The First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday Isaiah 6: 1 – 8
Sunday, June 3, 2012 Romans 8: 12 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 3: 1 - 17
Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”
John 3: 5
Today is the First Sunday After Pentecost and the beginning of a long journey through twenty-six Sundays, during which the altar hangings will be green, a symbol of growth and new life. Today, though, the hangings are white, because today is Trinity Sunday, a principal feast of the Church which remembers that life comes from God, the God we know as a Holy Trinity, whose very life is a communion of love between God as Father and God as Son.
As we begin our long journey into the green season of Pentecost, we begin today remembering that life is a gift to us from God, a gift we find not in isolation from others, but like God, only in and through relationships with others, through communion.
Life is what Nicodemus seeks in our reading this morning from the gospel of John. Nicodemus has seen the spark of divine life in Jesus and wants to know more. And Jesus tells Nicodemus that life comes “from above,” from God. Life is not what we are given at birth, but rather what we are able to share in by the power of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is life and we are invited to share in that life by the Spirit, which, like the wind, “blows where it chooses.” The kingdom of God is an eternal communion of love and by the power of the Holy Spirit, God draws us into that communion that we may find life.
Life, for Nicodemus, was what Nicodemus received from his parents, what was given to him the day he was born. But a pumping heart and a healthy set of lungs is not all there is to life and it is the life which is born of the Spirit which Jesus now offers to Nicodemus. The Spirit, not biology, brings us to life, the same Spirit that God breathed into Adam at the beginning of creation, bringing Adam to life, creating Adam in the image of God.
But who is this God in whose image we were created? That question occupied the Church for centuries as they struggled to speak about God in a way that honored the witness of scripture. The early church affirmed with their Jewish brethren that God was One but also knew that God had now revealed Godself in the person of Jesus and following the resurrection, through the Holy Spirit, a power that brought forth a new community of Jews and gentiles, slaves and free men, men and women, rich and poor, sinners and saints. When, finally in the fourth century, the Church was able to say something about this God who had revealed Godself in Jesus and through the Spirit, what the Church said was that God was One God in Three Persons, a Holy Trinity.
After the great councils of the Church – at Nicea in 325 A.D. , Constantinople in 381 A.D., and Chalcedon in 451 A.D. – settled on a way to speak about God and about the person of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity slowly began to gather dust, no longer a matter that occupied the greatest minds of the Church and hardly a confession that provoked the violence that marked those early church councils. In time, the doctrine of the Trinity came to be seen, in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore as “a paradigm of sterile theological speculation,...lacking in any practical significance and riddled with mathematical nonsense that demands a sacrifice of our reason and a demeaning submission to arbitrary church authority.”
That all changed this past century when a Protestant theologian by the name of Karl Barth began to ponder anew this strange doctrine of the Trinity and what that doctrine might mean to us as we seek to live out our faith. What Barth and others who followed after, came to appreciate was that the doctrine of the Trinity has profound implications for the way we understand ourselves and what makes for life.
What Barth and others gleaned from those early debates about the Trinity was that relationship with others is what makes us human, what makes us “persons” – one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable, unique creations of God. We are not individual selves who have relationships; rather in and through our relationships with others, we become “persons” - non-repeatable, particular, distinctive creations of God.
Consider your most intimate relationships. Could anyone replace those you love? Because you have loved someone, they have become for you “particular” and irreplaceable, singular persons and not just one human being among many. One human being, because you have loved them, has become for you what they have always been to God - a cherished, non-repeatable, particular, very distinctive creation.
We know we are not all alike; we know we are different one from another. “I” am not “you” and “you” are not “me.” But for Barth, I can only know who “I” am with “you,” not without you. For Barth, “me,” my unique personhood, is not a given, but a gift, a gift we receive from being in relationship with others.
Unfortunately, we often draw back from one another, fearing, often with good reasons, that “you” will want to make me more like “you,” which I do not want to be. Love is not supposed to make “you” like “me.” Love is supposed to make you more you and me more me. Unfortunately, we often try to turn others into clones of ourselves. At that point we are not loving others, but simply doing what comes naturally – loving ourselves.
The strange logic of the Trinity – God is Three Persons and One Nature – tells us that God is and exists only as relationship, a relationship predicated upon difference – the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Bound together by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, they become one, not the same, but not divided. You and I are created in this image, an image of communion in which we do not lose but rather receive our distinctiveness.
The glory of God, the glory of the Trinity, is that differentiation and distinction indwells the very being of God. We are not the same, we were not created to be like anything or anyone else. What we are created to be, however, are beings who can enjoy communion with one another, beings who in and through relationship with others can become the irreplaceable “persons” God created us to be.
Two years ago, on my first Trinity Sunday with you all, I began my sermon noting the many times this parish gathers together for fellowship – sharing corn beef and cabbage on St.Patrick’s Day, bitter herbs and roasted lamb at the Seder Supper, barbequed chicken on Derby Day, oysters in season, and all that was before I had experienced the picnic at Pitts’ Pond, a pork roast or our Elegant Evenings. I was, at the time, struck by the many times this parish gathers just to enjoy one another’s company.
Enjoying one another’s company is the real reason God created us and brought us to life. Delighting in one another as God delights in us is what life is all about. As we delight in one another we are brought to thanksgiving, thanksgiving to God for everything and everyone that God has created.
This parish knows something about being together, about enjoying one another’s company. The chickens and the pigs and the oysters are, if you well, “the outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”
Our common life is precious beyond measure and I am grateful I have been able to share that common life with you. Do not take our common life for granted; do not take lightly our times of fellowship and never presume that these times are mostly about raising money for the mission of the church. That may be one of the reasons for our times of fellowship but that will never be the primary reason. We share fellowship together so that we all may have life and have it abundantly.
“It is not good that the man should be alone,” God said. “I will make him a helper as his partner.” That is who we are, partners and helpers to one another in a world that wants us to believe we can make it on our own. We cannot. And God knew that. So God gave us one to another, not to frustrate us but to bring us and all that God created to life, a rich and abundant life filled with all manner and sorts of delightful things like aardvarks and armadillos and you and me.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sunday, June 3, 2012 Romans 8: 12 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 3: 1 - 17
Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”
John 3: 5
Today is the First Sunday After Pentecost and the beginning of a long journey through twenty-six Sundays, during which the altar hangings will be green, a symbol of growth and new life. Today, though, the hangings are white, because today is Trinity Sunday, a principal feast of the Church which remembers that life comes from God, the God we know as a Holy Trinity, whose very life is a communion of love between God as Father and God as Son.
As we begin our long journey into the green season of Pentecost, we begin today remembering that life is a gift to us from God, a gift we find not in isolation from others, but like God, only in and through relationships with others, through communion.
Life is what Nicodemus seeks in our reading this morning from the gospel of John. Nicodemus has seen the spark of divine life in Jesus and wants to know more. And Jesus tells Nicodemus that life comes “from above,” from God. Life is not what we are given at birth, but rather what we are able to share in by the power of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is life and we are invited to share in that life by the Spirit, which, like the wind, “blows where it chooses.” The kingdom of God is an eternal communion of love and by the power of the Holy Spirit, God draws us into that communion that we may find life.
Life, for Nicodemus, was what Nicodemus received from his parents, what was given to him the day he was born. But a pumping heart and a healthy set of lungs is not all there is to life and it is the life which is born of the Spirit which Jesus now offers to Nicodemus. The Spirit, not biology, brings us to life, the same Spirit that God breathed into Adam at the beginning of creation, bringing Adam to life, creating Adam in the image of God.
But who is this God in whose image we were created? That question occupied the Church for centuries as they struggled to speak about God in a way that honored the witness of scripture. The early church affirmed with their Jewish brethren that God was One but also knew that God had now revealed Godself in the person of Jesus and following the resurrection, through the Holy Spirit, a power that brought forth a new community of Jews and gentiles, slaves and free men, men and women, rich and poor, sinners and saints. When, finally in the fourth century, the Church was able to say something about this God who had revealed Godself in Jesus and through the Spirit, what the Church said was that God was One God in Three Persons, a Holy Trinity.
After the great councils of the Church – at Nicea in 325 A.D. , Constantinople in 381 A.D., and Chalcedon in 451 A.D. – settled on a way to speak about God and about the person of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity slowly began to gather dust, no longer a matter that occupied the greatest minds of the Church and hardly a confession that provoked the violence that marked those early church councils. In time, the doctrine of the Trinity came to be seen, in the words of theologian Daniel Migliore as “a paradigm of sterile theological speculation,...lacking in any practical significance and riddled with mathematical nonsense that demands a sacrifice of our reason and a demeaning submission to arbitrary church authority.”
That all changed this past century when a Protestant theologian by the name of Karl Barth began to ponder anew this strange doctrine of the Trinity and what that doctrine might mean to us as we seek to live out our faith. What Barth and others who followed after, came to appreciate was that the doctrine of the Trinity has profound implications for the way we understand ourselves and what makes for life.
What Barth and others gleaned from those early debates about the Trinity was that relationship with others is what makes us human, what makes us “persons” – one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable, unique creations of God. We are not individual selves who have relationships; rather in and through our relationships with others, we become “persons” - non-repeatable, particular, distinctive creations of God.
Consider your most intimate relationships. Could anyone replace those you love? Because you have loved someone, they have become for you “particular” and irreplaceable, singular persons and not just one human being among many. One human being, because you have loved them, has become for you what they have always been to God - a cherished, non-repeatable, particular, very distinctive creation.
We know we are not all alike; we know we are different one from another. “I” am not “you” and “you” are not “me.” But for Barth, I can only know who “I” am with “you,” not without you. For Barth, “me,” my unique personhood, is not a given, but a gift, a gift we receive from being in relationship with others.
Unfortunately, we often draw back from one another, fearing, often with good reasons, that “you” will want to make me more like “you,” which I do not want to be. Love is not supposed to make “you” like “me.” Love is supposed to make you more you and me more me. Unfortunately, we often try to turn others into clones of ourselves. At that point we are not loving others, but simply doing what comes naturally – loving ourselves.
The strange logic of the Trinity – God is Three Persons and One Nature – tells us that God is and exists only as relationship, a relationship predicated upon difference – the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Bound together by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love, they become one, not the same, but not divided. You and I are created in this image, an image of communion in which we do not lose but rather receive our distinctiveness.
The glory of God, the glory of the Trinity, is that differentiation and distinction indwells the very being of God. We are not the same, we were not created to be like anything or anyone else. What we are created to be, however, are beings who can enjoy communion with one another, beings who in and through relationship with others can become the irreplaceable “persons” God created us to be.
Two years ago, on my first Trinity Sunday with you all, I began my sermon noting the many times this parish gathers together for fellowship – sharing corn beef and cabbage on St.Patrick’s Day, bitter herbs and roasted lamb at the Seder Supper, barbequed chicken on Derby Day, oysters in season, and all that was before I had experienced the picnic at Pitts’ Pond, a pork roast or our Elegant Evenings. I was, at the time, struck by the many times this parish gathers just to enjoy one another’s company.
Enjoying one another’s company is the real reason God created us and brought us to life. Delighting in one another as God delights in us is what life is all about. As we delight in one another we are brought to thanksgiving, thanksgiving to God for everything and everyone that God has created.
This parish knows something about being together, about enjoying one another’s company. The chickens and the pigs and the oysters are, if you well, “the outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”
Our common life is precious beyond measure and I am grateful I have been able to share that common life with you. Do not take our common life for granted; do not take lightly our times of fellowship and never presume that these times are mostly about raising money for the mission of the church. That may be one of the reasons for our times of fellowship but that will never be the primary reason. We share fellowship together so that we all may have life and have it abundantly.
“It is not good that the man should be alone,” God said. “I will make him a helper as his partner.” That is who we are, partners and helpers to one another in a world that wants us to believe we can make it on our own. We cannot. And God knew that. So God gave us one to another, not to frustrate us but to bring us and all that God created to life, a rich and abundant life filled with all manner and sorts of delightful things like aardvarks and armadillos and you and me.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Second Sunday After Pentecost I Samuel 8: 4 – 20, 11: 14 – 15
Sunday, June 10, 2012 2 Corinthians 4: 13 – 5: 1
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 3: 20 – 35
When Jesus’ family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”
Mark 3: 21
This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the musical Les Miserables. After opening on Broadway in 1987, Les Miserables is now the longest running musical in history. The musical is based upon a story written by Victor Hugo which depicts the struggles of the working class in nineteenth century Paris. Les Miserables is a story about sin and redemption, about the hope of freedom and the cost of revolution.
The hero of Les Miserables is a man named Jean Valjean who is sentenced to prison for stealing a loaf of bread. He escapes and is hunted for the next twenty years by his antagonist, a French police inspector named Javert. Jean Valjean leads an exemplary life, reaching out to others but never disclosing his real identity as an escaped convict. Inspector Javert never gives up and meets Jean ValjJean on the eve of a revolution against the monarchy. Inspector Javert opposes such lawlessness and lies to the revolutionaries in an attempt to thwart the revolt.
Now the tables have turned and Inspector Javert deserves to die for his crime against the revolutionaries. But Jean Valjean spares him, choosing to send him away rather than take his life. Inspector Javert, who has devoted his life to enforcing the law, has no way to understand this mad act of redemption and commits suicide.
In Javert’s world, such an act of forgiveness makes no sense. Crimes cannot be simply forgiven but rather must be paid for in accordance with the rule of law. Jean Valjean should have killed Inspector Javert and when he spared his life, Javert’s world fell apart, a world predicated on law and punishment. Javert deserved to be punished, not set free. Inspector Javert had been redeemed and he could not live with that.
Redemption means to buy back, to be released from a debt. And in the gospel of Mark, redemption is what Jesus came to do, to be “a ransom for many.” In the gospel of Mark, the power that rules this world is the power of evil, the power of Satan, and it is from this power Jesus came to redeem us, to deliver us from. But just as Inspector Javert’s world was thrown into confusion by Jan Valjean’s act of redemption, so too was the world of first century Judaism into which Jesus came, proclaiming that the “kingdom of God has come near.”
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus’ family thinks he is mad and the religious leaders think Jesus is possessed by demons. The kingdom of God has come near but those who have watched Jesus grow up and those who have religiously guarded the commandments of God to the Jewish people, are now accusing Jesus of either being deranged or in the grip of Satan. What began as good news, has now, very quickly in the gospel of Mark, turned into bad news.
The scribes accuse Jesus, who has been healing the sick, casting out demons, and breaking certain Jewish laws, of being in league with Satan – that the power which is enabling Jesus to do these things comes not from God but from the devil. And Jesus responds by saying that a house divided cannot stand – if Satan is casting out demons, then Satan is destroying Satan’s own kingdom from within and the scribes should be celebrating.
But, rather than celebrate these healings and to see those healings as a sign of God’s power at work, the scribes see only a threat to their authority as keepers of the law – laws which include not working on the Sabbath which Jesus has done, not sharing table fellowship with sinners which Jesus has done and fasting on certain occasions which Jesus has not done. Jesus has broken the law – how can the power at work in Jesus be from God?
The kingdom of God has come near, but that reality becomes a source of conflict and consternation rather than celebration. Jesus is not behaving according to the rules that had been laid down, rules that were meant to keep the people of Israel set apart, to make Israel “holy” as God is holy. And folk, good righteous folk, do not know what to do. That God is rescuing them, redeeming them, is not clear and they would prefer to hang on to the old world and its ways which are ways they can understand.
During adult education on Sunday mornings, the question often comes up if Jesus were to suddenly appear in our midst what would we do? Our gospel reading this morning suggests that we might think him mad or possessed and seek to restrain him. At a minimum, those of us who like the predictability and security of always doing things the same way, might find ourselves unsettled and disturbed. We might miss the grace of God in our midst much like the scribes do today as well as Jesus’ family.
In our Old Testament reading this morning from First Samuel we hear how the people Israel wanted a king so that they might be governed “like the other nations.” Up until this point in their history, Israel had been governed by charismatic judges who, filled with the Spirit of God, came and went as God chose. These free spirits arrived on the scene after Israel had made it to the Promised Land, led there by God with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Being guided by pillars of cloud and fire and later by charismatics, was less than satisfying for Israel. Now they want a king, like the other nations. A king would insure some predictability to life, something God refused to promise. God had promised deliverance, but refused to give Israel a game plan.
So Israel got a king, indeed many kings, some of whom were good and some of whom were not. And Israel became like the other nations for better and for worse. What Israel got was predictability; what Israel lost was a sense that Israel’s life was dependent upon God and not on a king.
And then Jesus shows up bearing the Spirit of God, doing new things, breaking the rules, ushering in a new day by the power of the Holy Spirit, that same unpredictable Spirit of God that had delivered (redeemed) a bunch of Egyptian slaves from the bondage of Pharoah. God was offering deliverance again, but Israel would have to give up her certainty that she knew the ways of God.
Two weeks ago we celebrated Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit descended upon a bunch of simple fisher folk and transformed them into the Church. We are a people governed, as Israel had been, by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is, we confess in the Creed, life giving, but as Israel knew all too well, nothing we can control. The Spirit was fictionally present when Jean Valjean released Inspector Javert. And when that happened Javert lost his way, not knowing what to do in a world governed by a free God and not by fixed rules.
We are and always have been dependent upon God for our very lives. And where and how God deigns to bring us to life is known to God alone. God is in charge here - not me, not the vestry and not the Bishop. If you find that unsettling, you are in good company, in company with a people that wanted a plan and the predictably of knowing that if we do X, Y will follow.
We who are here this day have been brought together by God. That you are here is God’s work and not the result of your alarm clock or whatever guilt you may harbor that you “should” be in church. And that same Spirit that brings us here this day will continue to be present, moving among us in ways we will not always be able to understand much less predict.
God is quite free to do what God will do and I for one, do not always ride easily in that saddle. I would like to know where we are going and how we are going to get there and none of that matters to God. God will do what God will do and I am just along for the ride. My job, as best as I can discern, is to take note of the ways God has brought us to life – to name the grace that surrounds us on every side. What I know is that you all have welcomed me and my husband mightily. What I know is that you all embraced the idea of having community suppers and while our suppers have not accomplished what we had hoped, they have drawn us together two more times every month. What I know is that our pavilion is receiving a fair amount of attention and you all are not shying away from the requests. What I know is that when I discerned it was time to speak of difficult things – first money and a stewardship campaign and then blessings and who should receive them – you all did not bolt but stayed fast. What I know is that Sunday after Sunday and in between, you all have been faithful and kind and gracious. All of that has been good and all of that has been the work of God.
“O God, from whom all good proceeds,” we began this morning. “Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding do them.” I give thanks for all that has happened among us these past two years – things I never could have imagined when I first came among you in March of 2010. And I look forward to all that God would have us do and be in these next months, trusting God to lead us where God would have us go.
Would I like a game plan? For sure. What I and you have is not plan but a promise - that God will be with us always to the end of the age. That, my friends, is everything.
Sunday, June 10, 2012 2 Corinthians 4: 13 – 5: 1
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 3: 20 – 35
When Jesus’ family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”
Mark 3: 21
This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the musical Les Miserables. After opening on Broadway in 1987, Les Miserables is now the longest running musical in history. The musical is based upon a story written by Victor Hugo which depicts the struggles of the working class in nineteenth century Paris. Les Miserables is a story about sin and redemption, about the hope of freedom and the cost of revolution.
The hero of Les Miserables is a man named Jean Valjean who is sentenced to prison for stealing a loaf of bread. He escapes and is hunted for the next twenty years by his antagonist, a French police inspector named Javert. Jean Valjean leads an exemplary life, reaching out to others but never disclosing his real identity as an escaped convict. Inspector Javert never gives up and meets Jean ValjJean on the eve of a revolution against the monarchy. Inspector Javert opposes such lawlessness and lies to the revolutionaries in an attempt to thwart the revolt.
Now the tables have turned and Inspector Javert deserves to die for his crime against the revolutionaries. But Jean Valjean spares him, choosing to send him away rather than take his life. Inspector Javert, who has devoted his life to enforcing the law, has no way to understand this mad act of redemption and commits suicide.
In Javert’s world, such an act of forgiveness makes no sense. Crimes cannot be simply forgiven but rather must be paid for in accordance with the rule of law. Jean Valjean should have killed Inspector Javert and when he spared his life, Javert’s world fell apart, a world predicated on law and punishment. Javert deserved to be punished, not set free. Inspector Javert had been redeemed and he could not live with that.
Redemption means to buy back, to be released from a debt. And in the gospel of Mark, redemption is what Jesus came to do, to be “a ransom for many.” In the gospel of Mark, the power that rules this world is the power of evil, the power of Satan, and it is from this power Jesus came to redeem us, to deliver us from. But just as Inspector Javert’s world was thrown into confusion by Jan Valjean’s act of redemption, so too was the world of first century Judaism into which Jesus came, proclaiming that the “kingdom of God has come near.”
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus’ family thinks he is mad and the religious leaders think Jesus is possessed by demons. The kingdom of God has come near but those who have watched Jesus grow up and those who have religiously guarded the commandments of God to the Jewish people, are now accusing Jesus of either being deranged or in the grip of Satan. What began as good news, has now, very quickly in the gospel of Mark, turned into bad news.
The scribes accuse Jesus, who has been healing the sick, casting out demons, and breaking certain Jewish laws, of being in league with Satan – that the power which is enabling Jesus to do these things comes not from God but from the devil. And Jesus responds by saying that a house divided cannot stand – if Satan is casting out demons, then Satan is destroying Satan’s own kingdom from within and the scribes should be celebrating.
But, rather than celebrate these healings and to see those healings as a sign of God’s power at work, the scribes see only a threat to their authority as keepers of the law – laws which include not working on the Sabbath which Jesus has done, not sharing table fellowship with sinners which Jesus has done and fasting on certain occasions which Jesus has not done. Jesus has broken the law – how can the power at work in Jesus be from God?
The kingdom of God has come near, but that reality becomes a source of conflict and consternation rather than celebration. Jesus is not behaving according to the rules that had been laid down, rules that were meant to keep the people of Israel set apart, to make Israel “holy” as God is holy. And folk, good righteous folk, do not know what to do. That God is rescuing them, redeeming them, is not clear and they would prefer to hang on to the old world and its ways which are ways they can understand.
During adult education on Sunday mornings, the question often comes up if Jesus were to suddenly appear in our midst what would we do? Our gospel reading this morning suggests that we might think him mad or possessed and seek to restrain him. At a minimum, those of us who like the predictability and security of always doing things the same way, might find ourselves unsettled and disturbed. We might miss the grace of God in our midst much like the scribes do today as well as Jesus’ family.
In our Old Testament reading this morning from First Samuel we hear how the people Israel wanted a king so that they might be governed “like the other nations.” Up until this point in their history, Israel had been governed by charismatic judges who, filled with the Spirit of God, came and went as God chose. These free spirits arrived on the scene after Israel had made it to the Promised Land, led there by God with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Being guided by pillars of cloud and fire and later by charismatics, was less than satisfying for Israel. Now they want a king, like the other nations. A king would insure some predictability to life, something God refused to promise. God had promised deliverance, but refused to give Israel a game plan.
So Israel got a king, indeed many kings, some of whom were good and some of whom were not. And Israel became like the other nations for better and for worse. What Israel got was predictability; what Israel lost was a sense that Israel’s life was dependent upon God and not on a king.
And then Jesus shows up bearing the Spirit of God, doing new things, breaking the rules, ushering in a new day by the power of the Holy Spirit, that same unpredictable Spirit of God that had delivered (redeemed) a bunch of Egyptian slaves from the bondage of Pharoah. God was offering deliverance again, but Israel would have to give up her certainty that she knew the ways of God.
Two weeks ago we celebrated Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit descended upon a bunch of simple fisher folk and transformed them into the Church. We are a people governed, as Israel had been, by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is, we confess in the Creed, life giving, but as Israel knew all too well, nothing we can control. The Spirit was fictionally present when Jean Valjean released Inspector Javert. And when that happened Javert lost his way, not knowing what to do in a world governed by a free God and not by fixed rules.
We are and always have been dependent upon God for our very lives. And where and how God deigns to bring us to life is known to God alone. God is in charge here - not me, not the vestry and not the Bishop. If you find that unsettling, you are in good company, in company with a people that wanted a plan and the predictably of knowing that if we do X, Y will follow.
We who are here this day have been brought together by God. That you are here is God’s work and not the result of your alarm clock or whatever guilt you may harbor that you “should” be in church. And that same Spirit that brings us here this day will continue to be present, moving among us in ways we will not always be able to understand much less predict.
God is quite free to do what God will do and I for one, do not always ride easily in that saddle. I would like to know where we are going and how we are going to get there and none of that matters to God. God will do what God will do and I am just along for the ride. My job, as best as I can discern, is to take note of the ways God has brought us to life – to name the grace that surrounds us on every side. What I know is that you all have welcomed me and my husband mightily. What I know is that you all embraced the idea of having community suppers and while our suppers have not accomplished what we had hoped, they have drawn us together two more times every month. What I know is that our pavilion is receiving a fair amount of attention and you all are not shying away from the requests. What I know is that when I discerned it was time to speak of difficult things – first money and a stewardship campaign and then blessings and who should receive them – you all did not bolt but stayed fast. What I know is that Sunday after Sunday and in between, you all have been faithful and kind and gracious. All of that has been good and all of that has been the work of God.
“O God, from whom all good proceeds,” we began this morning. “Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding do them.” I give thanks for all that has happened among us these past two years – things I never could have imagined when I first came among you in March of 2010. And I look forward to all that God would have us do and be in these next months, trusting God to lead us where God would have us go.
Would I like a game plan? For sure. What I and you have is not plan but a promise - that God will be with us always to the end of the age. That, my friends, is everything.
The Third Sunday After Pentecost I Samuel 15: 34 – 16: 13
Sunday, June 17, 2012 2 Corinthians 5: 6 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 4: 26 – 34
With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples in private.
Mark 4: 33 - 34
A picture is worth a thousand words and my refrigerator door is covered with pictures of my children and grandchildren. In those pictures, I see a very serious little boy, my grandson Connor, riding a tricycle for the first time, careful to keep his bike out of the grass and on the front walk. In another picture, I see a little girl, my granddaughter Kaelyn, all dressed up for a wedding looking every bit like an angel. And then Naomi and Miriam blowing bubbles with a wand, laughing as they pop.
I could tell you that Connor is four feet two inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes and weighs 68 pounds, which is true. Or I could you show you a picture. What you would see in the picture is a little boy of that height and weight but you would also see a whole lot more. Which is why I would rather show you the pictures on my refrigerator than simply give you his height and weight and hair color.
This morning Jesus shows us two pictures of the Kingdom of God. In the first picture we see a sower casting seed, going to bed and waking up, waiting for the grain to ripen and then reaping the harvest. And Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is like that picture, a way for us to understand something about the kingdom of God.
These pictures which Jesus paints are called parables, a way of teaching that draws us into a familiar world of seeding and harvest so that we may see more than a sower casting seed upon the ground and something of the mystery we call the kingdom of God. Parables, like metaphors, compare two unlike things – in this instance the kingdom of God and the sowing of seed – so that through this picture of sowing we can come to learn something about the mystery of the kingdom of God.
Parables are not direct forms of speech, what we might call plain speech. Plain speech is saying that 2.5 inches of rain fell within a half hour. We say the same thing indirectly, by saying it rained like cats and dogs for awhile. Plain speech would be to say the bride wore a long white dress of satin; indirect speech would be to say the bride looked like a princess or love is like a rose or life is like a journey. Parables invite us to look into a world with which we are familiar to learn something about a world with which we are unfamiliar. And whereas, we might have wished that Jesus spoke more plainly, what Jesus is doing is inviting us to respond, to enter into the pictures he gives to us and see things for ourselves, things we have not known before.
What parables do is to “tease us into active thought,” in the words of one commentator, asking us to think about something we know something about – seedtime and harvest – to get us thinking about something we know nothing about – the kingdom of God. Parables are not meant to confuse but to engage, not meant to conceal but to reveal but we have to participate, engage our imaginations and sometimes that can be a challenge.
“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
If we use our imagination we might see the sower going to bed and getting up in the morning and going about his business while all the while below the ground some strange mystery is unfolding which he cannot see. And this picture is not hard to imagine for anyone who has planted seeds. We, unlike our ancestors may know more about germination than they did, but the picture is still real and true.
And what then might that picture tell us about the kingdom of God? You and I are left to respond; Jesus does not give us “the point of the story.” We might focus on the sower and how after casting the seed, his part in the whole production is all over. We might think about the mystery unfolding beneath his feet which he cannot see. And we might consider the slow ripening process that must be accommodated before the harvesting can be done.
And if we remember that these parables were remembered and cherished and set down in writing after the crucifixion and resurrection – no one was taking notes or videotaping Jesus when he was alive – we might get a hint of what the disciples realized after the resurrection – something mysterious was unfolding before their eyes in the person of a simple Nazarene carpenter but nothing they could possibly know until after the resurrection, nothing they could perceive fully during Jesus’ lifetime. God was at work in secret in ways they could not see until after the crucifixion and resurrection. When God raised Jesus from the dead, the man they knew as a great teacher, healer and friend suddenly was something far more than just another human being.
Jesus also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
The mustard seed surprisingly grows into a great shrub challenging our expectations about what makes for great things. How can something so small be transformed into a grand protective resting place? In what way might the kingdom of God break into the world with no more than a kind word to a stranger or the offer of a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty?
“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples in private.” Parables are, in the words of Bishop N.T. Wright, “dreams in search of an interpretation.” Parables do not tell us plainly about the kingdom of God but rather invite to wonder about a world in which small seeds become huge shrubs, and a world in which an abundant harvest appears mysteriously from simply sowing seeds.
What parables do is engage us, inviting us to exercise our imaginations. And we live in a world that often disparages the imagination as something foolish and not real; what is real and true is what we can touch and feel, not what comes to us in dreams and visions or suddenly “pops” into our minds. Remember those funny things we hung from the rafters on the day of Pentecost? Linda Sullivan took Japanese lanterns and covered them with colored ribbons to be like the “tongues of fire” that descended upon the disciples at Pentecost. We used Japanese lanterns and ribbons to help us learn something about the mystery of the Holy Spirit and what the Spirit did that day. We created a picture that required our imaginations to see those decorated Japanese lanterns as “tongues of fire” which is itself a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.
What is real is the Holy Spirit and we used the reality of Japanese lanterns to help us to see a truth that will always remain beyond our capacity to understand that truth fully. Our hope was to make the truth of Pentecost come alive.
Jesus spoke in parables not to confound but to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God in ways we could engage and respond to. And as we respond to these parables, we are invited to be the creative creatures God made us to be. Made in the image of a God who creates, we too can imagine and create, and we do so through art, music, poetry and literature. Who among us has not at some time been moved by, been inspired by, a piece of music or a great work of art or a beautiful poem? With sound, color and words, we human beings are able to take the stuff of this world to glimpse a world of holy mystery and wonder – the kingdom of God.
God has created us in such a way that we can “taste and see that the Lord is good” in the words of a psalm; has created human beings “a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor,” in the words of another psalm and who, in the words of one of our collects: “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature” in the person of Jesus Christ.
The parables challenge us to come along because God knows we can. I consider that a huge act of trust on God’s part. And all God asks is that we return the favor.
Sunday, June 17, 2012 2 Corinthians 5: 6 – 17
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 4: 26 – 34
With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples in private.
Mark 4: 33 - 34
A picture is worth a thousand words and my refrigerator door is covered with pictures of my children and grandchildren. In those pictures, I see a very serious little boy, my grandson Connor, riding a tricycle for the first time, careful to keep his bike out of the grass and on the front walk. In another picture, I see a little girl, my granddaughter Kaelyn, all dressed up for a wedding looking every bit like an angel. And then Naomi and Miriam blowing bubbles with a wand, laughing as they pop.
I could tell you that Connor is four feet two inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes and weighs 68 pounds, which is true. Or I could you show you a picture. What you would see in the picture is a little boy of that height and weight but you would also see a whole lot more. Which is why I would rather show you the pictures on my refrigerator than simply give you his height and weight and hair color.
This morning Jesus shows us two pictures of the Kingdom of God. In the first picture we see a sower casting seed, going to bed and waking up, waiting for the grain to ripen and then reaping the harvest. And Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is like that picture, a way for us to understand something about the kingdom of God.
These pictures which Jesus paints are called parables, a way of teaching that draws us into a familiar world of seeding and harvest so that we may see more than a sower casting seed upon the ground and something of the mystery we call the kingdom of God. Parables, like metaphors, compare two unlike things – in this instance the kingdom of God and the sowing of seed – so that through this picture of sowing we can come to learn something about the mystery of the kingdom of God.
Parables are not direct forms of speech, what we might call plain speech. Plain speech is saying that 2.5 inches of rain fell within a half hour. We say the same thing indirectly, by saying it rained like cats and dogs for awhile. Plain speech would be to say the bride wore a long white dress of satin; indirect speech would be to say the bride looked like a princess or love is like a rose or life is like a journey. Parables invite us to look into a world with which we are familiar to learn something about a world with which we are unfamiliar. And whereas, we might have wished that Jesus spoke more plainly, what Jesus is doing is inviting us to respond, to enter into the pictures he gives to us and see things for ourselves, things we have not known before.
What parables do is to “tease us into active thought,” in the words of one commentator, asking us to think about something we know something about – seedtime and harvest – to get us thinking about something we know nothing about – the kingdom of God. Parables are not meant to confuse but to engage, not meant to conceal but to reveal but we have to participate, engage our imaginations and sometimes that can be a challenge.
“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
If we use our imagination we might see the sower going to bed and getting up in the morning and going about his business while all the while below the ground some strange mystery is unfolding which he cannot see. And this picture is not hard to imagine for anyone who has planted seeds. We, unlike our ancestors may know more about germination than they did, but the picture is still real and true.
And what then might that picture tell us about the kingdom of God? You and I are left to respond; Jesus does not give us “the point of the story.” We might focus on the sower and how after casting the seed, his part in the whole production is all over. We might think about the mystery unfolding beneath his feet which he cannot see. And we might consider the slow ripening process that must be accommodated before the harvesting can be done.
And if we remember that these parables were remembered and cherished and set down in writing after the crucifixion and resurrection – no one was taking notes or videotaping Jesus when he was alive – we might get a hint of what the disciples realized after the resurrection – something mysterious was unfolding before their eyes in the person of a simple Nazarene carpenter but nothing they could possibly know until after the resurrection, nothing they could perceive fully during Jesus’ lifetime. God was at work in secret in ways they could not see until after the crucifixion and resurrection. When God raised Jesus from the dead, the man they knew as a great teacher, healer and friend suddenly was something far more than just another human being.
Jesus also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
The mustard seed surprisingly grows into a great shrub challenging our expectations about what makes for great things. How can something so small be transformed into a grand protective resting place? In what way might the kingdom of God break into the world with no more than a kind word to a stranger or the offer of a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty?
“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples in private.” Parables are, in the words of Bishop N.T. Wright, “dreams in search of an interpretation.” Parables do not tell us plainly about the kingdom of God but rather invite to wonder about a world in which small seeds become huge shrubs, and a world in which an abundant harvest appears mysteriously from simply sowing seeds.
What parables do is engage us, inviting us to exercise our imaginations. And we live in a world that often disparages the imagination as something foolish and not real; what is real and true is what we can touch and feel, not what comes to us in dreams and visions or suddenly “pops” into our minds. Remember those funny things we hung from the rafters on the day of Pentecost? Linda Sullivan took Japanese lanterns and covered them with colored ribbons to be like the “tongues of fire” that descended upon the disciples at Pentecost. We used Japanese lanterns and ribbons to help us learn something about the mystery of the Holy Spirit and what the Spirit did that day. We created a picture that required our imaginations to see those decorated Japanese lanterns as “tongues of fire” which is itself a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.
What is real is the Holy Spirit and we used the reality of Japanese lanterns to help us to see a truth that will always remain beyond our capacity to understand that truth fully. Our hope was to make the truth of Pentecost come alive.
Jesus spoke in parables not to confound but to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God in ways we could engage and respond to. And as we respond to these parables, we are invited to be the creative creatures God made us to be. Made in the image of a God who creates, we too can imagine and create, and we do so through art, music, poetry and literature. Who among us has not at some time been moved by, been inspired by, a piece of music or a great work of art or a beautiful poem? With sound, color and words, we human beings are able to take the stuff of this world to glimpse a world of holy mystery and wonder – the kingdom of God.
God has created us in such a way that we can “taste and see that the Lord is good” in the words of a psalm; has created human beings “a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor,” in the words of another psalm and who, in the words of one of our collects: “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature” in the person of Jesus Christ.
The parables challenge us to come along because God knows we can. I consider that a huge act of trust on God’s part. And all God asks is that we return the favor.
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost I Samuel 17: 1a, 4 – 11, 19 – 23, 32 – 49
Sunday, June 24, 2012 2 Corinthians 6: 1 – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 4: 35 - 41
And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4: 41
The story we hear this morning from the gospel of Mark is a beloved story, cherished in art, poetry and hymnody. The disciples encounter a great windstorm as they are sailing across the sea of Galilee in a small boat. The storm is so fierce it threatens their very lives. And Jesus is sound sleep in the stern. The disciples wake Jesus up, saying: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And Jesus calms the seas.
The moral of the story, we sometimes hear, is just have faith and all will be well. Silly disciples, did they not know who was in the boat? Why were they so afraid?
This is a lovely story unless you have been in peril on the sea. I spent my very early years in Michigan and my Dad loved the water. One day my Dad and I were sailing on Lake Michigan in a small boat when a storm arose and although the memory is dim I remember the look of the sky and the sound of my Dad’s voice. Dad’s voice was reassuring although the skies boded otherwise. I was afraid, very afraid. I was young and had never known danger like I came to know that day. I realized that day that there were powers as strong as my Dad. And that was a new and very disturbing thought because I thought Dad could do anything. I sensed my Dad was afraid and I had never known Dad to be afraid.
At the heart of our story this morning is a revelation, a revelation provoked by the threat of an angry sea. Faced with the very real possibility of their death, the disciples come to know Jesus in a new way, no longer just as a teacher but as one who has power over the wind and waves. The storm reveals to the disciples a power they had not known before, a power stronger than the very forces of nature, a power over which they had no control.
The sea for our ancestors in the faith was the symbol of the primordial chaos out of which God brought order, separating the light from the dark, the dry land from the sea, human being from animal being. The sea represented death and darkness out of which God brought forth life and light. The sea was a constant reminder that creation could be undone, returned to a watery abyss, drowned and overwhelmed by powers over which human beings had no control.
The sea has power and when whipped into a frenzy by high winds, is nothing to be taken lightly, even now, in spite of all of our navigational advances. We can respect and appreciate the power of the sea but we will never tame the sea.
Rembrandt captured the desperation of the disciples of the disciples as they battle the wind and waves in a painting called “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” In the painting the boat pitches dangerously upward, the torn sails flap wildly, the disciples struggle just to hang on and one disciple is leaning over the side of the boat, seasick. In the shadows, Jesus is asleep.
What the storm reveals is the utter powerlessness of the disciples. The disciples are completely at the mercy of the sea and the wind. And whereas, I pray no one of us is ever caught at sea in a small boat in the midst of a storm, we all at one time or another will confront powers beyond our control, circumstances we cannot change, as much as we might want to do so. You and I are mortal and finite and every now and again that truth comes home to roost in ways we would like to avoid. We can be undone, our lives can be turned upside down and our worst fears can come true.
I suspect that the disciples wake up Jesus in this story because they want him to help bail and keep the small boat from capsizing. What the disciples want is another man on deck, not knowing Jesus is able to do far more than that. The disciples are blind through no fault of their own, needing another deckhand, more manpower, not expecting to discover a power that could overpower the power of the sea.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” This crisis, this sudden and wholly unanticipated confrontation with an angry sea and their own imminent perishing leads the disciples to wonder about this man they thought they knew. Jesus is not what Jesus seemed to be when they all got into that boat that evening to cross the Sea of Galilee. The crisis does not lead to a confession of faith but to a question: “Who is this?”
This story is not an admonition to have faith, but rather poses a question: “In what or whom do you have faith in?” The disciples, remember were faithful Jews, not atheists! And this day they encounter a man with a power that belongs only to God, the power to calm the sea, to bring peace to chaos, to bring life out of death.
The Richmond Times Dispatch runs a column in their Saturday edition called Faith and Values. Several weeks ago, Jim Wright, a Richmond physician and theologian with a degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary, wrote a column called “The Gospel of Mark is For Bad Christians.” Wright acknowledges the difficulty he has in believing in the Resurrection and finds comfort that in the gospel of Mark we have no post resurrection appearances as we do in the other three gospels. No one in the gospel of Mark actually sees the risen Jesus. Mark leaves us with an empty tomb. In Wright’s words, “The gospel of Mark leaves you hanging.”
In the gospel of Mark this morning Jesus sleeps and at the end of the gospel Jesus will die hanging on a cross. A sleeping Jesus and an empty tomb are not, we might say, a whole lot to hang your hat on, not a lot in which to put your trust.
The disciples this morning get into a boat – an early symbol for the church – without knowing who Jesus is and having no clue what is about to happen. What they discover is a power beyond their control as the sea threatens to swamp their boat and kill them all. Only then do they awaken Jesus and come to know a power stronger than the one that threatens to take their lives. Had the seas remained calm, the disciples would have had no reason to awaken Jesus. Had the seas remained calm, Jesus would probably never have been needed.
For Jim Wright, “faith in a risen Jesus is hard-fought and found on the road that leads away from easy answers and sudden miracles, away from the tombs and the temples and into the land of the living and the doing.” Faith in this crucified messiah comes from following, comes after we get into the boat we call church and begin to live out the absurdity of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, loving our neighbor and welcoming the stranger. Only then can we come to know the power that calmed the seas and raised Jesus from the dead.
Sometimes, we in the church purvey the impression that we have all the answers and that Jesus is some kind of magic bullet that will “save” you, without which you are irredeemably lost. Rarely do we honestly admit that Jesus is for us as much as a mystery as Jesus was for those early disciples, that the Resurrection is madness personified, and that trusting in a power we cannot see and which transcends even the power of reason is a challenge to us all.
The story we hear this day is humbling, reminding us of all those many things in which we put our trust – our minds, our bank accounts, our economic and political system, our doctors, lawyers, financial planners and therapists– and how hard it is for us to trust in a power we cannot see, cannot understand, which lies sleeping and hidden, veiled from all of us.
At the end of the day all will come to naught and no one, so far as I know, has conquered the power of death. That is the power in which we are being asked to put our trust. In Mark’s gospel we are given little to go on, and cannot cleave to disciples who say Jesus showed up after the crucifixion and walked through doors and cooked breakfast on the beach. All we have in the gospel of Mark is an empty tomb and a guy in white who says to three women that Jesus will meet the disciples in Galilee. All we have in the gospel of Mark is an invitation to go to Galilee.
All we have in the gospel of Mark is an invitation to go and a crucified messiah who refuses to show up and give us proof that, yes, there is life on the far side.
Sunday, June 24, 2012 2 Corinthians 6: 1 – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 4: 35 - 41
And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4: 41
The story we hear this morning from the gospel of Mark is a beloved story, cherished in art, poetry and hymnody. The disciples encounter a great windstorm as they are sailing across the sea of Galilee in a small boat. The storm is so fierce it threatens their very lives. And Jesus is sound sleep in the stern. The disciples wake Jesus up, saying: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And Jesus calms the seas.
The moral of the story, we sometimes hear, is just have faith and all will be well. Silly disciples, did they not know who was in the boat? Why were they so afraid?
This is a lovely story unless you have been in peril on the sea. I spent my very early years in Michigan and my Dad loved the water. One day my Dad and I were sailing on Lake Michigan in a small boat when a storm arose and although the memory is dim I remember the look of the sky and the sound of my Dad’s voice. Dad’s voice was reassuring although the skies boded otherwise. I was afraid, very afraid. I was young and had never known danger like I came to know that day. I realized that day that there were powers as strong as my Dad. And that was a new and very disturbing thought because I thought Dad could do anything. I sensed my Dad was afraid and I had never known Dad to be afraid.
At the heart of our story this morning is a revelation, a revelation provoked by the threat of an angry sea. Faced with the very real possibility of their death, the disciples come to know Jesus in a new way, no longer just as a teacher but as one who has power over the wind and waves. The storm reveals to the disciples a power they had not known before, a power stronger than the very forces of nature, a power over which they had no control.
The sea for our ancestors in the faith was the symbol of the primordial chaos out of which God brought order, separating the light from the dark, the dry land from the sea, human being from animal being. The sea represented death and darkness out of which God brought forth life and light. The sea was a constant reminder that creation could be undone, returned to a watery abyss, drowned and overwhelmed by powers over which human beings had no control.
The sea has power and when whipped into a frenzy by high winds, is nothing to be taken lightly, even now, in spite of all of our navigational advances. We can respect and appreciate the power of the sea but we will never tame the sea.
Rembrandt captured the desperation of the disciples of the disciples as they battle the wind and waves in a painting called “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.” In the painting the boat pitches dangerously upward, the torn sails flap wildly, the disciples struggle just to hang on and one disciple is leaning over the side of the boat, seasick. In the shadows, Jesus is asleep.
What the storm reveals is the utter powerlessness of the disciples. The disciples are completely at the mercy of the sea and the wind. And whereas, I pray no one of us is ever caught at sea in a small boat in the midst of a storm, we all at one time or another will confront powers beyond our control, circumstances we cannot change, as much as we might want to do so. You and I are mortal and finite and every now and again that truth comes home to roost in ways we would like to avoid. We can be undone, our lives can be turned upside down and our worst fears can come true.
I suspect that the disciples wake up Jesus in this story because they want him to help bail and keep the small boat from capsizing. What the disciples want is another man on deck, not knowing Jesus is able to do far more than that. The disciples are blind through no fault of their own, needing another deckhand, more manpower, not expecting to discover a power that could overpower the power of the sea.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” This crisis, this sudden and wholly unanticipated confrontation with an angry sea and their own imminent perishing leads the disciples to wonder about this man they thought they knew. Jesus is not what Jesus seemed to be when they all got into that boat that evening to cross the Sea of Galilee. The crisis does not lead to a confession of faith but to a question: “Who is this?”
This story is not an admonition to have faith, but rather poses a question: “In what or whom do you have faith in?” The disciples, remember were faithful Jews, not atheists! And this day they encounter a man with a power that belongs only to God, the power to calm the sea, to bring peace to chaos, to bring life out of death.
The Richmond Times Dispatch runs a column in their Saturday edition called Faith and Values. Several weeks ago, Jim Wright, a Richmond physician and theologian with a degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary, wrote a column called “The Gospel of Mark is For Bad Christians.” Wright acknowledges the difficulty he has in believing in the Resurrection and finds comfort that in the gospel of Mark we have no post resurrection appearances as we do in the other three gospels. No one in the gospel of Mark actually sees the risen Jesus. Mark leaves us with an empty tomb. In Wright’s words, “The gospel of Mark leaves you hanging.”
In the gospel of Mark this morning Jesus sleeps and at the end of the gospel Jesus will die hanging on a cross. A sleeping Jesus and an empty tomb are not, we might say, a whole lot to hang your hat on, not a lot in which to put your trust.
The disciples this morning get into a boat – an early symbol for the church – without knowing who Jesus is and having no clue what is about to happen. What they discover is a power beyond their control as the sea threatens to swamp their boat and kill them all. Only then do they awaken Jesus and come to know a power stronger than the one that threatens to take their lives. Had the seas remained calm, the disciples would have had no reason to awaken Jesus. Had the seas remained calm, Jesus would probably never have been needed.
For Jim Wright, “faith in a risen Jesus is hard-fought and found on the road that leads away from easy answers and sudden miracles, away from the tombs and the temples and into the land of the living and the doing.” Faith in this crucified messiah comes from following, comes after we get into the boat we call church and begin to live out the absurdity of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, loving our neighbor and welcoming the stranger. Only then can we come to know the power that calmed the seas and raised Jesus from the dead.
Sometimes, we in the church purvey the impression that we have all the answers and that Jesus is some kind of magic bullet that will “save” you, without which you are irredeemably lost. Rarely do we honestly admit that Jesus is for us as much as a mystery as Jesus was for those early disciples, that the Resurrection is madness personified, and that trusting in a power we cannot see and which transcends even the power of reason is a challenge to us all.
The story we hear this day is humbling, reminding us of all those many things in which we put our trust – our minds, our bank accounts, our economic and political system, our doctors, lawyers, financial planners and therapists– and how hard it is for us to trust in a power we cannot see, cannot understand, which lies sleeping and hidden, veiled from all of us.
At the end of the day all will come to naught and no one, so far as I know, has conquered the power of death. That is the power in which we are being asked to put our trust. In Mark’s gospel we are given little to go on, and cannot cleave to disciples who say Jesus showed up after the crucifixion and walked through doors and cooked breakfast on the beach. All we have in the gospel of Mark is an empty tomb and a guy in white who says to three women that Jesus will meet the disciples in Galilee. All we have in the gospel of Mark is an invitation to go to Galilee.
All we have in the gospel of Mark is an invitation to go and a crucified messiah who refuses to show up and give us proof that, yes, there is life on the far side.
