October 9, 2022
Liminality, Change, and Gratitude
Texts: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Psalm 66:1-11, Luke 17:11-19
Several weeks ago, I mentioned that this long middle section of the Gospel of Luke is a travel narrative—Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem, and along the way encounters various people and situations that define his ministry. As every student of literature knows, journeys are important tropes, ways of organizing a story that virtually guarantee the hero will experience perils and adventures that will teach both the hero and the reader important lessons, or at least create conflict and excitement.
The story in today’s Gospel has Jesus traveling through a liminal space, a region between two known locations. The word “liminal” comes from the Latin for threshold, and often refers either to an actual boundary or to a time or place that is ambiguous, not quite one thing or the other. Today’s story shows us Jesus in a kind of no-man’s land, neither Samaria nor Galilee, but somewhere betwixt and between. In literature, as in life, when a person on a journey goes through a liminal space—a gateway, the edge of a forest, or the back of the wardrobe in the spare room—we can be sure that high-stakes issues of identity and meaning will soon follow.
For Jesus, his journey through this liminal space sees him becoming a more universal figure of healing and salvation. The people he is trying to reach and transform are no longer just those in his own circle or tribe. We have already heard him preach about a good Samaritan, but now he is encountering an actual real-life Samaritan, healing him and singling him out special praise—and a Samaritan leper, at that! It is as if the whole concept of “foreigner” or “stranger” is being put to the test. The boundaries between clean and unclean, insiders and outsiders, the righteous and the unrighteous, are being interrogated and dismantled, as Jesus ushers in a new kind of community—God’s Beloved Community.
While pondering what this story tells us about the identity of Jesus, we might also want to think about what the story has to say about our own identity, about ways that we are in a liminal place ourselves, and about what transformation might be waiting for us. Our world, including the church, is in a liminal space. We are not quite out of the pandemic, but we are no longer in the thick of it, either. We are not where we were in 2019, for better and for worse, but we are also not in a place where we feel entirely confident about what the “new normal” is. The journalist and podcaster Krista Tippett put it beautifully when she wrote, “We are still, and again, in a liminal time and space — an in-between time of rupture and searching and unmourned losses and so many callings yet to heed, so much change to absorb and propel.”
There’s that word that can cause us such discomfort: change. What is frightening about liminality is the uncertainty inherent in it—you know that when you cross the threshold, things will be different. But you do not know how they will be different, or indeed how you will be different. Liminal spaces cause some of us to shrink back and try to hold onto what was, to resist the transformation and change that is coming. Crossing over takes courage and imagination, and is best done in the company of other faithful pilgrims.
The Old Testament reading, from Jeremiah, gives us a glimpse of what that communal courage and imagination can look like. The people to whom the prophet is speaking are in exile. The prophet’s word of wisdom to them is not to hold tight until things get back to normal, as if getting back to normal is even an option; rather, it is to live fully into the place and time in which they find themselves. “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,” the Lord tells his beloved people. Don’t wish away your life because it is unfolding in ways you didn’t expect or in a place you did not choose: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” Your community will prosper to the extent that you align your own well-being with the well-being of the whole. In other words, the prophet seems to be saying, it’s time to bloom where you’re planted.
If you’ve been coming to church for more than a year or two, it’s likely that you’ve heard sermons about our Gospel today that focus on the gratitude of the one leper who returned to thank Jesus, and the apparent ingratitude of the other nine. In fact, we don’t know what the other nine are feeling; they do appear to have enough faith to do what Jesus asks of them, even if it might have felt pointless and absurd to them. (Do they really need a great spiritual master to tell them to go talk to a priest?). They have enough faith, or hope, to ask Jesus for healing and to receive it. My guess is that they were grateful—they just didn’t find a way to express that gratitude.
Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, once wrote that prayer is like sneezing—sometimes you just can’t not pray! I think gratitude is often like that—it’s such a spontaneous upwelling in our hearts that there’s no way we can NOT feel it. Maybe you see an especially beautiful sunset, or you feel the grasp of a baby’s tiny hand around your pinky for the first time, and you’re so overwhelmed with awe that your soul just about overflows. These wonderful, powerful, heartfelt feelings can be a kind of prayer, as are the spontaneous tears and laughter that so often accompany them.
But, as mothers of whining children everywhere are fond of saying, we also have to learn to use our words. Feeling gratitude is itself a gift—it makes us happier and healthier people. Expressing gratitude is gift upon gift. It means the gift of gratitude doesn’t end with us but expands into ever greater circles. The tenth leper didn’t just feel gratitude—he acted on it. He threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him, in words and perhaps in tears or laughter as well.
This one man, this Samaritan, has been utterly transformed. First, he is no longer a leper: having been freed from whatever skin disease afflicted him, he will be able to rejoin his family and community. Just as important, he is no longer a foreigner to Jesus, for it is clear they worship the same God.
Imagine the hope this man’s testimony gave to all those who witnessed his transformation, who would never have known about it if he hadn’t turned back to give thanks. Imagine what an impact his action had on others around him: on the disciples traveling with Jesus, on the people of the village, and maybe especially on others who were themselves in need of healing.
Giving thanks in words and deeds, not just feeling gratitude in our hearts, is a powerful spiritual practice. It can transform our own lives and the lives of our communities. The Psalmist tells us that the earth itself gives praise to God; can we do any less?
“All the earth bows down before you,
sings to you, sings out your Name.
Come now and see the works of God,
how wonderful are these doings toward all people.” Amen.