One Peace

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 2009, the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In ancient times, water was the embodiment of chaos. Genesis 1:6 mentions God building a barrier, a firmament, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story of Noah and the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and unfathomably deep underworld. The sea has been considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural view of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is one of danger.[1]

In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know this part of the history of or the mystery; storm-tossed waters continue to be a frequently used metaphor for the turmoil of living.

In 1976, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded a haunting ballad in honor of and as a tribute to the ship and the men who lost their lives. He called it “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a giant ore freighter, 729 feet in length, and was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1971. The Fitzgerald was labeled “the pride of the American Flag.”

On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was hauling a heavy load of ore to Detroit when it ran into a severe storm. This storm generated 27-30-foot swells. During the evening hours the ship disappeared from radar screens; apparently it sank in a matter of minutes. It now rests on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in two with the bow upright and the stern upside down still loaded with its cargo of ore and all 29 hands.

In Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad about the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, he asks: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[2] That’s quite a question, but it’s not the first time it has been asked. Both the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and today’s gospel reading remind us of one of the most well known stories of the Old Testament, the story of Jonah. In the case of the gospel, this literary flashback is quite intentional.

As the book of Jonah begins, Jonah receives the word of the Lord and does his level best to avoid his vocation. He buys passage on a vessel to Tarshish and goes below deck for a nap. By the fourth verse, the Lord made the sea boil with a storm. In the fifth, everyone on the vessel was praying to one god and another for deliverance. In the sixth verse, the captain of the vessel wakes Jonah pleading, “Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”

Here is the answer to Gordon Lightfoot’s question; the same question asked by the apostles; the same hope that the ship captain had when imploring Jonah to call on his god. The love of God is ever present. In this love lies our one peace. In times like these that doesn’t seem so very likely. In times like these, asking “where has the love of God gone?” or as it is asked in our gospel reading, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” are the questions that are on our minds. At times like these, we hope and pray the Lord will spare us a thought so we will not perish.

As one of the most problematic questions asked in scripture; its answer is one of the most wonderful. Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms. He promises that he will be with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain. He promises to be with us while we are in pain. In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[3] So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the apostles, so it is with us today. Our one peace is in the hands of Almighty God.

Let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In the midst of the storm, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read that he was sleeping, but scripture goes one step further, he was sleeping on a cushion. The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting on a cushion.

Jesus knew there would be a storm. I imagine everyone knew there was going to be a storm. At least one-third of the apostles were seasoned fishermen. They knew how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, as Jesus so aptly notes in Luke’s gospel.[4] Still Jesus takes a nap-on a cushion. Jesus brought or found a cushion on board this fisher’s boat. He lay down on the cushion and went to sleep. He did this intentionally. He knew what was going to happen; he knew there was going to be a blow on the water; and he rested.

Here is what this means to me. In the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and was going to happen, Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves.

The disciples were worried, I am sure; they knew their situation was perilous. In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a pillow. So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, were they looking for divine intervention? Probably not, Jesus had yet to share his messianic identity, so there was no reason to think he would still the chaos. The disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and help stem the rising tide of the storm.

But what they got was different; they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.” “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man. Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of the wind and the water and the sea. “Who is this?” the disciples ask. “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey him?” They had no idea. But this is where the scripture becomes remarkable. Only now are the disciples filled with awe or, as other translations say, filled with great terror.

Yes, there was fear in the disciples during the storm, but they had an idea of what to expect from this watery chaos. I imagine they had some fear in this perilous situation. They knew what storms on the lake were about; I imagine they had experienced gales like this before. I imagine the fishermen in the group had experienced the loss of boats, catch, and even friends in the chaos of the water. They had never experienced anything like this.

This experience gave them a sense of awe that they had never experienced before, a sense of awe laced with fear. While the word in the original text covers the range from terror and anxiety to honor and respect, it comes with an element of mastery over the experience through reflection. The evaluation of this reflection is closely bound to an understanding of one’s own existence and religious understanding.[5] They knew the danger of the water. They were clueless about the danger of having the one who can still the water and the chaos sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat.

This is more than a miracle story; it’s a miracle story with a divine epiphany. The apostles knew they needed a miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat. In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols of the church. It was a great ark that saved humanity in the time of the great flood. The boat was integral to the story of Jonah. Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn his union card. Is it any wonder that we are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?

Our reading reminds us that we are called to join with the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. We are called to be with and work with the one whom we fear, the one whom we hold in awe. This is what God calls us to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the chaos of our lives together.

This is a good ending, but there is one more piece to share before we close this chapter. Our reading includes the words, “they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” If you understand this perfectly, you have a step up on me. “Just as he was.” Well, he was tired after a long day of teaching. That is one thing we can well imagine, and it would explain his sound sleep in the stern, but I don’t think that’s what’s important about taking him just as he was.

Crossing the sea, they were going from the Jewish side over to the gentile side. They were going from a place they knew well and were going to a foreign place. It would be like being in Fort Smith in the late 1800’s. Yes, locals knew the place well, but all it took was a river crossing to be in Indian Territory. In its own way, Fort Smith was a border town. In the culture of the time and place, crossing the line was like going from civilization to the wild and wooly land of the natives. This is what it was like for the boat load of apostles and their rabbi crossing the sea from civilization to gentile territory too.

But Jesus was taken just as he was; a human being, a Hebrew, a carpenter, and to the amazement and fear of the apostles, God in the flesh. Let us take great joy in this too; Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Even as we are so overwhelmed by our fear that our faith shakes in the presence of both the chaos and the one who brings peace to the chaos, Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Just as we are, we are called to stay in the boat of the church which is his body.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very waters that were separated at creation by the firmament; the waters which Jesus stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love that promises to remain with us through the storm, even though the storms continue. In this and this alone is our one peace.

[1] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos entry
[2] Illustration from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=93000145, retrieved June 16, 2009
[3] Luther quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Luke 12:56
[5] Kittel, TDNT, vol. IX, page 192