"Liminalities" February 18, 2018

Genesis 9: 8-17 Mark 1: 9-15 From Christmas December 25th until Today, there have been 40 Days of Teaching, not counting weekends, vacations, holidays. In these same 40 Days, there have been Multiple “Gun-Fire Incidents at Schools” across the United States. It is sensational to say “18 School Shootings”, because while 7 did result in mass deaths, 2 were suicides, some were fights between individuals or gangs, and in 5 the trigger was pulled and no one was injured. Regardless how we characterize these, when Columbine and Sandy Hook happened, we were scandalized, traumatized by the death of teachers and children, in hallowed halls of learning. With Mass Shootings every year since, we have embraced Chaos. We have faces and names for Evil. In the Ancient World, it was accepted that the world was flat, and the edges of the world between the reality we accept/ and the chaos beyond, was “Liminal space”. This is where we get the concept of Limits being What we choose to Accept, and Sub-Liminal being Uncontrolled, inVoluntary. “Liminalities” are any time or space in-between what is and what could be. Lent is a Liminal time = the 40 Nights & Days, not including Sundays, of our preparation of our souls for Easter’s Resurrection. That could be a literal 40 days, or any extended period of about two moon cycles. In Celtic places, they describe there being “thin-places” where Heaven & Earth meet, where we might have visions of God; Thin-places are liminalities. As much as we try to be settled, to seek resolution, we live in constant transition in-between. Faith is not religion or ritual. Those are the traditions and practices intended to help us through Liminal transition FAITH is being in intentional relationship to God. According to Judaism that relationship is defined by Torah= Law, According to Islam by Koran, according to Christianity by our relationships with both God, one another, and ourselves. God’s Covenant Relationship with Noah is one of the foundational stories of faith in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. My fear is that we have so domesticated this story of God, that we have made this into a cute bedtime story for our littlest babies about Rainbows, Unicorns, “Going into the Arky Arky by twosies twosies”. In the Beginning, the whole world was Chaos, A Waste and Void in time and Space. There are moments in our lives, which give us a taste of how horrible Chaos can be. And God created boundaries for Chaos, Light to balance Dark, a Firmament in the Heavens, Shores for the Seas. But the Wild Beasts in us, instead of living together in harmony, instead of serving others & God, unleashed greater & greater devastation. And God was wounded and angered by what the Beasts in People were doing, and God unleashed Chaos on the world. An Ark, is not simply a big boat. An ARK describes a place for a vulnerable, sacred remnant, protection from chaos. Baby Moses’ parents had to do what Pharaoh’s Law required, placing their son into the Nile, but as an act of faith, they placed the baby inside a basket, an Ark, to float. The People of Israel wandered through the Wilderness, and the 10 Commandments of stone were too pure, too holy for the people to look upon even broken. So the Ark of the Covenant was created for the Priests to carry them. Yet what is routinely ignored, the Point of this Covenant with Noah and this Ark, is that God learned through this experience. What an Amazing Claim! Even All Knowing, All Powerful, God can learn and choose to live differently. God learned, that while God could kill and destroy, acting in anger was not right or helpful to Creation. Forgiveness is not Giving In, not a matter of Compromise, FORGIVENESS is an act of GRACE that we cannot live continuing with the wound between us, so we choose in faith to act different. God made a sacred vow, cut a covenant into the fabric of time and space, that God never again would destroy the face of the earth with flood. Twenty years ago, in this community, we experienced Domestic Violence. This is the reason when we enter Hospitals we have to pass Security and receive a Nametag, because a trusted Man, destroyed his wife, our illusion of domestic peace, in anger. Genesis’ point of decision, in that Liminal moment, as a new Creative Act, God Chose: never again to allow the Unbounded Destructive Power of Chaos to be set free. I love this set of brief clauses in the 1st Chapter of Mark, which name that there are Wild Beasts, Monsters living in the Dark, in the liminal Space of Wilderness. “After the Baptism by John the Spirit drove Jesus into the Wilderness.” “He was in the wilderness 40 days tempted by Satan.” “He was with Wild Beasts and angels ministered to him.” I imagine that what the Evangelist is trying to get across to us, is that none of us, not even Jesus, receive faith or life with everything all figured out. We have to live life. Just as there is more to being in relationship than Minister pronounces you Married; More to a Career than earning a paycheck for 20 years; there is More than being Baptized or Confirmed or Ordained: to having Trust in Communion. Instead, liminal transitions take time, to grow up from being tempted by every form of temptation, to living your life for others. Confronting the Wild Beast in us, is described later by Jesus in Mark as “Binding the Strong Man in Us.” We each begin with a Wild Beast, a Chaos in our own wants and demands. Living together, being ministered to by angels, we learn to be in Communion. As Jesus continued to minister to the Lepers and the Geresene Demoniac and others, he reached out to the Wild Beast in each, ministering out of love, he gave himself. The Students at Parkland on Ash Wednesday, began declaring through Social Media that the Chaos of the last 40 Days, the Mass Shootings must end. End by our choosing to speak out, each of us choosing to confront the Wild Beast in ourselves and one another, making a Solemn Vow, a Covenant to each other and to God to prevent Chaos taking over.