There’s a line in Psalm 16 that I underlined in the very first Bible I ever had, when I was a new baby Christian way back in the 1980s. It still strikes a chord today: The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely, I have a goodly inheritance. (Ps 16:6)
It’s referring to the allocations of land by Joshua when The Israelites first crossed into the promised land. Land was apportioned by lot to various tribes and then to families within those tribes. Some will have got land with trees and brooks and meadows, others will have had rocky outcrops and craggy ravines, and they had to make the best of what they were given.
Such it is with life. While we can somewhat alter the trajectory of our lives by the decisions we make and the work we put in, the big factors fall to us by lot.
It is entirely by luck that I was born into a white, English-speaking family in the second half of the twentieth century, into a healthy body with a brain that sees the patterns in maths. None of that is due to my hard work or my wise decisions. Pure luck.
Just as easily, by luck, I could been born to a slave woman in ancient Rome and left outside to die at birth, or into a loving, but desperately poor family in medieval Russia, spending my entire (short) life working in the fields, or perhaps the son of a noble warrior in Africa, China or some Polynesian Island, trained in chivalry from birth.
Entirely different lives with entirely different plusses and minuses. And not one iota my doing.
Entirely different boundary lines.
But here’s the thing: although some of those options have more pluses and others more minuses (I can’t imagine a life hauling turnips out of the frozen steppe would thrill me), we don’t actually get to choose. We get to choose some things, but most things, we don’t. We get what we are given.
If I wanted to run for US president (now there’s a can of worms!), I can’t because I was not born in the US and there is nothing I can do about that. Outside my boundary lines.
There is no point looking over the picket fence to the other guy’s inheritance and thinking, “I wish I had that olive tree/brook/grassy hummock in my patch.” The grass isn’t greener on the other side and anyway, you’re not on the other side.
There is no point my looking at someone else’s life and wishing I had what they have. For a start, I can’t see the grotty stuff that they strive to keep hidden, just as I strive to keep my grotty stuff out of public gaze. (We all have failures that we don’t trumpet.) And anyway, that’s not my life. The body-swap movies, where the kid wakes up one morning to find they’re someone else, are just stories. Doesn’t happen for real.
What does happen for real is a life lived hand-in-hand with God. God knows where I am, and wants me to grow where I am. Hankering after what I don’t have and can’t get is a sure way to discontentment, because I’ll be looking over there and missing the good stuff here, on my side of the wall. There’s a reason why the Ten Commandments includes Don’t Covet along with Don’t Murder, Don’t Lie, etc.
I’m not saying be a fatalist and give up trying. You want a nice olive tree on your side? You could always ask your neighbour for a cutting. But spending our days longing after what God has not given us is, well, kinda ungrateful. I know I’d be unimpressed if come this Christmas, one of my daughters moaned that she hadn’t got that while sitting in a mound of wrapping paper and a whole load of this.
So if chance had placed you in a life of ease and contentment, be thankful and remember that it is a gift – not yours by right. Share your blessing with others. If life has handed you the sticky end of the stick, remember that God is with you in the pit and that bad luck does not make you a bad person, simply unlucky. Check out the video below. How many steps would you have taken?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJAgPF5FNTQ&ab_channel=JonTaylor-Cummings
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely, I have a goodly inheritance.
Liturgy Resources for Proper 28
Hebrews 10:11-25
Confession and Absolution
My brothers and sisters, since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart, with our hearts sprinkled clean, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us confess our sins to Almighty God.
For failing to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, strength:
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
For failing to love our neighbours as ourselves.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
For living as though this world were our eternal home.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
(Jer 31:33-34)
or
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,” says the Lord: “I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
and he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” (Heb 10:16-17)
God, who is rich in mercy, pardon you from all your sins,
renew and strengthen you to live in righteousness,
and equip you with grace to do his will.
Amen.
Blessing and Dismissal
My brothers and sisters,
may you have a true heart in full assurance of faith,
walking with God through the new and living way,
holding fast to the confession of our hope,
for he who has promised is faithful,
and the blessing …
Go in the strength the God provides,
stirring up one another to love and good deeds,
and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Amen.
The Reflectionary 