The Threshold is a poem that tells a painful and dark story from the biblical narrative. While it highlights the particular experience of the unnamed woman in Judges 19, it could resonate with anyone who has encountered sexual violence. This poem came to me in a flash last spring when I was working on some coursework for my Doctor of Ministry. I’d like to share it with you here, and some further comment following. 
​
The Threshold 

I am the threshold.
I have held the weight of sorrow and violence and pain.
I have held the weight of woman, pushed out.
Woman without name
Woman whose memory becomes
revenge
This woman whose body I held,
As she reached her hand 
                     across me to the door. 

The door
The promise of the door was her salvation.
The door was just beyond her grasp. 
The door
was shut
and it did not open.
Keeping her on the outside would be her fall. 
If I could but be
the door
An opened door
How I would have shut out all who do her harm,
shut out all her pain. 
And kept her safe and free and whole. 
But I am not
the door.
I am the threshold.
I am entry and I am exit.
I am possibility and I am despair.
I am the beginning and I am
the end. 

Dawn opens the fearful door.
Revealing brokenness in the morning light. 

I am for feet, but I held her hand, as it reached out to me through the darkest night. 

                                                                           *********

About the Artwork: After preaching a sermon on Judges 19, people responded prayerfully writing words of reflection and prayers on different colors of paper. Then I along with some youth and others from the congregation crafted this beautiful piece of art from the  multicolored prayers. (note: this was at Watchung Avenue Presbyterian in NJ, where I was a student pastor).

A little more about the poem: In my academic work, especially during my time at Princeton Theological Seminary, I spent much time with women’s stories in the bible, and in the early church. Sadly there are many dark stories in the bible, stories that hold the weight and the reality of being a women throughout history.

These stories must not be ignored. They must be reckoned with, because they are part of the human story. Some might find this type of work contradictory to my nature—joyful, full of life and energy. But, I have a fierceness to my story that works with my lighter joy-seeking side. This balance is good, because I don’t get depressed by staying in the darkness with a scripture that is troubling to me. Rather, by examining it, and reading commentaries on it, figuring out where God is in (if at all) a scripture gives me hope.

​Asking, “Where would God be in this?” is important for people of faith. Bringing these stories to the surface, is more authentic than trying to hide the ugliness in our story. In The Threshold her only hope of salvation is the door to which she clings with her broken body. Survivors of sexual violence need to hear the Good News that there is beauty in the dawn’s light. This good news, can be found in Mary Oliver’s Breakage,  

If we could speak beauty and life into each survivor, they might know that even in their brokenness, when the morning light pours upon the broken open pieces of their soul, beauty shines and radiates through them and every darkness. 

                                  - Rev. Dr. Kori McMurtry

If you need it today, the number for the 24/7 Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673.

​Scripture: Micah 6:6-8

Jesus amplifies the prophet Micah’s words several times in the book of Matthew.
 
In the Sermon on the Mount he says: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
 
In giving us the Great Commandment Jesus says:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
 
Later, Jesus goes on to say:  ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
 
Then people ask him when did they do all this. And Jesus replies: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
 
Listen to God, who might say something like this today:
“I demand integrity from my disciples. You cannot walk humbly with me and walk in arrogance with your brothers and sisters. You cannot be a saint in prayer and a tyrant in your job or with your family.
I have given you many things that I intend you to use for the good of those in need around you.
The quality of your human relationships shows the true quality of your relationship with me.

If you are truly walking with me, I bring you face to face with the needs of my other children.
As you treat them, so you treat me.”  (Prayer from Sailboat Church:Helping Your Church Rethink Its Mission and Practice, by Joan S. Gray)

This Lent, you are invited to reflect on your journey with God.  How are you walking with God?  
​Who do you see along your journey?  

Devotional by Martha Shepard & Vicki Freutel