When playing hide and seek, Lucy decides to hide in a wardrobe – a closet that stored old winter coats. Wanting to be really well hidden, she takes a step back and then another and another until she notices that the warm wool and fur of the coats suddenly feels more like evergreen tree branches. She takes one step further and she finds herself no longer in the wardrobe but in the land of Narnia.
This is how C.S.Lewis’ Chronicles of Narniabegins. When Lucy is in-between the wardrobe and Narnia, in that place where the coats start to feel like tree branches, she was in what is called a “Liminal place.”
Liminal gets its name from the word lintel, the piece of wood that you step over when you cross the threshold of a doorway. A liminal time is when you feel like you are neither here nor there but in-between. That’s what this time of pandemic feels like to me. We are living in a liminal time, a time between what we used to consider “normal” and a time when the corona virus will be contained. We are in transition, not really knowing where we’re going and not able to go back to where we were.
It’s a surprising time: Who would have guessed a year ago that we would be worshipping at home – either online or with a mailed bulletin? I certainly wouldn’t have – nor would I have guessed at the creativity that has sprung up as we seek to connect with one another via online worship, zoom, and with good old telephone calls. And it isn’t just us. People are reaching out more than ever. Verizon recently reported that customers are making 800 million calls a day now—double the amount on a normal Mother’s Day and sending 9 billion text messages.
The whole world is in liminal time, a time of uncertainty, a time of crisis. So what do we do? We could just hunker down and wait. But the church has been on the verge of this liminal time for a while now and so maybe this is an opportunity to try new things. As Winston Churchill is often credited with saying, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” That’s because, in a crisis, people are more open to trying new things – because we have to – and we are less afraid of failing. Not all experiments are going to work. But there is no shame in that! Who knows? Some of our experiments may birth new ways of being church together and reach people that we have not reached before.
When Jesus was talking with the disciples about keeping his commandments, the disciples did not realize that this was Jesus’ last night with them. They did not know they were about to enter a liminal time – a time of uncertainty, of unknowing, a time in which everything that had seemed certain would be changed. God was doing a new thing, and like it or not, they were a part of it.
Jesus tries to prepare them. He assures them that, even though they might feel abandoned, lonely and afraid, they could count on two things staying the same:
1) God loves them;
2) They will notbe alone.
But…Jesus does not hide the fact that some things are going to change.
Yet even in the changes, they will not be abandoned. They will have an Advocate. The Greek word is paraclete. Parameans “with” and cletemeans “walk”. So a Paraclete is one who walks with you, who is your advocate. Jesus promises that the Paraclete, who is also called the Holy Spirit, will accompany them – and us!.
In addition to comforting the disciples, Jesus also encourages them to act. He tells them: keep my commandments.Again, some things remain the same - the commandments of Jesus haven’t changed for the disciples – or for us. Remember? The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all our heart and strength and might. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments were based on commandments given from the beginning of God’s relationship with God’s people. Some things don’t change.
‘In this liminal time, this time in which our routines have been disrupted and habits changed, uncertainty prevails and it is tempting to despair. But at times like this, it is good to remember what we can count on – what stays the same. What Jesus said to the disciples, I proclaim to you:
1st: Jesus loves you ;
2nd: Jesus will never abandon youbut has sent the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit to walk with you; and
3rd: Jesus calls us into action!
What is this action? We are called to love God, our neighbors and ourselves just as Jesus loves us. This is what is core to our faith and to who we are as God’s people.
I know this time is hard. Change is hard. Yet, in this liminal time, we have discovered that we can adapt. It no longer works to “do it like we always have.” As a result, we are finding new ways to share the love of God and resurrecting old old ways. Creativity is exploding! For example, we and our Wildfire partners are in the midst of creating a VBS at Home. It’s creative, it’s fun and we hope to engage parents and youth as well as kids. And that’s a good thing.
In this liminal time, I invite you to hold on to both God’s promises that remain the same: God loves you and will never abandon you and, even in the midst of change, trust that the Holy Spirit will walk with us as God calls us into action to love and serve God and our neighbor as Christ has loved and served us.
The hymn that we are about to sing proclaims those things that Jesus promises will not change – God’s love and the promise to be with you always. These are the promises you received at baptism: “I have called you each by name…I love you and you are mine.”
And, because music has a way of staying with us, the song that we will sing at the end of the service will remind us we are called into God’s transforming mission even as things change. The ways that we can act now may be different than they were before the pandemic. But with Jesus calling and the Holy Spirit leading, God’s possibilities for you to share God’s transforming Good News have just begun. Thanks be to God. Amen!