Liminality

Service is offering someone who is need of what it is you have to give. When I was in high school I was a part of the National Honors Society. To this day I have no idea what that did for me. I know during each summer in high school in order to keep my society status I had to complete ten hours of community service. I would pick up trash around the ball fields, mow for the city – since my best friend’s dad was the mayor – and referee girl’s little league basketball games at their summer camps. Each summer I performed these duties just to keep some arbitrary yet signifying status. And honestly, I hated it. I only did these things to keep my rankings in the National Honor’s Society. If Christians today aren’t careful we too will fall into a similar pattern I fell into in high school. Doing service projects to keep face, to maintain a reputable status, or to hopefully keep some salvific option open for later in life is at best misguided and truthfully pathetic. Service

In a tired and almost last breath, Jesus looks up after hours of hanging on the cross and says to Mary and the Beloved disciple, “Woman, here is your son; friend, here is now your mother.” Seconds before Jesus’ death, the author of the gospel of John has Jesus saying to Mary and the Beloved disciple that they are now family. Think about it for a moment – after being tortured, flogged, spat upon, head crushed, ribs broken, side punctured, hands nailed, feet smashed, and body bruised – our Lord looks up with the energy of one more breath to say one more thing and it is important, it is direct, it is for us to hear. And so in that sacred moment Jesus says, “Woman, here is now your son; friend, here is your mother.” From a social standpoint I will concede that this doesn’t make sense. Maybe if the woman were Jesus’ wife and the man was Jesus’ younger brother we could see such a moment take place with Jesus saying, “Brother, this woman is now your wife.” But that’s not what is

Just think of what a refrain will do – consider some examples. Fred Craddock in one of his famous stories reminds us of the old saloon song “Frankie and Johnny.” Listen to the function of the refrain. Frankie, she was a good woman, and Johnny, he was her hand. He was her man, but he done her wrong. Frankie and Johnny went walking, Johnny wore a new linen suit. ‘Cost me a hundred,’ said Frankie, ‘but don’t my Johnny look cute?’ He was her man, but he done her wrong. Frankie went down to the corner, and she ordered a thimble of gin. She said to the fat bartender, ‘Has my lovin’ Johnny been in?’ He was her man, but he done her wrong. ‘Ain’t gonna tell you no story, ain’t gonna tell you no lie. Johnny was here about an hour ago with a floozy named Nellie Bly’. He was her man, but he done her wrong. I’m not going to go through the entire song – it’s in the Methodist Hymnal, so you can find the words. The refrain, though, creates anticipation; it builds to the fact itself.

Jesus wants us to walk with God. I started thinking about this idea of walking and realized over 240 times the Bible either illustrates or commands God’s people to walk. God walked among us in the Garden of Eden. Enoch in Genesis 5 is said to have walked with God for 300 years. Noah in Genesis 6 walked with God. God commands the Israelites to walk the land of milk and honey. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph all walked with God. When God parted the Red Sea the Israelites walked out of Egypt. Time and time again we see an illustration of how God’s people never stop walking. They press forward. They move ahead. They further the story. They further the journey. Micah 6:8 says that which we must do beyond all other things is “walk humbly.” Leviticus 26:12 has God saying, “I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.” Even God is in on this action of walking. God walks. We walk. Together we are growing and learning and studying and praying a