'Living through liminal times'
A reflection for Wed 24th June (Birth of John the Baptist):
- Isaiah 40:1-11
- Psalm 85:7-end
- Luke 1:57-66, 80
Psalm 85, ‘righteousness and peace kiss’, www.shuna-art.co.uk
Do you remember when ‘going into
someone’s house’ was something we took for granted?! When we didn’t give a
passing thought to the moment we stepped over someone’s doorstep? When ‘popping
round to see someone’ meant going into their kitchen for a cuppa, not knocking
on the door and then taking four steps backwards?
The Latin word for ‘doorstep’ is limen
– from which we get the English word ‘liminal’, the name for those ‘threshold’ times
and spaces that are ‘betwixt and between’, ‘neither here nor there’ – times and
spaces of ‘comings and goings’, of transition and change.
We’re in one hell of a liminal
space right now. As a church, we’ve just (Sunday 21st) said farewell
to Jenni, our curate for the last 3 years; we’re just about (Sunday 28th)
to formally welcome Gloria into her new role and ministry among us as curate.
As a country, we’re entering into a new phase in the easing of the COVID-19
‘lockdown’ – and there are more possibilities for where we’re allowed to go,
and what we’re able to do, whilst still having to be very careful to limit the
risk of spreading the virus that hasn’t simply ‘disappeared’. And as a world,
we’re continuing to dig deep into the questions of how we might live life
differently, order our societies differently – what a ‘new normal’ might look
like, in the wake of COVID-19, with the ongoing global environmental emergency,
and in a world where, finally, many of us who are white are waking up to the
racism that is so deeply ingrained in both our collective history, and in the
present-day structures of our society. And then, to come full circle back to
church, we who are Christians in Hodge Hill need to spend time asking
ourselves, what might/should ‘church’ look like, in this different world? Yes,
we really are in a profoundly liminal space right now.
Our readings today, on the day
the worldwide Church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist, offer us a
number of images that help us think a bit more about this experience of being
in ‘liminal’ space.
In our Isaiah reading, we’re in
the wilderness. The people of Israel – or many of them, at least
– have been invaded, captured, and taken into exile. They’re a long way from
the place they’ve called ‘home’. The place where they find themselves isn’t a desert,
where there is hardly any life at all, but a wilderness, a wild
place, where there is plenty of life, but that life feels strange,
uncomfortable, threatening even. The wilderness is where nettles and brambles
thrive, and the kinds of animals that we call ‘wild’ because they’re not
necessarily friendly, and certainly not domesticated. Wildernesses are, by
definition, not places that are easy to spend time in, or to travel through.
And it’s into this experience of
wilderness and exile, that through the prophet Isaiah God speaks words of
‘comfort’ and ‘tenderness’. Enough is enough, the time has come, ‘here is your
God’, coming to you, coming to feed you, gather you, carry you, lead you. God
is coming to be with you in the wilderness, and to guide you through it.
I wonder, what parts of life –
for you, for our church community, for our society and our world – feel like
‘wilderness’ right now?
I wonder what it might mean
for us, to know that God is with us in the wilderness, and is guiding us
through it? I wonder what we might do, very intentionally, to actively put our
trust in that God, in the midst of everything that is going on in the world?
In our reading from the beginning
of Luke’s gospel, we find ourselves with Elizabeth, in the middle of
childbirth. As moments of transition go, giving birth is one of the big ones in
many people’s lives – and being born is a universal experience, even if we
probably don’t remember it! Childbirth can sometimes be quick, and can
sometimes feel like it’s taking forever. I remember, over the hours in which
Janey was giving birth to Rafi, praying the ‘how long, O Lord’ of Psalm 13,
repeatedly. And however good the drugs are, labour always involves pain – a
pain that some of us who’ve not been through it can barely imagine. When we
talk of ‘new beginnings’, we would be wise not to forget the real, lengthy,
painful labour that our most embodied of new beginnings involve. It can’t be
rushed – it will happen in its own good time. It’s painful, and it’s fraught –
even today – with risk, and the potential for grief as much as joy.
And then there is something quite
particular about this birth, to Elizabeth and Zechariah. A birth heralded
by an angel, a messenger of God. A birth that has involved a literally
dumb-struck father – for a whole nine months – because he can’t believe what is
happening. A birth that sees the child’s mother breaking with tradition,
because it is she who names the child (not, as expected, the father),
and because the name she gives him is a new one to their family lineage. Truly
God is doing something new here, and Elizabeth, who had been cruelly labelled
‘barren’, is the one who brings it to birth. The onlookers are right to wonder,
‘What then will this child become?’
I wonder, what signs have we
seen of something new coming to birth – in our own lives, in our church
community, in our neighbourhood, in our society and our world?
I wonder where it is time to
break with tradition, time for different voices to be heard, or time for us to
use a new name, or new language, beyond the familiar?
And finally, in between Isaiah’s
prophecy and Luke’s story of John’s birth, we have the words of Psalm 85. Words
of a people longing to see God’s presence, to hear God’s voice, to live in
God’s peace. ‘I will listen,’ says the Psalmist, ‘to what the Lord God
will say’. The Psalmist who elsewhere says, ‘I will wait for the Lord’
(Psalm 130:5-6), ‘I will seek your face’ (Psalm 27:8), ‘I will hope
continually’ (Psalm 71:14). Wait, seek, hope, listen. These are Advent words –
for today’s Advent story. The Christian calendar does this at times – throws us
into different seasons, especially in the long expanse of what is called ‘ordinary
time’ that we’ve now entered. But even in this time of lockdown, when every day
blurs into the others, there is no such thing as a time when ‘nothing much
happens’. Now is the time for waiting, seeking, hoping, listening. Now is the
time, even when our attention spans feel limited, for straining to pay
attention to what is going on – both within us, and around us. And when we pay
attention in a way that cuts through the media hype, the political spin, and
the excitable adverts of re-opened shops, what will we hear, and see? Even in
the midst of this time of distancing, disconnection and division, we will, with
the Psalmist, see faithfulness springing up from the ground, justice looking
down from the sky, steadfast love and faithfulness meeting together,
justice and peace kissing each other – and inviting us to join them.
I wonder, how can we practise
‘listening to what the Lord God will say’? What will help us to pay attention,
beyond the media hype, political spin, and advertisements to consume, to what
God is doing? And when we do, what are we hearing and seeing – and how can we
join in?
