Speaker 1: Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad you're here, and we hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Hit the commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2: I'm super glad that you are here with us today to celebrate the Eucharist, to sing, and to pray together, and to engage our hearts and our imaginations around the scriptures. We're in a series on David this summer, the David of the Bible, not David Beckham or Dave Chappelle or Dave Grohl or any of your other favorite Davids, though I'm sure that would be a fun time too. Last week, Joel covered the familiar story of David and Goliath, And not only was it a straight up stand up comedy routine in here, it was also a really great sermon where Joel's sincere pastor and dad heart shone bright like a diamond or something like that. Joel ended his exploration talking about David's perception of that whole Goliath situation. David cultivated what Joel called a holy and hopeful imagination of the world so that he could look and see God behind all things.
And Joel said as he was closing, and I'm paraphrasing just a bit, whether we are in a battle or in a pasture where things are calm and seem okay or anything else in between, we can see God working for our favor. And today, I wanna talk about that last option. The anything else in between. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Chicago. First for a few days of vacation with Jonathan, and this is us outside of the Art Institute of Chicago, which was by far my favorite day.
Also, this is what was going on behind that selfie. There's a street performer painting her entire body in copper because cities. Because because besides capturing those selfie bombs, I was also in Chicago for a class on my own. See this boring class photo. Now I know I look a little tortured in that picture, but be assured that all those humans are super lovely.
So on the first day of class, I realized that I was actually pretty tired of being away from home. Just before Chicago, Jonathan and I were on Vancouver Island visiting family and friends. And maybe it was the length of the time away or the culmination of some major life transitions that I've made in the last year and a half, getting married, moving to a new city, getting a new job. But I was really struggling to ground myself in this last leg of our time away. And it didn't help that this class was actually gonna finish earlier than I thought, so I'd have two empty days after it was over to occupy myself in Chicago before heading home.
And I mean, normally, that would be a really fun time for me. I'd be super into it, but this time, it really just didn't feel that fun. For some reason, I just felt really restless about it all. And I even had some stress dreams about it, and I know that sounds ridiculous. It's really not a big deal, but it got to me.
Something about this in between space, it kinda messed me up. So I did something that I have never done before. I shelled out some money to fly home a day earlier. And I could be wrong, but that felt like the best $193 I've ever spent. And even as trivial as that story may sound, I wonder where was God in it all?
Today, I want to invite you to explore with me a theology for liminal space. Liminality is the quality of ambiguity and disorientation that exists in the middle or the edges of things. And I'm gonna repeat that. Liminality is the quality of ambiguity and disorientation that exists in the middle or the edges of things. The summer is a really ideal time to explore this part of our spirituality.
I know many of you are in between things right now. Maybe getting ready for a new job or a big move, new academic pursuits, new chapters in your family story. And the story of Saul and David is beautiful and it is complicated. So we're gonna plop ourselves into it and see how God is at work in the in between spaces in life. And the story that we are stepping into today is found in first Samuel chapter 16 verses 14 to 23.
And chapter 16 has two distinct units. Jeremy covered the first a few weeks back where David was anointed the new king of Israel and the spirit of God came upon him with power. And I'm covering the second unit where the spirit of God actually departs from Saul. And the newly anointed David is brought into Saul's service to calm him the heck down while a disturbing spirit messes up Saul's interior world. Here's the story and there's lots of movement so keep your imaginations engaged.
First Samuel chapter 16 verses 14 to 23. Now the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul's attendants said to him, see an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the liar. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you and you will feel better.
So Saul said to his attendants, find someone who plays well and bring him to me. And one of the servants answered, I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and warrior. He speaks well and is a fine looking man. I don't know.
I just like reading that part. He's a fine looking man and the Lord is with him. Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, send me your son David who is with the sheep. So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul. David came to Saul and entered his service.
Saul liked him very much and David became one of his armor bearers. Then Saul sent word to Jesse saying, allow David to remain in my service for I am pleased with him. And whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul. He would feel better and the evil spirit would leave him.
The end. Kind of. Let's pray and then we'll jump in. Loving God of these ancient texts and our everyday lives. You are the God of scriptures and we give you thanks.
You are the God that is within us and we give you thanks. You are the God who is among us and we give you thanks. As we consider the story of one man's ending and another man's beginning, in light of them being in the sacred text, will you draw our attention to the places where you are speaking a word of change in our lives? And maybe it's a word that reminds us that we can trust our agency and decisions and know that you, God, are with us. And maybe it's a word that speaks truthfully to the stress that we feel about change and the things that we do not control.
And maybe it's a word that invites us to share the calm of your holy spirit with others even in the world. Jesus, we know we need you and here you are with us. Amen. So I wanna begin with a word about ancient storytelling and how the craft arranged for preliterate audiences allows us to really step inside the scene. The story where Saul is on his way down and David is on his way up is considered to be the crux of first Samuel.
In her commentary on first Samuel, Francisca Murphy describes these stories as realistically perspectival. Great words. Right? The point for the here is to not stay at a distance or to be unaffected from what's going on nor is the point to just get totally wrapped up in the emotion of the thing. We're supposed to jump in, to look, and to see not flat characters lacking dimension as Ansal is just this really bad baddie and David is this really good goodie.
But we're supposed to see characters who are multidimensional like we are. People with loves and losses, successes and failures, people isolated and connected with agency able to choose a way that brings life or death. And right at the beginning of this story, there's this layering device that helps us to see. First, there's a line of narration and it says, now the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And then there's some details that are repeated in dialogue.
Saul's attendant says to him, see an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. And this kind of storytelling is similar to that of a graphic novel or a comic book. And I have a little more experience with graphic novels so I'm gonna stick with that example of the genre. In a graphic novel, you have a story being told using an image and a caption on the image. And here's an example of the graphic novel adaptation of Madeleine Langel's A Wrinkle in Time.
Pausing for a moment to ask, have you seen the trailer for the new Disney adaptation of this book coming out in March? Anybody? Well, okay. A few. Good.
A, it's directed by Eva DuVernay who also directed Selma, a beautiful and brilliant MLK film. B, she's a woman. So if you love me at all, you will go see this movie to support women in senior places of the film industry. C, Oprah, Mindy Kaling, and Reese Witherspoon are missus what's it, missus who, and missus which, the pronoun, not the noun. And they look amazing together.
And every time I hear Oprah say in that trailer, be a warrior, I get chills. Okay. Back to A Wrinkle in Time, the graphic novel, and this story about Saul and David. First, I'm going to read a description of the scene I'm gonna show you from A Wrinkle in Time, and then I'm gonna show you it. It is this.
Missus What's it, Missus Who, and Missus Which turn out to be supernatural beings who transport Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe through the universe by means of a tesseract, a fifth dimensional phenomenon explained as being similar to the folding fabric of space and time. And now I'm gonna show you what that looks like in the graphic novel adaptation. And probably all of you can see. I'm sorry about that. So I'll just describe it.
In the first frame, there are two characters and they cling to each other in this dark space and they appear to be floating. And the caption reads, the moonlight. Where is it? Where are we? And then if you look closely, there's this gentle, almost invisible hand that pulls at Meg.
And she says, Charles. Charles. Love. The next page and the frame, there's this single figure all curled into this embryonic ball and floating in the darkness. And then a black box.
And then another black box and the caption no light. And then it reads no sound. And then a blank black box. And then no feeling. Where is my body?
Where? Cliffhanger. You're gonna have to read it to find out what happens. Storytelling like this with both image and text, it drops us down into the story, a wrinkle in time and we really feel Meg's disorientation. Now, of course, there are no pictures in the bible.
We're super sorry about that. But this layering of storytelling is doing something like a graphic novel. We're supposed to drop into the text right beside Saul and David. We're supposed to look around to experience reality for these two people as they pass each other in the narrative. So what is it that we see?
Well, we see the disorientation of Saul through a story about these spirits and then we hear his servants offer a solution to that disorientation by introducing David as the one who can play music and bring relief. And with our modern day sensitivity to mental health and it's important and we need to continue to learn and to grow in that space, it might be easier to read Saul's dilemma through the lens of some kind of paranoia or mental health break and that's fine. But the ancient world just wasn't categorizing people like that in literature like this. Saul's suffering is described theologically, not psychologically. Saul has been off the rails for a long time now.
He's been quick to cut corners, to make excuses, to blame others, to get rich or die trying. And all of this has made him far more superstitious than truly devoted to God. It's like the spiritual consequences of his actions are finally catching up to him. So after a pile of stories where Saul just keeps tripping up over himself, God's way of working with this ancient story involves removing Saul and bringing another king in his place. And it's hard to let go of privilege and position.
And if you take some time even to just flip through the story and the chapters of Saul in the next week, you'll see how violent that letting go really is. But for now, we're back here with these sir with these spirits. And Saul's life is no longer hospitable to the spirit of God. He is deeply disturbed with the coming and going of tormenting spirit. Now, it's also important that we don't put our own notions of evil on Saul.
Where I might think of evil sometimes as something structural and unjust and you might think of evil as the spiritual forces in the world. And still another might look at evil as the consequences of our own actions. In ancient Judaism, good and evil have to do with that which is helpful and that which is harmful. That which brings life and that which brings death. But even though the spirit attached to Saul is unhelpful and that's probably a bit of an understatement.
It's still within God's providence. It's permitted and even sent by the divine to bring about a disturbance. And sometimes we can make perfect sense of God's love and God's covenant with creation. But other times the power and the presence of the divine, it remains a mystery. And all we can do is describe it the best way that we can.
What we know is that the spirit that brings peace and the spirit that disturbs both take up space in the ongoing narrative of God. And sadly, and I mean this most sincerely because I'm not sure that Saul ever really stood a chance. Saul is on a path that leads to death. Quite literally, first Samuel ends with Saul's death. And maybe I should have given you a bit of a spoiler alert there, but this text is like a billion years old, so get on board.
At least for the short term, Saul's servant seems to know a solution. We're not told how he knows about David. Was he working for David on the inside? Was he just waiting for the right moment to bring David in so that Saul could be shoved out? Were there rumors about David just flying across the countryside and this buddy in Saul's service just could not wait to get a glimpse of this famous guy David for himself?
Whatever the reason, the servants are a part of a much bigger story to bring about a new king. And Walter Brueggemann and Todd Linneafelt they say it like this. The rise of David is willed by Yahweh even if accomplished through the rough and tumble of politics. In other words, God will work with us. God will work in every tangled up piece of creation.
Our stories do not terrify the divine. Even when we're stuck in life's transitions and feel pretty terrified ourselves. Nothing. Not the torment Saul brought into his own life or the torment that was heaped upon him can separate him from the power of God to use everything. Every single thing for something far greater and for good.
And maybe you know a thing or two about that disorientation that Saul felt in this in between space of being no longer anointed but still kind of the king. Maybe people have put on you more than you can handle. Maybe you never really wanted all that responsibility in the first place. Maybe you've made a big old mess of something in your life right now and that's what keeps you up at night. Because maybe it didn't just affect you, it affected someone you love.
Then may you be reminded today that no torment and no mistake or path poorly chosen disqualifies you from being a part of God's good plan. And in Jesus, we see that God is not the tormentor. God is the one who will draw close to you when you're hurt and when you most need peace and rest. So what does the story of Saul's liminal space look like in our world? Well, I've got a picture by way of a film very few of you have probably ever seen.
Hashtag my tastes are a little bit off or indie or something. It's a modern story of two people passing each other and all the disorientation that can happen in relationships. And the film is called Take This Waltz by the Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polly of whom I am a huge fan. Now, if you don't know this about me, I love to make all kinds of faith connections in pop culture, so stick with me. The movie is about a young woman played by Michelle Williams who is torn between the husband that she truly loves played by Seth Rogen and a man she meets on a trip.
And then she finds out that this guy that she meets on the trip actually lives across the street from her. And he's sexy and he's mysterious and she's unable to ignore her chemistry with this guy and her draw to him. And the scene that connected me to this film and the story of Saul is this one. It's on the plane where Margo has her first real interaction with this new guy. And when explaining her behavior, which I won't get into, she says, I'm afraid.
I don't like being in between things. And basically, this is what the entire movie is about. How Margo is in this in between space of her marriage, of her career, and her understanding of herself. And throughout the movie, it's clear that Margo and Lou's marriage needs attention and it needs growth. And we see them in so many in between moments.
Moments where they are so close to connecting and finding a new way. But they keep turning away from each other and they avoid really digging in to what's going on for them in their relationship. So this is one of those moments. They're out for an anniversary meal and Margot wants a real conversation. She wants to really connect in a new way.
But Lou says in response to her plea, I already know everything about you. What's there to talk about? I mean, ugh. In this point, it probably comes as no surprise that Margo and Lou, they don't make it. And she leaves him for the mysterious man across the street.
And then things kind of go off the rails a bit sexually before the film comes back on track. And near the end of the movie, Sarah Silverman's character, the sister of Lou drops this truth bomb when she confronts Margo. You really effed up Margo in the big picture. Life has a gap in it. It just does.
You don't go crazy trying to fill it like some lunatic. I love this movie and it makes me uncomfortable. The mistakes or the misses of both Margo and Saul have to do at least in part with ignoring changes and transitions. Not being able to let go of old ways. Giving into the darkness rather than fighting for the light.
Not paying attention to the times between beginnings and endings. When something new wants to grow. And we're invited to let liminal spaces speak to us. To find God in the in between. And this is an essential part of the human story and spiritual flourishing.
And the Christian narrative is one that is full of liminal spaces. Places where God draws people so that they can be shaped into God's own likeness. Prepared for the journey ahead. Encountering holiness in all kinds of ordinary places like fields and throne rooms and gravesides and cities and road trips and retreats. Faithfulness looks like embracing these in between spaces like David shows us.
After all, he waited some twenty years after his anointing to become the king. So let's turn back to this story of Saul and David. This time to look at David's emerging place in the biblical drama. It's through piecing together this story of discernment and power that we see the spirits in the liminal spaces. Now Robert Alter, a professor of Hebrew literature at Berkeley writes that David's story is a result of composite narrative or composite artistry.
And doctor Alter makes the case that there are two introductory stories in David and they are actually not in agreement. In fact, they appear to be quite contradictory. First, in chapter 16, David is introduced to Saul after his anointing and he appears as this music therapist and this armor bearer. And here David is emerging in the story as a private figure. But in private we still see David is cunning and loving.
And then the second story in chapter 17, the story of David and David and Goliath, which we covered last week. Saul only hears about David when he battled the giant. This time David's a public figure. In public, David can be both unassuming and arrogant. So how can David be introduced to Saul for the first time twice?
Because it's a composite portrait. The different pieces work together to make a whole. To tell us something full about this figure who just looms so large in the bible. And why does this matter? Because you and I, when we approach the scriptures, we need a sacred text that can hold all of our lives.
The pieces of who we really are. Our contradictions and our harmonies. Our public and our private. Our devoted and our divided selves. But again, in this story we're looking for God here.
We're paying attention to these spirits. And here's a recap of the last part of the story. Saul writes Jesse, David's father who sends David to his service. And David arrives and he plays this super special instrument, the lyre. And Saul's really into it.
And then Saul writes Jesse again and he says, can I keep him? And then we have the last part of the chapter when David plays the lyre and the spirit of God comes on Saul and the evil or the tormenting or harmful spirit leaves him. This last verse is connected to the first verse by way of this Hebrew verb suer which means to turn aside or depart. And there is grace carried in this word. At the beginning of our story, Saul's torment is caused by the spirit's departure.
And at the end of the story, David plays this beautiful music and that makes the troubled spirit depart. Not only that, but the double use of the Hebrew word ruah for spirit means that when David played, the evil spirit left Psalm. The spirit of God came in its place. And again, Robert Alter, he puts it like this. Having been graced with the spirit, David is then seen exerting mastery through song over the realm of the spirits.
Like this microphone drop. Mastery of the spirits. No big deal. David's got this. But Saul's story is not over.
Sadly, Saul will resist the spirit of peace and pursue David's own life eventually taking his own. And David's story in some ways is just getting started. David has this way of staying connected to the spirit of life. And at least in this little story, it has to do with the beauty of songs being offered to the man who would eventually become his family and then his enemy. It's a ride.
All this to say that every detail matters. And in the hands of God, our in between details can be used to bring about a brand new story right in the middle of an old one that seems like it's gone off the rails. So what do we do when we feel ourselves on the edge of something? What does a spirituality of the liminal space really look like? Let's go back to my situation in Chicago a couple of weeks ago.
Now while I may have escaped the liminal space a bit early by flying home on a Friday instead of Saturday, the truth is that I still had lots of time in the week on my own without the always awesome Jonathan Bateman. Classes ended at about 4PM, and that left oodles of time to fill on long summer nights. So instead of just slinking back to my air conditioned lodging and watching endless hours of sweet American Netflix, I embraced it. Even though they have Parks and Rec on American Netflix, you guys. And I mean, it was kinda hard to do to just leave Amy Poehler behind.
But I leaned into the liminal spaces after class where I didn't have to be anywhere but there and was totally on my own. I walked one of the most diverse zip codes in America. I used Uber for the first time. I took myself on a nice solo dinner at a restaurant I had read about in class. I spent an entire evening at the North Park Seminary Library just reading like nerds do.
And then it was there when I finally leaned into this liminal space that I began to realize that there was actually more going on for me. In fact, I talked it over with my dear friend Lindy on an Instagram private message thread one night, and I'm gonna show you that. She asked how I how I was doing and if it was a good space. And I wrote, and it's kind of long, but I'm gonna read it anyways. I actually changed my flight, something I've never done, so I could fly home Friday instead of Saturday.
I thought the class went longer blah blah blah. Anyway, it's helped with what I think was some anxiety that seemed to pop up about being there longer than I needed to. I feel like I'm enjoying aspects of the class and people and city more now than I would have done. And this is where things get just a little bit heavier, so please pardon the references to myself in the third person. I said, I'm finding this trip to also identify some interesting things I like about single Bobby and some things I'm not so sure of with married Bobby.
Need to work on what's going on there. But still, loved Chicago and Jonathan so so much. And Lindy said, first of all, you changed your flight. Amazing. I feel like that's huge for you and I'm into it.
And I completely understand being able to enjoy yourself a bit more. To which I said, heart. And then Lindy said, that sifting of past and present identity thing is so real. I get that. Do you all have friends like that?
I hope that you do. This is just a little bit, a little tiny bit of what it looks like to encounter God in a liminal space. I was invited to, in a sense, pay attention to the spirits. Sometimes that's hard work to do on our own. Sometimes you need a friend who can go over your story with you.
And you and I, we are a composite mystery. And my point is that life is full of all kinds of transitions. Opportunities to get a better look. To lean in. To learn and to draw closer to mystery and beauty and strength.
There will be so many times when we are in these in between spaces. And I would bet in one way or another, we are all in an in between space now. Big or small, seen or unseen. And I think a theology for the liminal space is actually pretty simple. It's that God is with us in times of change and transition.
But even though we can trust that God is with us in a season of change, it's living it out. That's the hard part. And I can't tell you what will ground you in a liminal space. What will calm you when you feel afraid. Maybe it's chatting with a friend.
Maybe it's acknowledging that something is just a little bit off and you need to work with it. Maybe it's even the Eucharist meal that we enjoyed together today. Reminding us time and time again as we participate that death transitions into life. And it's in breaking that Jesus makes us whole. In all of our liminal spaces.
If a part of your story is on its way out like Saul's and there's some pain there. May you be open to how God will bring you comfort from all kinds of places you don't expect. And if your story of change is just beginning to get started like David's, may you not only rejoice in the newness, but may you be attentive to how your song and your story can be played to the places of pain around you. Blessing others with beauty and bringing comfort to the torment of the world. Let us pray.
God of all our in betweens, our liminal spaces. You know and you love each person here. For those in a season of incredible daunting change, may your presence be known and your provision enjoyed. And for those supporting others in times of change, kids, aging parents, best friends, partners, coworkers, may you show us how to sing songs of peace to those people. Songs that remind those who suffer or feel lost or who are letting go that there is a ground to their being and it is you.
And as we leave the service today trusting that you go with us, we wait and imagine and participate in a world where love lasts and suffering fades. In you Jesus and with your holy spirit, we go forward to love. Will you help us where we are weak? Amen.