Sermon st St Patrick's June 24, 2018 - Rev'd Jane Bearden
Text is Mark 4: 35-41
 |
| Work by James Seward |
Last Wednesday in our midday Eucharist we used these same lessons
for our text. I usually do very little
preparation for a reflection at a midday week service. Instead I prefer to open up a conversation
with those who are gathered and let the Spirit lead us into some understanding
or observation. This past Wednesday as
the news from the US Mexico border grew direr, I opened with my sense of
helplessness and bewilderment over the complexity, the extent, and the severity
of the crisis. There were nods of assent
among the 5 or so folks gathered around the altar.
Now it is not my intent to open a conversation that - given the
state of our society today - would quickly dissolve into controversy. But what I do want to do is talk about our
Christian faith and how it speaks to the feelings and responses we are
experiencing.
A few years back I spent some time in Israel traveling back and
forth into the West Bank. I want to
share with you a reflection that I wrote then.
The situation has not changed much there and in fact it has gotten worse
not better. But what is most disturbing
to me is the similarity between the situation there and our situation on the
border. Listen to what I wrote back
then. I asked again and again as we went
from one devastated town to the next, "Lord, where are you? How can these atrocities be happening? Don't you care? This is what I wrote in my journal.
“Last Sunday we woke up early and boarded our bus at
7:30. We had planned to attend the 10 AM
Eucharist at St. Andrew's in Ramallah, but we had not been allowed to pass
through the checkpoint and so we had continued on our journey the long way,
crossing through the occupied territory on roads made for Israelis and
internationals only and then heading north on the eastern border with Jordan to
make our way to Nazareth. That is how we
ended up, unexpectedly, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee near where Jesus had
prepared breakfast for his disciples after the Resurrection. We had some extra time on our hands and we
were hungering for a Eucharistic celebration that the soldiers had denied us
earlier in the day.
The beauty and the peaceful quiet of the place
contrasted sharply with the grotesque, harshness of the checkpoint. As I was standing in the shallow water
letting the waves wash around my ankles Bishop Tom came up and began to tell me
about the topography of the place. There
is a valley running between two mountains through which the wind is funneled
onto the lake. That wind is the cause of
the sudden and violent storms that are typical of the Sea. Tom reminded us of the story in the gospels
of Jesus who had wanted to get away for a while and so he asked the disciples
to put to sea and to go to the other side of the lake. But on the way a great storm arose and these
fishermen who were thoroughly familiar with the dangers of storms at sea and
who should have been able to handle the boat - panicked and ran to Jesus for
help. In response Jesus calmed the
wind and the waves and then asked the tense disciples, "Why are you
afraid? Have you still no faith?"
In Israel today there is a lot of fear. The fear manifests itself in suicide bombers
and snipers - in bulldozers and tanks, rocket firing helicopters and a system
of oppression that is intent on the eradication of the Palestinian people from
the Holy Land. The fear is manifested in
a gigantic wall. You see there is this
gaping hole that weaves in and out of the landscape there that takes the form
of a gigantic wall of concrete, razor wire, and guard towers. Cities have become isolated from each other
and the barren earth has been violated by with bulldozers and cranes. The
Israeli government calls it a security fence.
It is an Apartheid Wall. It is
designed to protect Israel from terror, but in fact only serves to isolate and
alienate people who are trying desperately to live their life with some sense
of normalcy in a place that is far from normal.
Surely, there are kind, generous, faithful people on both sides of the
Wall, but there are also those who are consumed by fear and hatred and their
will seems to be dominant.
That reflection was written over 10 years ago but sadly it is
strikingly applicable to us today.
Mark’s story
1.
Mark picks up right where we left off last week. His sermon is complete and now he and the
disciples set off for some quiet time across the lake and we hear that story
that I had included in my reflection.
1.
Mark does not elaborate but simply says that they went to
him and with a sense of incredulity at his apparent disinterest in their
situation, asked Jesus whether or not he cared about what happened to
them.
2.
They clearly did not want to die in the storm and they
could not understand why Jesus was not as frightened as they were.
ii.
Mark tells us that Jesus came onto the boat “just as he
was”.
1.
He brought no outward symbols of his power but only his
faith that God from whom he was called would be present with them in the chaos
of the storm.
2.
Jesus chose to forgo the very human but vain attempts that
we make so often to control the happenings – both good and bad – that swirl
around us. Instead, in Jesus’ response,
we see how absolute faith in God’s authority over creation brings calm in the
midst of chaos. From the depths of that
faith is Jesus’ authority to still the raging storm and bring about the Peace
that passes all of our understanding.
1.
The harsh reality is that we live and breathe in the midst
of chaos.
a.
The fragile vessels of our lives – our planet, our cities,
our churches, indeed our own bodies are constantly assaulted by the windstorms
that rage around us.
b.
Fear grips us as surely as the sun comes up in the
morning. Fear of failure, fear of the
unknown, fear of change, fear of rejection, fear of loneliness, fear of death –
these are all very real and present dangers of our lives.
c.
Nothing in our lives is truly under our control.
2.
Sunday by Sunday we come into this church with all of our
storms raging around us.
a.
We get on our knees and ask God to change things for
us. We pray for a cure from illness or
addiction. We pray for a job or for some
change in our life that we believe will make everything better. We pray for the children – ours and those we
do not know, that they will have someone there to comfort and to reassure them
that they are safe and will be cared for.
We pray for our leaders in government, in the church, in our cities and
towns that they will have wisdom and compassion in governing. We pray for those who are oppressed or
incarcerated, those who are victims of violence. And we pray for those who have died and for those
who are grieving.
i.
And I know with all my heart that God is right there
listening, caring, sustaining us who come in prayer.
b.
But this I also know.
Life does not always turn out the way that our prayers ask. Sometimes illness overtakes us. Sometimes a job interview does not come
through. Sometimes our father or mother
or brother or sister continues to suffer from addiction. Sometimes we are bullied or shamed or
assaulted. Sometimes the very people to
whom we look for guidance fail us miserably.
Sometimes life just does not seem to ease up at all.
i.
The last thing that I would want to do is to say that we
must roll over and let life blow us where it wills, because I believe with all
my heart that we are God’s very hands and feet in this world and so we are
called to respond, to act in ways that alleviate the pain in our world. We are called to step out and to express our
outrage at injustice. And most of all we
are called to love and to treat others in the same way we would want them to
treat us were the situation reversed.
ii.
When someone is driven from their home by violence, poverty
or natural disaster and met with shaming, anger, and isolation from individuals
or from governments, they are traumatized in ways which stay with and influence
their actions for the rest of their lives.
For people who are made to feel as though they do not deserve love or
compassion the damage has been done. We
have done it. There is no “I’m sorry”
that can fix it. Maya Angelou in
reflecting on the effect our actions or inactions have on others once
said… “I've learned that people will forget what you
said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you
made them feel.” Those children,
taken from their parents – no medicine can fix their fear. They will never forget nor will we. But despair is not what faith offers
either to those who are injured or to those who have offended. So let’s set our minds to offer something
else.
iii.
The role of the Church in conflict is
to offer hope for reconciliation, even between the bitterest enemies. Although in the end a political solution is
necessary, before a lasting political solution can be found, immigrants and
nationals, city folk and country folk, blue states and red states and
everything in between need to sit down together to acknowledge the suffering
and grief they have experienced in this conflict’s history and the struggles
they will all face going forward together.
We need to listen to each other.
iv.
And in response to another’s pain we must offer love and
hope – the same things that Jesus offers us today.
v.
Jesus comes to us
with these words… Peace! Be still! That boat that they were in was still out in
the middle of the sea. There was still
the potential for storms. The promise of
God is not one of changing the ordinariness of life. That ordinariness is the very storm in which
we live.
vi.
The promise of God is that the evils
of this world do not have ultimate power over us or of creation. It is God who laid the foundation, God who
stilled the storm, and it is God who is present with us no matter what ills
befall us. Jesus offers us in image and
in word a blessing of calm amidst the chaos.
Peace. Be still!
Amen
