Living the Questions - The Rev. Brian Petersen

I love how children, especially young ones, can help us to recall the joy found in everyday life. There’s nothing like seeing a child experience something cool for the very first time – especially when it’s something that’s become routine or ordinary to you.

My 6-year-old, Max, just recently discovered the joy of Slurpees. He loves to get a Slurpee on a hot day, and he’s been trying all the various flavors. But just this past weekend, he decided to try the classic red cherry flavor for the first time. I helped him to fill the cup, got the lid and the straw, and as I was waiting in line to pay he gave it a taste. His eyes lit up like he had just discovered something extremely profound, and he came over to me and said in an excited but hushed, almost reverent tone,  “Dad! This is the greatest thing I’ve ever had in my life!”

Something as simple as a cherry slurpee can be a revelation of the sacred. For Max, it came in a way that he didn’t expect – he had thought Slurpees were pretty neat, but he didn’t realize it could be this great. And I think that a lot of the sublime moments in our life might show up that way. The sacred shows up unexpectedly, hitting us in ways we never anticipated, often on the journey up rather than on the mountaintop.

The edges, the liminal or “in-between” spaces, the way stations on the road – these are the places that, in Celtic Christianity, it is believed the divine is most closely present. These are the “thin places” where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is less clearly defined, and those with eyes to see can experience close connection with God. This concept is also evident in the natural world. The edges where one ecosystem borders another are called ecotones, and these are the places that support the most biodiversity. Nature and Spirit both thrive on the edges of things, where we might not expect them to.

Our story today from Genesis, the story of “Jacob’s ladder”, is about one of those places. It tells us about Jacob spending the night in “a certain place” but we don’t get the whole back story in the lectionary – Jacob is actually on the run, fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau after deceptively stealing his birthright (as we heard in last week’s reading). Jacob is a fugitive from his own family, in an unfamiliar place out in the desert - on the edge of civilization.

It’s here, in this most unexpected location, that Jacob has an incredible vision of God’s presence. And this leads Jacob to exclaim one of my favorite lines in the whole Bible: “How awesome is this place!”

Now that sounds like the sort of thing a six-year-old would say after discovering a cherry Slurpee at 7-11. “How awesome is this place!” Of course, Jacob says this in fear and reverence rather than joyful exuberance, but in either case the root is the same – a sense of wonder, the feeling that comes when we suddenly realize that what is happening to us is more profound than we can immediately realize. That God is here, in this moment – as Jacob says, “surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!”

How often does that happen to us – we lose sight of God’s presence when we’re going through rough times, when we’re uncertain, when we’re scared or anxious - we might ask God, “where are you in all of this?” Jacob’s story shows us that it’s precisely in these liminal and uncertain moments that God is in fact closest - because it’s in these moments that we are forced to let go of our ability to control everything, and trust that God will continue to lead us through the darkness.

As I stand here today and give you what will be my final sermon as your interim priest-in-charge here at St. Andrew’s (the Bishop will be here next week, and the boss gets to preach when she comes!), I wonder if this might be just the story for this congregation at this moment in time. When I first came here six months ago, you were just entering into a time of transition, of change, of uncertainty – a liminal time.

Now we’ve been through a lot in those six months! We’ve done amazing things together: baptisms and soon-to-be confirmations, started new ministries and strengthened existing ones, welcomed new people and said goodbye to others, worshiped and ate and sang and prayed together, and most importantly - reclaimed the lip sync championship! This has certainly been a fruitful and joyful time, both for me personally and for you as a parish.

And yet I know that at the precipice of another shift, another change, there are still those nagging questions: will we keep this momentum and energy through this transition? Will we find the right person to lead us? What if it takes longer than we anticipated? And the bigger, deeper questions like: how do we continue to sustain and grow the church when so many people reject organized religion? And how can we stand up for justice when injustice surrounds us on all sides?

Questions are also liminal spaces, because they lead us out of settled territory into places unknown. And yet, Jacob’s story shows us that this is actually holy and sacred ground where we can encounter God’s promises in new ways. We might find that our capacity to imagine what God has planned for us is limited by what we already know – and so the unknown isn’t really a bad place to be!

One of my favorite poets, Rainer Marie Rilke, shared this advice to a young poet:

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”

This time of transition for St. Andrew’s is not an obstacle but an opportunity, because this is your time to live the questions. Figure out who you really are, who God is calling you to become. Celebrate what you have done well, and ask honestly what you can do better. Hold onto the things that are giving life, and don’t be afraid to let go of what is no longer bearing fruit. And know that right now, God has already planted the seeds in the heart of the person who will come and be your next Rector and walk with you so that you all can bear fruit together.

If I can leave you with one piece of advice, it’s this – don’t squander the gift that this liminal time can be for you as a community. Embrace not-knowing as a chance to learn new ways of being, and as a time to build trust in a God whose promises never fail.

In Jacob’s vision, God tells him: “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised to you”. God comes alongside us in the desert places, surprises us with grace in many different and often unexpected forms (sometimes even in cherry Slurpees!), and is faithful to his promise to lead us on a journey to abundant life. I am so very grateful to have shared some of this journey with all of you, and as I head out into my own new adventure, I can say this without hesitation about St. Andrew’s:

“How awesome is this place!”