This morning, we are hanging out in liminal space…
That’s a funny word isn’t it… liminal….
Say it with me… liminal.
It comes from Latin and means “threshold.” It is the space in between. It is transitional.
Our country is in that liminal space between an election and the swearing in of a new president.
The United Methodist Church is in a liminal space – knowing that we can’t be what we were and aren’t yet sure what we might become.
Many of us are in personal liminal spaces… a time of discomfort, of waiting, of transformation. We are experiencing transitions in relationship statuses, or maturing from childhood to adulthood. We are waiting for test results that might forever change our world or experiencing losses that already have.
The theologian Richard Rohr describes liminality this way:
It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer.
Or, if you’d prefer the theologians Aerosmith:
There’s something wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is Something’s wrong with our eyes
We’re seeing things in a different way
And god knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise
Livin’ on the edge
Every single one of us is dealing with something in our personal lives that looms large on the edges. Job insecurity. Financial woes. Racism. Personal loss. Illness. Depression. Sexism. Addiction. Work or School stress. Bullying.
Whatever it might be for you… It’s there on the edges.
We don’t talk about it… but it’s there.
And it was there for Edmund, Peter, Lucy, and Susan in the Chronicles of Narnia.
As we enter this Advent and then Christmas season and beyond, we are going to be following these four children in this magical land and hear what the author C.S. Lewis has to teach us about what it means to be people of faith in tough times.
And the story starts with this magical threshold… this doorway between two worlds that the littlest girl Lucy discovers.
We focus on the magic of that doorway… but what we sometimes overlook is the difficulty that brought all of the characters to this place in this time.
These children are in a liminal space.
The story is set during the middle of the London Blitz of World War II. Their home in the city was no longer safe. Like children in Aleppo, in Syria, today, every day they lived in terror that a bomb would drop on top of their home or school or the hospitals.
Yet these children were able to make it out of the city. They were sent away to the countryside, sent away from their parents, into a big lonely house.
Everything they knew was in turmoil… and they didn’t yet know what might happen on the other side of the war.
This summer, as we preached through the prophets, we heard the passage we shared this morning from Isaiah. About the people who lived in the land of deep darkness.
Those who lived in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali knew what it meant to live through wars and conflict. Their tribal home had been ravaged for so long that they didn’t know what hope was anymore.
There’s something wrong with the world today
The lightbulb’s gettin’ dimmed
There’s meltdown in the sky
If you can judge a wise man
By the color of his skin
Then mister, you’re a better man than I
Livin’ on the edge
Right there… on the edge… where hope had ceased and the shadows seemed longer and longer, light was promised.
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.
And so in the midst of this liminal season of her life, Lucy hides in a closet and discovers a magical doorway between worlds.
She finds herself in a forest, surrounded by snow, and she sees a light shining in the distance.
It is a lamppost.
A light shining on the edge.
“It is a beacon in the face of the dark, cold spell that lies on the land,” writes the author of our devotion Advent in Narnia.
Both lands. All lands.
London and Narnia. Syria and Israel. The United States. The World.
The lamppost, which stands there at the boundary between Narnia and the “wild woods of the west” remains shining in the darkness. The power of the white witch who has taken over Narnia… the darkness of despair, sin, and death which threatens to overtake our lives… it cannot put that light out. It shines. Always has… always will.
As we will hear read on Christmas Eve, the gospel of John reminds us that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.
And we hear… that the people loved the darkness more than the light.
As the Message puts it… the light entered the world “and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people and they didn’t want him.”
In the midst of our story of light, we are reminded that that we are human.
It is so often our sin that is the cause of the world’s darkness.
Hatred and greed. Nationalism and pride. Consumer impulses that fail to recognize the cost to others and this planet.
That is why we are reminded in the gospel of Luke that the door is narrow and few will enter it.
Mr. Tumnus is the perfect example of this reality. He is working for the witch, even though he knows it is wrong because he is too afraid to do otherwise.
We are too struck by the darkness.
We are too consumed with ourselves.
Something right with the world today
And everybody knows it’s wrong
But we can tell ’em no
Or we could let it go
But I would rather be a hanging on
Livin’ on the edge
My colleague Dan Dick has some challenging words for people of faith right now. He writes as Advent begins:
Do we need a Savior? Do we need a Messiah? Yes, oh yes, but we really don’t want one – not if he/she is going to expect us to live up to our confession of faith. If we have to honor the promises made for us at baptism and the promises we have made ourselves since then, well…, we will take a pass on the Messiah, thank you very much… we really can’t afford/tolerate the Son of God coming to mess things up. (https://doroteos2.com/2016/11/26/wanted-savior-some-experience-required/)
We have a chance to say goodbye to the darkness and let go of our own sin and anger, disappointment and loss, frustration and hatred and focus on the light, the hope, the love, the promises of God.
There is light and right and good in this world… if only we would open our eyes to see it, open our hearts to experience it… open our hands to live it.
There is something so right in this world today and we are too scared, fearful, consumed to believe it!
But as Jesus instructs the people in chapter 13 of Luke’s gospel – unless you change your hearts and lives… unless you repent… unless you turn away from the darkness you will never enter that narrow door.
Mr. Tumnus was out there in the liminal space… hanging out by the lamppost.
We don’t know what brought him to that moment, but what we do know is that in the story, he finds a child.
A child that offers him hope and light, love and forgiveness.
A child that gives him the courage to turn away from the shadows.
This Advent season, we have a chance to enter that narrow door.
We have a chance to enter that liminal space of transformation.
Friends, all I ask is that you open yourself to the possibility.
I ask that you step outside of your comfort zone.
I pray that you will enter and journey in Narnia with me this season.
Come live on the edge. Come experience the light. Come and wait for the coming of our savior.
It just might change your life.
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