Defining boundaries by relationship

Where do I belong?

We often think about boundaries as things delimited by a border or line.  Things inside the line belong with other things inside the line. But, historically, this has not always been the case. 
In the Bible, when the land was being divided up, it is often described by terminology like "Heshbon and her towns."  The areas outside the towns were described using words like, "these cities and their pasturelands."

The boundaries of a land were described by its cities, the towns associated with the cities, and the farmland and pastureland associated with the cities and towns.  The people in the towns would graze their animals in areas often without clear boundaries.  The ownership of this land was then associated with whoever was using it.

Thailand gives one of its claims to fame that it has never been colonized.  Yet, it did not have an actual boundary until the early 1900's, when the kingdom had already been around for a few centuries.  Before that time, it was more like the Biblical system, with the kingdom consisting of whatever cities were under the rule of the king along with their associated towns and rural lands.  The cities under the rule of the King of Siam varied with time, as there was often conflict with adjoining kingdoms and a given city might belong to different kingdoms over time. "Borders" between kingdoms thus tended to have very jagged edges. Trying to put lines up between two countries becomes problematic, because the lines break some of these relational connections. Stability happens when all of most of the people living within a given physical boundary claim allegiance to the same ruler (or to the same rules, in a constitutional state).

Statue of Mengrai the Great in Chiang Rai
First King of the Lanna Kingdom
(Northern Thailand)

Even in present-day Thailand, you still see this fuzzy boundary system to some degree.  When you drive around the rural areas, you may pass through a village, then you typically pass through 4 to 6 kilometers of farmland until you get to the next village, with no clear demarcation dividing the two.

The political boundaries here are fairly well structured.  Each province is divided into districts, districts are divided into sub-districts and sub-districts are divided into villages.  Along the road you may see a sign marking when you enter a village, but I often wonder, when I am in farmland, to which village does a piece of land belong.  It may be less related to proximity than to other forms of connectedness.  If the main access road goes to one town, the land may be considered (practically, if not legally) as belonging to that town instead of one that is closer.  Transportation corridors that form this connectedness may be roads, paths or waterways.

When I was young, I lived in what was called a bedroom community.  Wolcott did not have much business of its own and most people worked in the adjoining towns of Waterbury or Bristol.  Even though we lived only 1/2 mile from Bristol, we were Waterbury people.  My father worked in that city and we went to church in that city.  We did most of our business there.  My aunt and uncle down the street were Bristol people.  My uncle worked in Bristol and they went to church in Bristol and they did a lot of their business in Bristol.

A few years ago, we lived in the province of Chachoengsao.  But the village we were in was close to Bangkok and most of the people worked in Bangkok and we did most of our shopping in Bangkok.  Because of this, our circle of relationships was different than that of our teammates who lived closer to the city of Chachoengsao. So even though we legally lived in Chachoengsao, for all practical purposes we lived in Bangkok.  The line on the map had little impact on our daily life.

In my previous occupation, we often looked at things on a watershed basis.  With this method, whatever waterway draining a piece of real estate became the common factor determining relationship.  I actually like this method a lot, and one of the first things I like to know when I go someplace is where the water flows.

When we lived in Wolcott, there was a pond in our backyard. This pond was the headwaters of the Mad River, which drained south into Waterbury.  Along the way, it passed through Cedar Swamp Pond, that actually was half in Bristol.  So even those people living along the edge of the pond in Bristol had a relationship with Waterbury.  The nutrients leaking from their septic systems went into the lake and the downstream into Waterbury, eventually flowing into the Naugatuck River.

Just beyond the rise east of our pond was some forested swampland.  This swamp was the headwaters of Roaring Brook which flowed east into Southington where it joined the Quinnipiac River.  Even though we lived in the Mad River watershed, my favorite place to hang out was in the undeveloped forest land on the east side of town that was in the Quinnipiac River watershed.  And I tended to hang out with people who lived there as well as my circle of friends was a youth group from a church in that area.

Connecticut Watershed Map
from http://www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=2719&q=325628&deepNav_GID=1654%20

This relational-defined boundary has applications in our spiritual lives as well.  When Jesus came to earth, he talked a lot about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven (not all Christians consider these to be the same, but I do) consists of all those who submit to the Kingship of God.  This is not a geographically defined kingdom but one defined by relationship.

Some of us are reluctant to declare a relationship with only one king.  Just as, in the past, a remote city might pay homage to two kings to hedge its bets, so we like to have both a relationship with ruler of the Kingdom of God and a relationship with the god of this world. 

Paul tells us that Satan is the god of this world.

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT)

The picture we have then is of two kingdoms, and we need to decide which one we want to be a part of.  Will I declare allegiance to the creator of the universe or will I declare allegiance to the rebellious leader who wants to claim this world as his own?

Changing allegiances can be difficult.  If a person in this part of the world wants become a part of the kingdom of God, he or she will be surrounded by and greatly outnumbered by those claiming allegiance to another kingdom.  It would be like a city in the middle of a country rising up in rebellion and claiming allegiance to a different country.  All the cities around it might not be too happy about it. Pray that the new believers here remain strong in their new allegiance.