some are cut out for medicine and others law – some for teaching and others engineering.
Some for being healers and others technicians.
Some mothers and fathers and others single aunts and uncles.
The Question is not why does he or she get to do that but I don’t? But do the boundaries of my life
match the understanding of my calling as a disciple of Christ? Is what I am currently doing feeding
the depths of my soul and the souls of those around me?
In other words, have the boundary lines of the game I am playing fallen in pleasant places? If not,
then maybe it’s time to hear the words of the Risen Christ by the Sea: Follow Me…
Let us pray. Gracious Lord like the psalmist, you have set the boundaries lines of our lives in
pleasant places. Trouble is, we either want to operate completely outside of those boundaries or we
want to reset them, making them either narrower or wider than those you have set for us. Help us to
heed the call to follow your son Jesus and in so doing to see the depth of meaning and breadth of
love and height of joy to be found within the bounds of that high calling. In the name Christ we
pray, Amen.
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