Threshold

Last Sunday morning, Ginger Lewis preached about thresholds — “everything is opening up...the same new door of immense possibility is also one of immense unknown..” I have been thinking about her sermon all week. Thresholds are not only for graduating seniors. In some way, we are always on a threshold – whether it’s the beginning of the day, a season, a job, a relationship, or a new reality that we must face. 

Summer is its own kind of threshold. This coming Sunday we celebrate crossing the threshold into summer with our parish picnic. I hope you plan to stay after worship for fellowship, fun, and food. It’s a great opportunity to deepen the relationships we need at the threshold moments of our lives.

Thresholds bring change. The same is true as we cross into summertime. Rhythms that have structured our days —alarms, carpools, the predictable arc from September to June — begin to shift.  Summer is a time for less structure. It doesn’t take school to notice summer brings change. Some offices (ours included!) offer flexible Fridays. 

Less structure, however, doesn’t mean less meaningful. In fact less structure can be a place of meaning-making.  Summer asks something the rest of the year does not: Who are you when the structure falls away? 

Ginger reminded us that Abram did not receive a detailed itinerary. God said simply, go — to a land I will show you. I imagine Abram had plenty of questions. But God didn’t give Abram a map. God gave Abram a promise – “I will make you a great nation and I will bless you.” Abram would have to go to discover the meaning of God’s promise by going.

The same is true for us. Faith is not having the answer to every question. It is having the freedom to explore and live the questions.  It is trusting enough to take a step even when the way is unclear.

We do not go alone. Abram had Sarai, Lot, and God. Ginger named people in her life who help her step forward into the unknown with faith — her parents and her mentors …. and you, Saint Peter's. Over the years, you have helped to nurture faith in the lives of countless young people. Not through programs or curricula, but by showing up at athletic events, plays, concerts, recitals, and on Sundays week after week. You showed up by modeling the Christian life. And by living life together you, and these young people, lived into the uncertainty and its questions.

That is my invitation to you this summer. Live the questions. Keep showing up — at the picnic this Sunday, at the women's social, around tables and in the ordinary moments where faith becomes visible to someone who is watching.

As the Austrian poet wrote, “Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer” (Letters to a Young Poet, 1934) 

I wonder: what threshold are you standing at this summer? Who is helping you live the questions?

— Jenifer+