RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - June 21, 2009

“Wind and Waves”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 4:35-41

The day had been a long one, and Jesus was just plain old tired. Earlier, the people had crowded around him, men and women ready to hang on his every word.

Before the rabbi knew it, the crowds had pressed in on him so much that he found himself backed onto the very shore of the lake, the water lapping at his heels. It was a crazy day – but a magical and mystical one too as his closest friends would soon find out.

Crazy because, well, can you believe that Jesus and his disciples ended up in a fishing boat, a makeshift pulpit bobbing on the gentle ripples of the Galilean lake? Just imagine – Jesus telling stories standing in a wooden dinghy with the paint peeling off its side – parables of farmers and the seeds they sowed so carelessly on both rocky and fertile soil, bits of wisdom about lamps hidden under bushels and their counterparts blazing gloriously for all the world to see, tales about tiny mustard seeds growing and growing and growing until birds nested in the midst of their voluptuous and leafy branches.

And when the day of words, words, words was over and the people had gone home to sow their own seeds, light their own lamps, and imagine themselves hosting a family of birds in their embrace - rather than disembarking from their floating synagogue right away, Jesus and the disciples decided to sail to the other side of the lake – maybe to bask in that heady feeling of contentment after what must have seemed to the Chosen Ones as a very successful day of ministry – or maybe just to enjoy the sunset – the pinks and oranges of a God they thought they surely understood.

In the boat, the disciples spoke quietly among themselves about the day – the crowds, the words, the important calling they were an integral part of – and all the while Jesus nodded off, his gentle snores somehow comforting in the background – white noise, so to speak.

It was then that the storm came up – unexpected, vicious, and terrifying. Now what tornadoes are to the Midwest and hurricanes are to Florida, windy squalls are to the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The storms come with devastating power, seemingly out of nowhere, whipped up by the desert winds and funneled through canyon-like gullies, their storm surge causing five and six foot waves to form that even experienced fishermen like the disciples had learned quite understandably to dread.

As Coty Pinckney wrote, “The Sea of Galilee is subject to sudden squalls, but this must have been the mother of all storms. The disciples were experienced fishermen, and this was their home lake; they thought they could handle any storm that might rise up. But…they were in great danger, despite their skill and experience. Waves are breaking over the sides of the boat; the wind is fierce and blustery; the boat fills with water, despite all their attempts to bail. Everyone is working hard at trying to stay alive, knowing that drowning is a distinct possibility.”

And so in their little boat, Peter, James, John and the others began to panic. Someone grabbed the rabbi’s robe and shook it hard. “Jesus, wake up! It’s the storm. It’s too much for us. Don’t you care that we are perishing in this god-awful weather?”

And in the midst of the terror that screamed as loudly as the wind and was as huge and uncontrollable as the waves, Jesus woke up. “Be quiet. Be muzzled,” he shouted out to the thunder and lightning and driving rain. And as quickly as the storm came, it abated. And the air became still, and the world was silent.

And as the oranges and reds of a glorious sunset spilled through the western sky, Jesus turned to his friends, his hair disheveled, his beard dripping, his robe drenched – and he said to them in a voice as quiet as the air around them, ““Why are you so afraid? Why are you so afraid of the storms of life? Don’t you have faith? Don’t you trust that I am with you during those storms? Where is your faith?” And for once, the disciples believed whole heartedly in a power greater than themselves – and that was the magical, mystical part of the day.

And as this story with its images of rain and wind and its feelings of deeply embedded fear and the questions Jesus raised tumble down through the centuries to us here this morning in this sacred place, we find that this tale is one rich in meaning. It must be important, too, because all of the Gospel writers included some version of it in their narratives, a clue that each one felt that his or her gospel would somehow be incomplete without it.

What is this story telling us then about God and our relationship with the Holy One, about our world and our lives within it?

Surely one thing it reminds us is that not a single one of us will escape those circumstances in our lives over which we simply have no control. Storms overtake us, overwhelm us. We do not deserve them. We can never understand them.

They are the stun we feel when we or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer. They are the emptiness we experience when we discover that a spouse has been cheating on us and we did not have even the slightest clue. They are the young men killed in avalanches. They are the children who step on landmines. They are the men caught in the crossfire while praying to Allah somewhere in Afghanistan.

Life throws out some horribly nasty stuff, and at one time or another, each one of us – no matter how beautiful or accomplished or charmed our lives may seem – will be hit broadside.

Storms happen – and miracles do not just erase or expunge them. Storms are a part of life, a part and parcel of simply being human. Is there ever going to be a time when there are no storms? I would say the answer to that one is no.

And yet, this little miracle story of the boat bobbing about in the deadly wind and waves tells us that there is more. When we are most apt to give ourselves over to panic and fear, the Gospel writer invites us instead to trust in God – not just when life is good, and we have cash in our pockets, but even more so when the storms kick in.

“Jesus, wake up. It’s the storm. It’s too much for us,” the disciples cry out. And Jesus wakes up, and he muzzles the storm. He shouts it down, not because he cares a hoot about the storm and the damage it might cause. He shouts it down because he cares about his friends.

As Nancy Pfaltzgraf writes, “Jesus quiets the voice of the storm -the voice of fear, the voice of inadequacy, or guilt or abandonment- so that the disciples can hear his voice, reminding them of what has been true all along: they are not alone; they have been and will forever be held in the loving hand of God -a God who sometimes calms the storms and sometimes gives us strength to grow through the storms…It seems like we are in the midst of many great storms…-storms of fear, storms of uncertainty, storms of change, storms of doubt. Sometimes the crashing of the waves and the pounding of the rain is so loud that we forget that Christ is in the boat and we think we have to do it all on our own. But Jesus says to the storm "Shhh -be still." And then he reminds us "I am with you!"

Out of the storm, God continues to speak words of love and comfort and protection, words that have the potential to take away our fears. The rain my drench us, and we may be whipped by the wind, but, by golly, we are still afloat! And perhaps that is the greatest miracle of all.

So what do we do with that? How do we celebrate simply the fact that somehow we make it through the storms, that God is in the boat with us? Frederick Buechner preached a beautiful sermon on this text that points us in that direction: "[Jesus'] answer to the question of what to do next, what to do with the rest of our lives, is simply stated. What he says to them is Go....Go for God's sake, and for your own sake, too, and for the world's sake. Climb into your little tub of a boat and keep going."

Buechner reassures us that Jesus will continue to be with us: "Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and...in whatever way we can call on him as the fishermen did in their boat to come awake within us and to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us, each one, our way."

And so when the storm clouds begin to clear, when the winds abate, and the waves back off, that is not the time for us to bask in the miracle of it all. Oh, no - our work has only just begun.

It is like the little girl who began to cry when she heard nighttime thunder and saw lightning flash across the blackened summer sky. Her parents rushed to her bedroom to comfort and reassure her. “Everything will be all right,” they told her, “we are close by, and God is here with you.”

The third time that night when she was awakened by the storm, and her parents told her once again that God was with her to take care of her, she exclaimed, “I know God is here, but right now I need someone with skin on him!”

Our little tub of a boat bobs on, nudging the other little boats along the way, and we reach out to steady the ones that are tipping and to share our bailer with the leaky ones – because, after all, we are all in our boats together – we and God.

“Jesus, wake up! It’s the storm! It’s too much for us.”

“Don’t be afraid. My love is stronger. My love is stronger than your fear. Don’t be afraid. My love is stronger. And I have promised, promised to be always near.” (John Bell) Amen.

Sermon - June 21, 2009

“Wind and Waves”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Mark 4:35-41

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 4:35-41