“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” begins Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall.” The story of the poem describes mending stone walls between farms in the spring. It has a repetitive line, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Do they?
In central Kentucky old stone walls pepper the rolling countryside. Many were built in the early 1800s. There is one on our farm, up an almost 90 degree cliff, in the middle of woods along the creek. It has always puzzled me: why would people have carried stones to build a wall here?
Walls with God
Today’s first reading comes from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy replicates some of the story of the Israelites in the desert that is told in more detail in Exodus. Moses has come down from Mt. Sinai the second time with the second set of stone tablets. It is still early on the forty year trek back to Canaan. At least this second time Moses does not find the people reveling around images of other gods. Yet, he worries. This is a stiff necked people. He tells them,
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.
For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods,
the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
who has no favorites, accepts no bribes;
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow,
and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him.
So you too must befriend the alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.
The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve;
A Stiff-Necked People
That term, “stiff-necked,” was first used by God to describe the Israelites, but Moses picked it up. Stiff necked meant, literally, to refuse to bow one’s head in submission to God. When we bow our head, as we do at the Incarnation in the Creed on Sunday, we pray with our bodies, “I submit to you, Lord. You are God, the Creator; I am your creature, willingly submissive to you.”
To be “stiff-necked” is to remain autonomous, with a wall, before God. In today’s reading, Moses is saying, “Bow down and submit, not just physically, but with your heart. Give yourself over to God’s love and God’s way.”
Today’s Gospel
Today’s Gospel is a strange story. Jesus sends Peter to catch a fish with a coin in it to pay a controversial tax without it costing them anything. What in the world is that about? One simple explanation is that for God, “something is that doesn’t love a wall.” Jesus is avoiding controversy and conflict (walls) by finding a creative solution. In a sense, he finds a way to construct a wall around him and Peter to protect them from complicated, unjust rules of the society around them.
The Gospel could be saying, “Circumcise your heart—and let God take care of the details. He finds ways.”
Autonomy and God
My work with the Carebound in our parish, combined with my professional history of writing curriculum, leads me now to work on a curriculum to help elders and their families understand Church teaching on end-of-life issues. Too, too many times I have walked with families in distress because a sudden medical emergency has moved an elder parent from “doing OK” to possibly facing end-of-life decisions. There are so many questions: Who makes decisions if mom is in too much pain to think? How can we know if this medical test or treatment is needed? What if dad is unconscious, and the hospital wants to withdraw food and water? Is all hospice care the same?
Church teaching on these questions is logical, practical, and compassionate, but the logic and the love in the logic are not well known. They are not easy to understand if you lack a background in Catholic moral thinking processes. One source I’m now reading talks about the difficulty that “autonomy” causes us in our culture. Our culture tends to believe that autonomy (our freedom to think, choose, and act) is what gives a person dignity. It would also seem it is what gives a person a stiff neck with God.
By contemporary autonomy logic, a person whose mind is no longer able to think and choose lacks the inherent dignity of a human person. In contrast, “The Church teaches that human dignity is not determined by autonomy, but rather it is inherent in our human nature. Dignity ultimately flows from our origin in, redemption by, and destiny with God. Such infinite human worth exists ‘prior to society and must be recognized by it.’” (Edward Furton & Mark Hnatiuk, MD, “Patient Suicide within Medicine,” in Catholic Health Care Ethics: A Manual for Practitioners, 3rd Edition, Philadelphia: National Bioethics Center, p 20.6)
Back to “Circumcise Your Hearts”
As I get deep into Catholic moral process logic, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of how the theologians, popes, and saints through the centuries have woven for us such a solid foundation for approaching end-of-life while holding God’s hand. They have built a solid wall to protect us when the world would cross our boundaries.
Yet, how little I have known of the depths and beauty of this logic—even as I have been active in the pro-life movement since the 1970s. Years ago, I guess I circumcised my heart and will to bow to God on life issues—because God and Church said so and because it made common sense to me.
Yet now, I find a beautiful, unknown until now, wall of God’s living stones that God and Church have built to guide us as we face entering Eternity from within complex medical systems and values.
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” the poet says, yet “good fences make good neighbors.” As a people of God in the 21st century, perhaps it is good for us to ask, “Where have we built walls?” Between God’s way of living and our autonomy—or between God’s way and the values of contemporary society? Which wall needs mending—and which wall needs to come down?
Prayer:
Lead me, guide me, Lord. There is so much I have not known about Your way, Your logic, the inherent beauty of Your love applied to practical social dilemmas. Tip my neck downward if it stiffens, give me eyes to see and ears to hear the wonders of Your love applied to practical problems–in my life, in my writing, in my teaching. Let there be no walls between us, Lord, but help me build or mend walls that keep Your people safe.
