Our Sunday Message

Faith in the Liminal Life Spaces: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Rev. Dr. Kenneth A. Corr
June 18, 2006
Second Sunday of Kingdomtide

  A middle-aged man had worked for the same company for thirty years. He had a middle management position for which he was reasonably suited. He felt happy, but more importantly, he felt secure. Because of events beyond his control, he was suddenly outplaced and facing retraining. And he grieved.
  Life is filled with transitions that are often unplanned and unwanted resulting in grief, anger, disappointment, and anxiety.
  A high school senior was being recruited by several major universities for an athletic scholarship. In an instant, he suffered a serious injury and the athletic scholarship that he was counting on was gone. He not only lost his dream of playing professional sports, but he lost his chance to attend a major university. And he grieved.
Life can change without warning and you find yourself facing a very uncertain future. You are no longer living in a secure present, but in a transitional place between what has been and what is yet to be.
  A young mother of three loved her daily routine of carpooling, shopping, and housekeeping. She had never dreamed of being anything other than a mother and homemaker. Then came the divorce and she found herself single and looking for full-time employment. And she grieved.
  Another word for this transitional place between what has been and what is yet to be is liminal space. It is a word that refers to that which is just beyond our perception. What has always been familiar is no more, but what is going to take its place has not yet come into view. It is a scary place to be.
  A congregation hired a new pastor and felt convinced that he was the one to lead them into their best days. But the initial enthusiasm soon gave way to division and conflict and within a year the new pastor was gone. The congregation was now in the midst of a pastor search and divided over her identity. And they grieved.
  A few weeks ago, Kimbrough Simmons led our deacons’ retreat and presented the model of the emergent church. The church in America is in the midst of change over worship style, pastoral leadership, and church polity. We don’t know yet what the church is going to look like or even if the church as we know it is going to survive. It’s a scary place to be.
  Samuel anointed Saul as king and had invested time and energy in helping him to succeed. It became clear that regardless what Samuel did to help, Saul was never going to be the king that Israel needed. It seemed as though the monarchy was a failed experiment in governance.
  And Samuel grieved.
  The text begins in that transitional place between what has been and what is to come; the liminal space between what is familiar and what is emerging.
  Today begins a summer series of sermons on the life of David. The reign of David was the golden age of Israel’s history, the zenith of the monarchy, the prototype of the messianic reign. But it is a story that begins in disappointment, failure, grief, and uncertainty. “Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.”
  In the midst of the grief, it was hard to imagine that the greatest days were just ahead. The greater the disappointment, the more difficult it is to believe in a better future. But the good news is that in the liminal life spaces, God is at work in ways that are beyond our ability to see or imagine.
  “The Lord said to Samuel . . . . Fill your horn with oil and set out.”
God was already moving into the future. Our belief is that in the midst of liminal life spaces, God is always just ahead of us, calling us into a new future. There are possibilities that we can’t yet see. Faith is trust in what we can’t yet see. It is the not only the assurance of things hoped for, but “the conviction of things not yet seen.” But it is a scary place to be.
  “If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.”
  Don’t underestimate the seriousness of this threat. There are very real forces that resist change. Some of these are within us. In his book, Resolution of Inner Conflict, Frank Auld tells the story of a 25 year-old man who was plagued by recurring nightmares. Frank Auld says, “He opened one psychotherapy session this way: He said that, fearing he would forget the details of a frightening dream he had had the previous night, he wrote down the details on a piece of paper so that he could produce them in his therapy session. With a perplexed look on his face, he reported that he had lost the paper on which he had written the dream material.”1 Don’t underestimate the forces that are at work even within ourselves to resist change.
  But God said, “I will show you what you are to do.”
  The essence of faith is trust that God is reliable and faithful. Do you believe that? Can you trust that God is able to lead you into the future, in spite of your past disappointments?
  The history of the Church is filled with examples of those who were willing to confront their fears and move into change. Ananias went to the house of Judas on the street called Straight even though he feared that Saul might be lying in wait to capture him and kill him.   Peter went to the home of Cornelius even though he believed that it was wrong for a Jew to converse with a Gentile. Paul went to Jerusalem even though he was warned by the prophet Agabus that he would be arrested.2 Each of these confronted their fears, trusting that God was in control of their future.
  “Samuel did what the LORD commanded, and came to Bethlehem. . . . And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. And when they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed is now before the LORD.’”
  Eliab was the oldest, probably the tallest. He stood out in the crowd. It was a natural mistake for Samuel to assume that Eliab was the next king. When Samuel anointed Saul, Saul was the tallest in the crowd. But the lesson that Samuel had to learn is that things are not always what they appear. What seems worthless may be the pearl of great price. What seems unwanted may hold the greatest promise for the future. That’s the faith lesson in the liminal life spaces.
  A middle-aged man had worked for the same company for thirty years and was suddenly outplaced and facing retraining. And he grieved.
  He had often thought that he might like to work with children and he chose this opportunity of retraining to get his degree in secondary education. He is now a high school teacher and believes that he is in the best job he could ever have.
  A high school senior suffered a serious injury and in that instant, the athletic scholarship that he was counting on was gone. He not only lost his dream of playing professional sports, but he lost his chance to attend a major university. And he grieved.
  He attended a junior college and got a job with the local newspaper covering high school sports. He decided that journalism was his passion and the newspaper paid for his remaining two years at the college of his choice.
  A young mother of three was suddenly divorced, single, and looking for full-time employment. She had never dreamed of being anything other than a mother and homemaker. And she grieved.
  She got a job in retail and soon worked her way into the corporate office. She modeled for her children that disappointment can be the doorway for new opportunities.
  “Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed (David) in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward.”
  Some of you may be in that liminal life space today. You can’t see what is going to emerge. It is a difficult place to be. But the lesson of today is that things may not be what they seem because God is at work. Do you believe that?

1 Frank Auld, Resolution of Inner Conflict
2 Acts 21:10-11.