I’m roughly nine months into my 20 month commitment at St Luke’s Lutheran Church in Bellevue. The church has commissioned its pastor to go on pilgrimage to Holden Village for about a year and an half, and I get to serve while Pastor Mark learns and grows.
Each week the staff sends out a newsletter updating our faith community about our life together, so each week I get to write a letter to the congregation. I thoroughly enjoy doing this. Most often I integrate some of what I’ve sensing of our collective journey, with the church’s calendar, with our lectionary texts, with what’s alive in me, our culture(s), and our local communities. What fun!
It’s not uncommon for me to take what I’ve written for this community and edit it slightly before posting it here. So its quite possible – if you’ve visited my site previously – that you may have encountered a post that was inspired by doing life with this particular faith collective, (Sept 1, June 10, or May 25 are just a few examples).
Today, I thought I would post my letter as I wrote it for St Luke’s. Here it is:
“Our Quest for Faithful Presence”
by Dwight J. Friesen
Dear St Luke’s,
I have started and terminated eight different “Quests.” This is my ninth try! How is it, that it’s the second weekend of September and I already can’t seem to keep up with it all?
I suppose it takes just a little time to settle into the changes of life’s rhythms. Being back to school has a different rhythm than summer vacation… retirement has a different rhythm than professional life… emerging out of pandemic has a different rhythm than lockdown… etc. I don’t know about you but sometimes I find transitions challenging; even transitions that I’ve been looking forward to!
Sometimes in those moments of transition I struggle with being kind to myself. For some reason I have this self-expectation that I should be able to effortlessly move from one thing to another without skipping a beat. The truth is I skip beats. I miss steps. I know I’m not alone in this.
Shoot, we were recently reminded in one of our lectionary readings that when the children of Israel were being led by God from captivity to freedom – talk about a different rhythm – they stopped and formed a golden calf to worship. Think about that. The Creator God, the God of ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel) was leading them in a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night. God was with them in a way most of us wish was so clear, yet they miss stepped. Transitions are hard.
Being thrown off rhythm in the midst of their transition they gasped for something, anything. Turns out what they grasped for was idolatrous. Rather than finding ways to stay open to the God who was so clearly leading them they decided to double down of what they’d known while in captivity. We all do it. It’s challenging to stay open when you’re not sure which way is up; we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, a relationship that has usually been a source of life turns sour, something that used to be effortless is now out of reach, a schedule we’ve grown accustomed is reconfigured, etc. We all long for the leeks of Egypt.
Our wise ancestors in the faith knew this struggle. As challenging as times of transition can be, such times are also the pathway to life. The wise ones invite us to embrace our seasons in the desert as liminal spaces. As you know liminal space is an in-between space. It is like you’re standing in the doorway, not yet in, not quite out, on the threshold. You’re living in the in-between. It takes courage to stay open while in that place. Interestingly, many of the rites and rituals we use in our faith tradition have been designed to hold us in liminal seasons.
Many of our practices mark transitions. They remind us that others have journeyed similar paths, that our community will be with us, and that God is with us… we are not alone. Weddings, funerals, ordinations, confirmations, and at least this weekend Rally Sunday. These kinds of rituals mark moments of transition.
Friends, so many realms of our personal lives, our relational lives, our economic lives, our bodied lives, our emotional lives, and our collective experience are liminal spaces. We sense we are on unstable ground. On the threshold of something we haven’t known… at least not in quite this way. Let’s learn from the children of Israel… their impulse to gather was good, their impulse to worship was great, yet, rather than open to the God who was leading them into freedom, they turned back to the ‘gods’ of captivity.
It is my growing sense that, more than ever, we need each other. We live in an era of cultural liminality and church liminality. As we gather let’s dare one another to open up to loving in the way of Jesus, to open up to the God who leads to freedom, to open to the newness of God’s Shalom. Let’s dare each other to embrace liminality, as if God is with us, even here.
Summer is over. Autumn is here. Our rhythm is different. Something new is being invited. I’m looking forward to marking this transition with you and the rest of our St Luke’s community. Its Rally Sunday!
Please remember you are not alone, you belong, and you are loved.
St Luke’s Weekly Enews, “Our Quest for Faithful Presence”
Peace, dwight
