God meets us in liminal spaces, when all our defences are down. (Listen.)
I think we can all agree: Sanctuary is at a threshold. Many will affirm that we have indeed lived into our name and created a sanctuary for hurting, wounded, tender things. Many will also affirm they have sensed the holy spirit moving in this place, and have experienced healing and renewal. But somehow, it isn’t enough.
Somehow, we don’t seem able to convert this into a just, sustainable structure or a committed, growing group; and what we are doing is no longer viable. So we are heading into some hard conversations. We’re not able to go back to how things were prior to the pandemic, nor do we want to go back to the churches of our childhoods; indeed, many of us describe ourselves as church refugees. Yet we don’t know the way ahead, either.
So we’re in a liminal space. Like Jacob, we’ve left known ways with all their comfort and security, but also their threats and limitations. We’re heading into the unknown, and our future is a mystery. In the meantime, we’re in a strange and insecure place, where the wind howls and wild beasts roam. This is the wilderness, a place betwixt and between, and perhaps it feels like God is nowhere to be found.
I wonder if that’s how it felt for Jacob? Like us, he had lived up to his name, only his name was Grabby. He was born grabbing onto his brother’s heel, which gave him his name, and he had been grabbing at things ever since. He smooth-talked his brother Esau into swapping his firstborn privilege for a bowl of lentil soup: and so grabbed at the birthright. He dressed up as this same brother and lied to his father, and so grabbed at a blessing.
This made Esau so very, very angry that he vowed to kill him: so at his mother’s urging, Jacob flees. He heads for his uncle, another famously grabby man, and he’s not sure of his welcome or his future. Our story catches up with him in the in-between space as he grabs forty winks in the wilderness. And there in his sleep he dreams of God’s messengers moving freely between heaven and earth. Then God comes to him and blesses him and promises to be with him.
The first thing I want to draw out is simply this: on a journey into the unknown, in a hard and lonely place, fearful of his past and anxious for his future, Jacob witnesses the communion between heaven and earth. Not in a good time, but in a hard time. And it’s not when everything is nice and settled but in an unsettled, difficult, liminal space that Jacob encounters God. He had thought God belonged to the land promised to his ancestors, to the known places, to home: but it’s here in the unknown that God comes to meet him. And even though he has run away from home, abandoning family and land and maybe even his God, God meets him and showers him with blessing.
No wonder Jacob wakes in awe and trembling, saying, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t know!”
Perhaps these are words we need to hear. In this difficult place in which we find ourselves, a place strange and unfamiliar and heading into the unknown, a place we don’t want to be and long to escape, well, surely God is in this place, too. At first, Jacob didn’t see it, and perhaps we don’t either: but surely the one who fills earth and heaven fills this moment.
Indeed, our deepest experiences of God often happen at such moments: at the thresholds and the crossroads, in disruptions and interruptions, in our failures and brokenness. They come when life as we know it collapses and we are closest to despair. They come on desert roads, in the darkness, far from the comfort of familiar things; they come in divorce and death and disillusionment, and in dreams deflated and deferred. The Psalmist recognised this and so gives us words to pray, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Ps. 23). Even in death’s dark valley, our faith insists: God is with us. God is always with us.
More, Jacob is the grabber, the trickster, the conniver, the thief. Throughout his life, he arranges and orchestrates and manipulates to grab at benefits and blessings. But for all of his trickery and striving, Jacob encounters God and receives a blessing not when he is grabbing, but when he sleeps.
Indeed, it is only when we are empty and undefended that God can reveal the ultimate gift: Emmanuel, the Presence, God-with-us. “Blessed are you who are hungry now,” says Jesus, “for you will be filled” (Lk 6:21) – because your emptiness leaves room for God.
This all suggests to me that, wherever we are now, and whatever our future holds, we need not be afraid. For in our grief for what was left behind and our anxiety for the future, God is with us. When the road is hard and people are grumbling and heaven’s bread isn’t as tasty as cucumbers (Num. 11:5), God is with us. When we do not know what lies ahead, perhaps do not even know the way, God is with us. In our fears and in our failures, in our betrayals and in our brokenness, God is with us. Even in the valley of death’s dark shadow, even on the cross: God is with us. God is always with us.
And when we let our defences fall and become as vulnerable as sleep, anything is possible. In some harsh and lonely place, we too might witness the communion of heaven and earth. We too might wake to the presence of God, and gifts beyond our wildest dreams. They might not be what we planned or worked for, or even tried to grab, but if God is in them, they will be gifts in abundance, given for the life of the world.
So let us rest in this liminal space, and open our hearts to possibility. And perhaps we, too, might be able to say with Jacob: “How awesome is this place! This, too, is the house of God, and this, the gate of heaven.” (Gen. 28:16). Even here, even this wilderness. Amen. Ω
A reflection by Alison Sampson on Genesis 28:10-19a, given to Sanctuary on 23 July 2023 © Sanctuary 2023 (Year A Proper 11). Photo by Rayner Simpson on Unsplash (edited). Sanctuary is based on Peek Whurrong country. Acknowledgement of country here.
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