Currently a group of people have drawn a line in the sand
and have occupied a building in a national park in Oregon. Not only have they
occupied the building they have weapons with them. They say they do not want
violence, but they are prepared for violence should any law enforcement
agencies try to remove them.
Having read part of their account of things over the
years, it is not all that difficult to hear their frustration, anger, and
feeling of being handled badly by the government. Not only are they mad, they
are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. I know there is another
side of the story. There always is. They have drawn their line in the sand.
Drawing a line in the sand can have a couple of meanings.
One the one hand, it can mean that one has reached their limit. “I’m not
compromising one bit more.” On the other hand, it can mean a limit has been
defined for another. “This is where it stops. If you cross that line, there
will be serious repercussions.”
The famous line of Martin Luther, “Here I stand, I can do
no other,” indicates he had drawn a line in the sand. It is interesting that
while he had drawn a line in the sand he never left the Roman Catholic church. In
our recent past there have been many lines drawn in the sand concerning
decisions and policies of the church. For some the church crossed the line in
the sand with the ordination of homosexuals. For others it was approval of same
gender marriage.
It was too much for some to tolerate any further. They
could not remain in any portion of the church which approved or allowed what
they considered to be biblical absolutes of forbidden belief or behavior.
Rather than crossing that line in the sand they withdrew and joined others who
think like they do. One minister told me that the approval of the ordination
and marriage issues was a clear indication of the church’s total abandonment of
biblical authority. He had reached his line in the sand.
In earlier times the same was said about women’s suffrage,
racial equality, ordination of women, and several other issues which became
lines in the sand, indicators that the church had gone much farther than some
were able to go.
The funny thing about lines in the sand is that they are
drawn in the sand, not in a substance which remains relatively unchanged over a
long period of time. Draw a line in the desert sands and the elements soon cover
it with more sand. Draw a line on the sand along an ocean shore and the water
moves more sand to erase it.
Lines of demarcation drawn in the sand do not last
long. As time washes across the lines we have drawn in the sand, the lines
eventually vanish. There are times when we have to say, “I’ll not go one step
further.” In the long run, lines in the sand are not immutable. If one draws a
line in the sand today will it still be there tomorrow, next week, next month,
next year, the next decade, or the next century? Eventually, changing times and circumstances
will blow or wash away our line in the sand.
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