This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 28, 2009, the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
2Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 30
2Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Jesus had again crossed in the boat to the other side. This crossing represents Jesus coming back from the gentile side of the sea back to the Hebrew towns. While on the other side of the world, Jesus exorcised the demons from the Gerasene man known as Legion. He was called that because the demons that dwelt within him were as many as a Roman Legion. Jesus sent the demons into a herd of swine who promptly rushed down a steep bank into the sea where they were drowned.
The no longer demon possessed man wanted to join Jesus and his disciples across the way. Jesus told the man instead to “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” The man almost follows Jesus instructions, but instead of telling the people how much the Lord has done and the great mercy God has shown, he “began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.”
So between the wise teachings on the Jewish side, the miraculous journey across the sea, and the loosing of a legion of demons into 2,000 head of swine in gentile territory, Jesus had established a name. Of course a great crowd had gathered around him as he came ashore.
Jesus is met by Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, who came and when he saw Jesus he fell at his feet and begged and cried for the life of his daughter. It makes me wonder why Mark’s gospel chose to focus on this man. Let’s face it, the multitude came to Jesus as he made landfall. There must have been dozens who fell at his feet begging dozens of supplications, crying in agony for their personal harsh circumstance. Yet, Jesus chose to go with this one man and his one request.
I wonder why scripture focused on this one man and this one request, but this is an answer we will never truly know. This is a question on the order of the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Still, we do know this much. The angels dance on the head of a pin for the glory of God. So too, Jesus chose to go with this synagogue leader for the glory of God; and that’s enough of a reason.
Along the way, we have this second story, the story of the hemorrhaging woman.
According to ancient tradition, this bleeding was menstrual, making her as unclean as the demon possessed swine who just took a header. Her access to conventional society could have been denied. Whether this still applied in first century Palestine is debated by scholars,[1] but for the reader, it was a sign that she was on her own in the wilderness of her own blood.
She is without social standing, she has no one on earth, but she believes; no, she knows that if she can even touch his clothes she will be healed. And she is. “Daughter,” Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.” Dozens were pressing in on Jesus. The crowd was crushing in on him as he walked. Still, the only one who was touched by the power of Jesus was the one who believed something would happen when she touched him, even if it was just his cloak.
Again, I always wondered a couple of things about this healing. Assuming the purity law still applied to menstruating women, how in the world she could be out in polite society, much less in a crowd where she would be pressed to scores of others? Add the intentional touch of a man’s cloak and she is violating enough taboo to shame a Hollywood celebutant.[2] So why this story, why this outcome? Why of all the people who were in contact with the Lord was she the one touched by the power of Jesus? The only proper answer is the answer given for why this man and his daughter. The answer to “why?” is for the glory of God. To God goes the glory for her faith in the healing power of Jesus has made her well.
The troupe continues to the home of Jairus the synagogue leader. While Jesus is still speaking to the woman the people came and said “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” For Jesus, there is no trouble. “Do not fear, only believe.”
It was faith that healed the woman; it was her faith in the power of Jesus that made her well. The crowd knows what happened. Jairus knows what happened. Now Jesus calls on the temple leader not to fear, but to believe.
When Jesus and Jairus along with Peter, James and John arrive, the wailing has begun. The cries of sorrow at the death of the child are ringing like a claxon. In a shocking turn; they laugh when Jesus tells them to stop making a commotion; “The girl sleeps, she is not dead.” He then shoos the people from the room, he takes the girl by the hand and says “Talitha cum.” Get up little girl; and she does.
The thread common to these two miraculous healing stories is faith; faith that Jesus our Lord is able to do all things. We are called to share that faith. We are called to trust the Lord our God. But as we do, as we have faith and as we trust; we are constantly reminded that there is pain in our world.
I am not going to regale you with stories of pain and strife, neither from ancient times nor from ours. By detailing one, we leave behind hundreds of others. On the news we see the strife and discord in Iran only to diminish the spotlight on the happenings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The brutality taking place in Darfur only ends up reducing attention to Tibetan independence from China, the plight of ethnic Albanians in the Czech Republic, and ethnic Turks in northern Iraq.
It is enough to know the simple fact that pain is real, strife is real; death and injustice are real. Yet we are called to know that Christ is victorious over pain, strife, death, and injustice. He experienced these very feelings, these very pains; unto death, death upon the cross. Still, we can take solace that in this horror, there is one place for us to rest. One of the places we see this in scripture is from our psalm reading, today’s Call to Worship.
Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice;
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
I wait for you, O LORD; my soul waits for you;
in your word is my hope.
My soul waits for the LORD,
more than sentries for the morning,
more than sentries for the morning.
The psalm reminds us that the depths of human brutality know not only no physical bounds, but are as old as time itself. In the grasp of human brutality, there is one alone to whom we can turn, so we are to call to the Lord who will hear the voices of our supplication. As David laments the death of Jonathan, as Jesus hears the cries of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman, as Jesus hears our cries of desperation, as we wait on the Lord more than sentries for the morning; in times of pain, in times of suffering; there is no other place for us to rest than in the arms of the ever-loving Lord of life. It is in God alone that we wait. This is where we wait because in God alone, in Christ alone, is victory.
There is blood and there are tears in our gospel reading. It has toil and sweat too. It reminds me of a famous line in a speech made by Winston Churchill in his first address to the British House of Commons on May 13, 1940 after his election as Prime Minister. I want to share with you the end of this speech:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who've joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.[3]
Churchill asks, “What is our aim?” “What is our goal?” Victory, that is our aim. And in Christ alone is victory. In Christ, through the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of our Lord; in Christ alone is victory. The war Churchill waged was fought by sea, land, and air with ships, planes, and men. The war we wage is fought with love, grace, and the Cross of Christ.
The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ have set the pattern for the church and its mission. His life connects him to creation, and creation to him. His service commits the church to work for every form of well-being. His suffering makes the church sensitive to all sufferings so that it sees the face of Christ in our faces in every kind of need. His crucifixion discloses to the church God's judgment on our inhumanity and the awful consequences of its own complicity in injustice. In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming the church sees the promise of God's renewal of man's life in society and of God's victory over all wrong.[4]
We are called to faith. We are called to trust in the Lord our God. In the blood, toil, tears, and sweat of our lives we are called to remember the blood, toil, tears, and sweat Jesus knew in his. We should remember that as God incarnate he could have risen above it all. Being fully divine, he could have dashed away any hint of suffering and pain. But being fully human, there is no avoiding the suffering of humanity, suffering unto death. Through this death and resurrection, his victory, and ours, is assured.
Churchill’s speech ended with this coda:
But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”[5]
We claim the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit as we are called to go forward together with our united strength, united for the glory of God Almighty by God’s grace, peace, and justice.
When Jesus called on Jairus to believe, the words were meant for him alone. Yet this message of “believe” is one that needed to be known to the apostles, the disciples, and all of the followers of Jesus in every time and place. Believe in Christ. Believe in Christ’s victory. Believe in the power of God to reconcile all of creation to God’s own self.
[1] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, page 1817
[2] A portmanteau of celebrity and debutant
[3] Churchill, Winston, Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Blood,_Toil,_Tears_and_Sweat, delivered May 13, 1940, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Paraphrase from the Confession of 1967
[5] Ibid, Churchill
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
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
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
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