Leading from the In-Between

Judges 4:2-10, Luke 24:13-27

In 2003, in the midst of a brutal civil war in Liberia, a group of women began gathering in a public market to pray for peace. They came from different backgrounds, Christian women and Muslim women, market women, mothers, and students, women from communities that had been divided by violence and fear. They dressed in white as a sign of peace. They gathered day after day. They prayed. They protested. They refused to accept the assumption that violence was inevitable.

The leader of this movement was a social worker named Leymah Gbowee. Gbowee was not a general. She was not a politician. She did not hold formal power. But she believed that collective courage could change the future. She helped organize what became known as the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, a nonviolent movement that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War.

Over 250,000 people had been killed. Families had been displaced. Children had been recruited as soldiers. Sexual violence had been used as a weapon of war. For many, peace seemed impossible. But Leymah helped people imagine another way forward.

The women gathered in public places where they could not be ignored. They prayed together. They marched together. They spoke together. Their message was simple. The people want peace now. When peace negotiations stalled, Leymah and other women traveled to Ghana, where talks were taking place. They blocked the doors and refused to allow delegates to leave until progress was made. Soon after, a peace agreement was signed. The war ended.

Leymah later said, “Leadership is standing with your people. People say you have to live to fight another day, but sometimes you have to show you are a true leader.” Leymah’s leadership was not about control. It was about gathering. She gathered people from different traditions, different communities, different experiences of suffering. She helped people recognize their shared stake in the future. She helped them discover that they were not alone. And when people realized they were not alone, courage became possible.
In our first scripture reading today, we encounter another leader who gathered people together in a time of fear and uncertainty. Deborah is introduced as both a judge and a prophet. She is the only judge in the book of Judges specifically identified as a prophet, one who listens for God’s voice and helps the community understand where God is at work in the world. Even her name is suggestive. Deborah means bee, a symbol associated with wisdom, industry, and the sweetness that comes from shared labor. The text tells us she is the wife of Lappidoth, which can also be translated woman of torches, or woman of flames, a woman of light, a woman whose life gives illumination.

And from where does she lead? Not from a palace. Not from a fortress. Not from a temple. She sits under a palm tree. The palm tree itself carries symbolic meaning in scripture, a sign of flourishing, righteousness, and justice. The psalmist writes, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree.” But perhaps even more significant is where this palm tree is located, between Ramah and Bethel. Ramah means height. Bethel means house of God. Deborah leads from a place between transcendence and dwelling, between aspiration and presence, between human community and divine encounter, between tribes, between identities, between certainty and risk.

She does not summon people into elite space. People come to her. They gather in the in-between place. Deborah does more than decide disputes. She gathers a fragmented people. She reminds them that God is still at work among them. She calls them toward courage. The story itself is shaped by conflict and violence, a reminder that the world Deborah inhabits is complicated and difficult. But Deborah’s leadership shows us something essential about prophetic leadership. Prophetic leaders help people see possibility where fear has taken root. They help communities imagine that another future is possible. They gather people across difference and call them toward shared purpose.

The church, at its best, lives in this same space. The church is called to be a place of in-between, a place where people from different backgrounds gather, old and young, rich and poor, certain and searching, progressive and conservative, people who would not otherwise find themselves in the same room. And yet here we are, gathered, not because we agree on everything, but because we believe God is still at work among us. We believe resurrection is not only something that happened long ago. It is something that continues to happen now.

The risen Christ meets people on the road, between Jerusalem and Emmaus, between grief and hope, between confusion and understanding, between what has been and what might yet be. Christ meets people in the in-between places of life, and the church is called to do the same.

Like Deborah, we are called to lead from the in-between. We are called to meet people where they are, in grief, in uncertainty, in struggle, in hope, in longing for belonging. We are called to create spaces where people can gather honestly, spaces where courage becomes possible, spaces where people can discover they are not alone.

Grace lives into this calling in many ways. Each Wednesday evening, young people from across our community gather here for food, fellowship, and devotion. Different schools, different backgrounds, different experiences, gathered into community. This week, more than 380 bus passes were distributed through our bus ticket ministry, helping neighbors reach work, medical care, and daily needs.

People from across our city come through these doors.

Later this month, people from congregations across Wichita will gather for the Justice Together Nehemiah Assembly, a gathering of people of faith seeking practical solutions to challenges facing our community, affordable housing, homelessness, and gun violence. Different congregations, different traditions, different neighborhoods, gathered in common cause.

This is what prophetic leadership looks like. People gathered from different places, different experiences, different perspectives, finding solidarity in shared purpose and working together for the flourishing of the community.

Deborah reminds us that leadership does not always come from the center of power. Sometimes leadership emerges under a tree, on a road, in a public square, in a church fellowship hall, in a conversation that helps people imagine something new. As resurrection people, we are called to lead from the in-between, to gather, to listen, to encourage courage, to trust that God is still forming a people, still building community, still bringing life out of what feels uncertain, still meeting us on the road, and still calling us forward together.